Early Relations between the United States and China. 4 1 



The third branch of the fur trade, that with its source in the 

 interior of North America, cannot be as fully described as can 

 the other two. Accurate statistics are wanting as to what pro- 



expedition to the South Seas the discovery of new sources of supply 

 for a trade that had formerly been so profitable. J. N. Reynolds, 

 Address on the Subject of a Surveying and Exploring Expedition to the 

 Pacific Ocean and the South Seas, New York, 1836. 



The sealing voyages differed from those to the Northwest Coast in 

 not being in the hands of a few large firms and in not sailing from a 

 single port. They were sent out from Salem, Boston. Stonington, 

 Hartford, New London, New Haven, New York, and Philadelphia, and 

 as a rule were financed by quite a number of persons, each of whom 

 invested a relatively small sum. New Haven entered the trade in 1790, 

 but the best-known voyage from the port was that of the &quot;Neptune&quot; in 

 1796 to 1799, a venture owned by a number of persons in New Haven 

 and Hartford. It brought to its owners what in those days was a large 

 profit (Townsend, Diary. Another account in Trowbridge, Hist, of 

 Ancient Maritime Interests of New Haven, says that Townsend, the 

 chief owner, made $100,000 and his son, the supercargo, $50,000), and 

 its success led to quite a number of other voyages in which persons 

 from Hartford, Wethersfield, Middletown, East Haddam, Farmington, 

 Derby, Litchfield, Milford, Branford, Stratford, Providence, and New 

 London, were interested. (Trowbridge, Ancient Maritime Interests of 

 New Haven, p. 76.) What was true of New Haven was probably true 

 of the source of the capital for many other voyages. 



Rough experiences and dangers were common in the trade. The rival 

 ships companies on the sealing islands must often have quarreled. (In 

 1802 there were 200 men on Massafuero, about 170 of whom belonged 

 to no ship. A Concise Extract from the Sea Journal of William Moulton 

 written on board the Onico, in a voyage from the Port of New London 

 in Connecticut to Staten Land in the South Seas, etc. Utica, 1804, p. 98.) 

 There were dangers, too, from the Spanish authorities, for sealing on His 

 Catholic Majesty s islands was contraband; and vessels sometimes even 

 tried smuggling into South American ports. (A journal of a Voyage 

 from Salem to Massafuero .... to Canton and back to Salem on 

 board the ship &quot;Concord,&quot; Obed Myer, master, 1799-1802, MS. in 

 Essex Institute, tells how the Spanish carried off to Valparaiso some 

 of the men who were on the island. In 1803 Root was imprisoned for a 

 term at Conception. Some time later a Spanish frigate ordered all sealers 

 to leave the island in four months or be treated as prisoners of war. 

 Pp. 156, 164 of Joel Root. Narrative of a Sealing and Trading Voyage 

 in the Ship Huron from New Haven around the World. 1802-1806. In 

 New Haven Hist l Soc. Papers, Vol. 5, pp. 149-171. In November, 1805, 

 Delano took on board five Americans belonging to Root who had been 

 imprisoned by the Spanish for living on Spanish territory. Delano, 



