FUE-SEAL FISHEKIES OF ALASKA. 397 



I always found the agents of the Alaska Commercial Company fair and honorable 

 in all their dealings, and though I was in the employment of a rival company, I was 

 always treated fairly and with courtesy. That company always extended every hos- 

 pitality to strangers, and atfordedevery facility to persons to reach the parts of Alaska 

 where the company does business and the interior, whether they were miners, ex- 

 cursionists, missionaries, or settlers. I saw no act on the part of the company or its 

 agents tending to discourage immigration. I know that the Alaska Commercial 

 Company established at its own expense schools for the instructiou of the native chil- 

 dren at Ooualaska and other places. At Oonalaska. the free school was taught by 

 the employ6s of the company. The house of H. Liebes ik- Co., of San Francisco, has 

 been engaged in dealing and bartering for furs on the Aleutian chain for ten years or 

 more last passed. They have had several vessels on the coast every year carrying up 

 supplies and carrying back peltries. They had a store for several years at Belkofsky. 

 That tirm seems to have been quite successful in the business. At all times there are 

 occasional trading vessels passing along the coast seeking to barter for furs. The 

 hunters always keep well posted in prices, and go from place to place seeking the 

 highest price. 



I never saw any mutilated coin in circulation in Alaska, and if the Alaska Com- 

 mercial Company had encouraged its use in any way I would have known it. I 

 know that no company could secure trade or obtain any advantage in business on 

 that coast by the use or circulation of mutilated coin, or by requiring its payment 

 for supplies. 



The Alaska Commercial Company has never had any trade of any kind with South- 

 eastern Alaska, and cousequently exercises no influence over its prosperity. 



The Aleutian chain and coast has no qualities calculated to invite any large immi- 

 gration. The mines are not promising and there is nothing on which to base any 

 expectation of success in agriculture. Even hay, to feed the few horses and horned 

 cattle there, is imported from San Francisco. 



I have never been in the employment of the Alaska Commercial Company, and 

 have no business relations with it. 



Wernek Stauf. 



San Francisco, December, 1887. 



No. 11. 



LETTER OF REV. EDMUND DE SCHWEINITZ, BISHOP OF THE MORAVIAN CHURCH. 



Bethlehem, Pa., December 8, 1887. 



Gentlemen : Your letter of the 28th of November has been received. The charges 

 which the governor of Alaska has brought against you have filled me with astonish- 

 ment. Not one of them is substantiated by the experiences which our mission board 

 has made in its relations to your company. 



That you are said to have reduced the entire population of the Territory to a con- 

 dition of absolute slavery is preposterous. I have never received from our mission- 

 aries the slightest hint of such a thing. 



That you are said to have marked andmutilated the coin of the United States, and 

 refused to receive any other from the natives in payment of goods sold them, is an 

 accusation of which our missionaries know nothing, for they would undoubtedly have 

 reported it if it were a fact; especially as they have the best opportunity of finding 

 out the truth, because they live in the midst of the Esquimaux of western Alaska 

 and within a quarter of a mile of one of your trading posts. 



That yon are said to have discountenanced every attempt at immigration or settle- 

 ment, and that no white man or native can live in peace and comfort in that Terri- 

 tory except by your sufferance, I emphatically deny. You have aided us in furnish- 

 ing our missionary settlement at Bethel, on the Koakokvlm JJiver ; you have faith- 

 fully acted as our agents ; you have annually provided and shipped, "at very reason • 

 able prices, the supplies for our missionaries; yonr trader at the post near Bethel 

 helps them in every way within his power. When the two explorers whom we sent 

 to western Alaska prior to beginning a mission returned they both spoke in high 

 terms of the free entertainment you had given them at Oonalaska, and of all the 

 kindness they had received at your hands. 



The entire board approves of and indorses the sentiments I have expressed in this 

 letter. I wrote to-day to Messrs. Weinlaud & Hartmann, and beg them to send their 

 testimonials. 



I am, very respectfully and sincerely, yours, 



Edmund de Sciiweinitz, 

 Bishop of the Moravian Church and President of its Society for 



Propagating the Gospel among the Heathen. 



The Alaska Commercial Company. 



