3 8o 
A VOYAGE TO 
177 s ’ fome civilized nation. We were pretty certain, from cir- 
cumdances already mentioned, that we were the firft Euro¬ 
peans with whom they had ever communicated directly; 
and it remains only to be decided, from what quarter they 
had got our manufactures, by intermediate conveyance. 
And there cannot be the lead: doubt of their having receiv¬ 
ed thefe articles, through the intervention of the more in¬ 
land tribes, from Hudfon’s Bay, or the fettlements on the 
Canadian lakes; unlefs it can be fuppofed (which however 
is lefs likely) that the Ruffian traders, from Kamtfchatka, 
have already extended their traffic thus far; or at lead that 
the natives of their mod Eaderly Fox Idands communicate 
along the coad, with thofe of Prince William’s Sound A 
As to the copper, thefe people feem to procure it them- 
felves, or at mod it paffes through few hands to them; for 
they ufed to exprefs its being in a fufficient quantity amongd 
them, when they offered any to barter, by pointing to their 
weapons; as if to fay, that having fo much of this metal 
of their own, they wanted no more. 
It is, however, remarkable, if the inhabitants of this 
Sound be fupplied with European articles, by way of the 
intermediate traffic to the Ead coad, that they ffiould, in 
* There is a circumftance mentioned by Muller, in his account of Beering’s voyage 
to the coaft of America in 1741, which, feems to decide this queftion. His people found' 
iron at the Schumagin Iflands, as may be fairly prefumed from the following quotation : 
4t Un feul homme avoit un couteau pendu a fa ceinture, qui parut fort, fingulier a nos 
“ gens par fa figure. II etoit long de huit pouces, et fort epais, et large a 1’endroit ou 
“ devoit etre la pointe. On ne peut favoir quel etoit l’ufage de cet outil.” Decouvertes 
des RuJJes , p. 274. 
If there was iron amongft the natives on this part of the American coaft, prior to the 
difcovery of it by the Ruffians, and before there was any traffic with them carried on from 
Kamtfchatka, what reafon can there be to make the leaft doubt of the people of Prince 
William’s Sound, as well as thofe of Schumagin’s Blands, having got this metal from the 
only probable fource, the European fettlements on the North Eaft coaft of this continent ?■' 
return. 
