434 THRILLING ADVENTURES. 



Astor made a contract with the agents of the North-west 

 Company for furs, being enabled, in virtue of the recent 

 treaty with Great Britain, to import them into the United 

 States, and ship them thence to all quarters of the globe. 



In the year 1807, Mr. Astor's views had so far widened 

 with his increasing prosperity, that he embarked in the trade 

 on his own account ; but finding himself, single-handed, unable 

 to organise a successful opposition to the Mackinaw Company, 

 he obtained, in 1809, a charter from the legislature of New 

 York, for the incorporation of a company under the name of 

 the "American Fur Company;" and, in the year 1810, 

 fairly bought out his rivals of the Mackinaw Company, merg- 

 ing his new-born establishment, and his recent purchase, in a 

 new association the " South-west Company." The war, 

 which broke out in 1812, suspended the operations of this 

 body, and left Mr. Astor at leisure to turn his busy thoughts 

 to another vast and little-known, district to follow up the 

 discoveries made by Captain Gray, of the ship Columbia, in 

 1792, by Mackenzie, in 1793, and afterwards by Lewis 

 and Clark, in 1804. In short, he resolved to establish a line 

 of trading communication across America, from the Atlantic 

 to the Pacific. 



" The main feature of his scheme was to establish a line 

 of trading posts along the Missouri and the Columbia, to the 

 mouth of the latter, where was to be founded the chief trading 

 house or mart. Inferior posts would be established in the 

 interior, and on all the tributary streams of the Columbia, to 

 trade with the Indians ; these posts would draw their supplies 

 from the main establishment, and bring to it the peltries they 

 collected. Coasting craft would be built and fitted out, also, 

 at the mouth of the Columbia, to trade, at favorable seasons, 

 ail along the north-west coast, and return, with the proceeds 

 of their voyages, to this place of deposit. Thus all the In- 

 dian trade, both of the interior and of the coast, would flow 

 to this point, and thence derive its sustenance." 



