54 Kenneth S. Laionrette, 



and did not stand in such need of furs and sandal wood as a 

 substitute for silver as in 1790. Hence, in spite of the removal 

 of the principal causes of previous prosp^ity, the years between 

 1814 and 1834 were, on the whole, successful ones for the Canton 

 trade. For the most part they were quiet and lacked the fever 

 and the romance of the two decades before 181 2. Several events 

 are important enough, however, to be chronicled in some detail — 

 the end of the fur and the South Sea trade, the Terranova affair, 

 a change in the American organization of the trade resulting in 

 its concentration in a few large ports and in the hands of a few 

 large firms, changes in the composition of exports and imports, 

 the effect of American trade on the British East India Company, 

 the full development of the community life at Canton, the grow- 

 ing interest of the United States Government in the China com- 

 merce, and the beginning's of American Christian missions to the 

 Chinese. 



The banner years of the Northwest fur trade had been those 

 immediately before 1808. After this date, in spite of the newer 

 field opened in California, a decline began. ^ The fundamental 

 weakness was not the trouble with England, although the trade 

 did not recover from the blow given it by the War of 1812, but 

 the difficulty of obtaining skins. This was due partly to Russian 

 competition and aggression, partly to the growing difficulty of 

 barter with the Indians, and partly, possibly, to the approaching 

 extinction of the sea otter. In 1816, William Sturgis, a man 

 who had been intimately connected with the trade, said : "The 

 settlements of the Russians and English (particularly the former) 



^ The best index of this dedine is the importation of sea otter and 

 seal skins, the principal pelts, to Canton. Seal skins came mostly from 

 another branch of the fur trade. 



Year 1805 1806 1807 1808 1809 1810 



Sea Otter Skins 11,003 17.445 I4>25i 16,647 7,944 11,003 



Seal Skins 183,000 140,297 261,000 100,000 34,000 



Year 1811 1812 1813 1814-15 1816 1817 



Sea Otter Skins 9,200 11,593 8,222 6,200 4,300 3,650 



Seal Skins 45,000 173,000 109,000 59,000 109,000 27,000 



Year 1818 1819 1820 1821 1822 



Sea Otter Skins 4,177 4,714 2,488 3,575 3,507 



Seal Skins 47,290 91,500 24,726 13,887 111,924 



