PACIFIC AND BEERING’S STRAIT. 
S95 
these articles bore high prices ; the former in consequence of the CHAP, 
increased demand for them ; and the latter, partly from the necessity of ' 
meeting the expenses of the purchase of a return cargo, and partly on Dec. 
account of the navigation act, 
The missions and the inhabitants in general complained loudly of 
these prices, not considering that the fault was in a great measure their 
own, and that they were purchasing some articles which had been 
brought several thousand miles, when they might have procured them 
in their own country with moderate labour only. For example, they 
were actually hving upon the sea-coast and amongst forests of pine, 
and yet were suffering themselves to buy salt and deal boards at ex- 
' orbitant prices. 
With a similar disregard for their interests, they were purchasing 
sea-otter skins at twenty dollars apiece, whilst the animals were swim- 
ming about unmolested in their own harbours; and this from the 
Kussians who are intruders upon their coast, and are depriving them of a 
lucrative trade : and again, they w^ere paying two hundred dollars for 
carts of inferior workmanship, which, with the exception of the wheels, 
might have been equally well manufactured in their own country. 
With this want of commercial enterprise, they are not much entitled 
to commiseration. With more justice might they have complained 
of the navigation laws, vrhich, though no doubt beneficial to the in- 
habitants on the eastern coast of Mexico, where there are vessels be- 
longing to the state in readiness to conduct the coasting trade, are 
extremely disadvantageous to the Californians, who having no vessels 
to employ in this service are often obliged to pay the duty on goods in- 
troduced in foreign bottoms. This duty for the encouragement of 
the coasting trade was made seventeen per cent, higher than that on 
cargoes brought in vessels of the state. Thus not only must the in- 
habitants purchase their goods on very disadvantageous terms, but, as 
a foreign vessel cannot break stowage without landing the whole of her 
cargo, they must in addition incur the expenses attending that, which 
will in general fall upon a few goods only, as the towns in Cahfornia 
are not sufficiently populous, any one of them, to consume a whole 
cargo ; and it is to be remembered, that no foreign vessel after breaking 
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