324 On the Fur Trade, and Fur-bearing Animals. 



noon, 3d of April, 1814, and then bade a final adieu to the Colum- 

 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 New York, in March, ISIS. 

 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 time, 

 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 call 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 considerable extent north and 

 south. 



I am informed by Mr. Seton, that Mr. Astor obtains no more furs 

 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 Mountains, 

 are now occupied, (exclusive of private combinations, and individual 

 trappers and traders,) by the Russians, on the north west from Bher- 



