302 hunt's negotiations with baranof. [1813. 



partners, Stuart and Clarke, at the Okinagan and Spokan posts. 

 The latter gentleman, on receiving this news, hastened to the 

 factory, and there strongly opposed the determination to abandon 

 the enterprise ; and it was at length agreed among them, that the 

 establishments should be maintained a few months longer, at the 

 end of which time, the company should be dissolved, unless assist- 

 ance were received from the United States. Three of the clerks, 

 including Ross Cox, however, immediately quitted the concern, 

 and, entering the service of the North- West Company, took their 

 departure for the upper country with Laroque and Mactavish, 

 in July. 



From the United States no assistance came. The ship Lark was 

 despatched from New York, in March, 1813, with men and goods 

 for the Columbia ; but she was wrecked in October following, near 

 one of the Sandwich Islands, on which the captain, Northrup, and 

 crew succeeded in effecting a landing. The American government 

 also determined, in consequence of the representations of Mr. Astor, 

 to send the frigate Adams to the North Pacific, for the protection 

 of the infant establishment ; but, just as that ship was about to sail 

 from New York, it became necessary to transfer her crew to Lake 

 Ontario, and the blockade of the coasts of the United States by the 

 British rendered all further efForts to convey succors to Astoria 

 unavailing. 



In the mean time, Mr. Hunt, the chief agent, who had sailed 

 from the Columbia in the Beaver, in August, 1812, as already men- 

 tioned, visited the principal Russian establishments on the north- 

 west coasts of America, and the adjacent islands, and collected a 

 large quantity of furs, besides concluding arrangements highly 

 advantageous to the Pacific Company, with Governor Baranof,* at 

 Sitka. It was then agreed between Mr. Hunt and Captain Sowles, 

 that the Beaver should proceed, by way of the Sandwich Islands, to 

 Canton, instead of returning to the Columbia, as had been previous- 

 ly determined ; and this was done, though Hunt went no farther in 

 her than to Woahoo, one of the Sandwich group, where he remained 

 several months, waiting for some vessel to carry him to Astoria. 

 At length, in June, 1813, the ship Albatross, of Boston, arrived at 



* An amusing account of the negotiations between Hunt and Baranof is given in 

 Mr. Irving's Astoria. The chief agent of the Pacific Company appears to have been 

 in as much danger from the "potations pottle deep" of raw rum and burning punch, 

 which accompanied each of his interviews with the governor of Russian America, as 

 from hunger, thirst, savages, or storms, during his whole expedition. 



