30 Kenneth S. Latourette, 



act the cold of winter. Woolens were scarcely ever used, and 

 to provide the needed warmth the poor resorted to heavily padded 

 clothes and the better classes to garments lined with fur. 8 When 

 the &quot;Empress of China&quot; first reached Canton, some furs came 

 through the Russians, and some from Europe and America 

 through European traders. 9 The Americans were not long in 

 learning of the demand, 10 and within a few years had opened 

 up three sources of supply: the Northwest Coast of America, 

 where various pelts, chiefly those from the sea otter, were 

 obtained by barter from the Indians; the Falkland Islands, the 

 islands off the West coast of South America, and the South Seas, 

 where the fur seal was found ; and the interior of North America, 

 where the great fur-trading companies collected the pelts and 

 shipped them from eastern ports, principally New York. 



Of these sources, the first to acquire importance was the 

 Northwest Coast of America. The pioneers were Russians, but 

 for some reason they were slow to take advantage of their 

 knowledge, and the secret did not penetrate to the rest of 

 Europe. 11 A generation or so later, Captain Cook s sailors 

 picked up some sea otter skins while on the Northwest Coast and 

 on reaching Canton were surprised to have them sell for a sum 

 which seemed fabulous. John Ledyard, an American who had 

 been with the expedition, returned to the United States fired 

 with the idea of taking advantage of the discovery. He 

 approached Robert Morris and merchants in Boston, in New 

 London, and in New York, but he failed to attain his object. 



8 Chinese Rep., 3 : 557. 



9 Ibid., and Speer, Oldest and Newest Empire, p. 412. 



10 George Bancroft said in describing the fur trade on the Northwest 

 Coast: &quot;At the time when the people of New England were the most 

 ready to devote themselves to navigation, the prohibitory laws of 

 many .... nations of Europe fettered commerce so much that they 

 found the whole earth not too large for their activity.&quot; Letter to C. C. 

 Perkins, Jan. 4, 1879, in C. C. Perkins, Memoir of James Perkins. In 

 Proceedings of the Mass. Hist l Society, i : 353-368, p. 359. 



11 In 1742 Bering s shipwrecked men killed the sea otter for food, 

 carried about a thousand skins to Asia, and were given a large sum 

 for them by Chinese merchants. A. C. Laut, Vikings of the Pacific. 

 New York, 1905, p. 62. Hubert Howe Bancroft, History of the North 

 west Coast, 2 v., San Francisco, 1884, i : 345. 



