324 On the Fur Trade, and Fur-bearing Animals. 
noon, 3d of April, 1814, and then bade a final adieu to the Caleter 
bia, the scene of many an exciting incident. 
~On board the Pedler were the captain and some of the crew of 
the ship Lark, which vessel, notwithstanding the war, Mr. Astor had 
dispatched for Columbia River, from ai York, in March, 1813. 
She was unfortunately shipwrecked near the Sandwich Islands, and 
vessel and cargo entirely lost. This circumstance shows the deep 
interest. Mr. Astor took in this enterprise, and had he met with that 
reciprocal singleness of purpose, which he had a right to look for, 
that source of national wealth would not have been lost to the coun- 
try, as now it is; for the Hudson’s Bay Company, which was united 
with the North West Company, in 1821, came into peaceable pos- 
session of all those parts, extended their posts, north, east, south and 
west, and with them, their influence over the Indians, which tina, 
and that only, can do away with,”. 
‘The Hudson’s Bay and the North West Companies, always com- 
petitors, and generally angry rivals, after they were united in 1821, 
abandoned Astoria, and built a large establishment sixty miles up the 
river, on the right bank, which they,cali Fort Vancouver, where they 
now carry on an active and prosperous trade. They are humane 
and attentive to settlers, encouraging them both with assistance and 
protection, but they are extremely jealous of any interference or par- 
ticipation in the fur trade, and monopolize.it from the coast of the 
Pacific to the mountains, and for a tacasidi: extent north and 
south. » 
‘Tam informed by Mr. Seton, that Mr. “Atos obiniee no more Sais 
direct from Columbia river. His principal establishment. is now at 
Michilimackinac, and he receives his furs from the posts depending 
on that, and from those on the Mississippi, Missouri, Yellow Stone, and 
the great range of country extending thence to the Rocky Mountains. 
Ashley’s Company from St. Louis, trap for themselves, and drive 
an extensive trade with the Indians ; and a company of one hundred 
and fifty persons from New York, formed in 1831, under Capt. 
Bonneville, of the United States army, bring a considerable quantity 
of furs from the region between the Rocky Mountains and the coasts 
of Monterey and Upper California, on the Buona Ventura and Tim- 
penagos rivers. 
The fur countries from the Pacific east to the Rocky Moozeaind, 
are now occupied, (exclusive of private combinations, and individual 
trappers and traders,) by the Russians, on the north west from Bher- 
