44 Kenneth S. Latourette, 



to gather the wood. Kendrick was to return in 1793 and take 

 the cargo to Canton.*'' From these various accounts it seems 

 certain that the first American vessels to bring sandal wood to 

 Canton were those engaged in the fur trade, and that it was 

 discovered by them while stopping, as was their custom, at the 

 Hawaiian Islands. 



After the discovery of the wood on the Hawaiian Group, trade 

 in it quickly developed. William H. Davis and Jonathan Winship 

 of Boston began shipping it about 1793,**^ and later obtained 

 exclusive privileges in it.*"* As the knowledge of its value 

 spread, it was discovered on the Fiji Islands and various groups 

 in the South Seas. As in the Hawaiian Islands, it was intimately 

 connected with the fur trade and was taken to Canton by ships 

 sent out primarily for sealing. In 1804 the brig "Union" of 

 New York, failing to obtain a cargo of skins, went under Eng- 

 lish contract to the Fijis'^ for sandal wood, and although the 

 captain and some of the men were murdered by the natives, '^^ the 

 ship seems to have completed its cargo and gone to Canton. '^- 

 In 1806 those interested in the "Union" sent out a second ship, 

 the "Hope," Captain Reuben Brumley, this time especially for 

 the wood. On the vessel's arrival at the Fijis a contract was 

 made with a chief for the collection of a cargo ; the natives 

 brought the wood down from the mountains and piled it on the 

 beach ready for loading, and receiving in return trinkets of 

 various kinds. When the "Hope" left, the chief promised to 

 collect a second cargo to be ready in eighteen months, and the 

 agreement was given the force of a monopoly by placing a taboo 

 on the sale of wood to other ships in the meantime.'^ The "Ton- 



''' Vancouver, Voyages, i : 172, 173. Another account is in Greenhow, 

 Hist, of Oreg. and Calif., p. 228. 



"^'Delano, Voyages, p. 399. 



"^ Niles, Weekly Register, Baltimore, 181 1 et sqq. Americans at Sea, 

 18:418. 



'"' Edmund Fanning, Voyages Round the World, p. 314. 



"' Smith, Journal of Missy. Ship Duff, p. 151. 



'" Four years before this the American ship "Duke," Captain Melon, 

 had been captured by the natives and the crew murdered, but no record 

 is given as to why she was there and we can only guess that it may have 

 been for sandal wood. Ibid., p. 149. 



"The journal of the first voyage is given in Fanning, Voyages to the 

 South Seas, pp. 12-69. 



