several other ships, for three months by the ice in Chesapeake Bay. The passengers of the detained vessels visited each other; and Astor made friendship with one who had with him a venture of furs. Astor sold his own goods, and bought these furs. His mind was fixed on the condition of the fur trade: he visited Canada, and learned the whole history and mystery of the North-West and Mackinaw Companies. It was a great object in the United States to break up, or evade the British monopoly of the fur trade; and Astor was just the man to do it. When, by a treaty in 1795, Canada was permitted to trade directly with the United States, Astor entered into a contract in London with the Great North-West Company for its furs, which he received in America, and sold to all parts of the world. He had establishments on the Canada frontier, and there found that the Mackinaw Company was sadly in the way.
He proved this so clearly that the State of New York granted a charter of incorporation to “the American Fur Company,” so called, Astor being in fact the company. This was in 1809; and in 1811 he had, with some coadjutors from the rival British Company,—the North-West,—bought out the Mackinaw Company, and thrown together the elements under his command under the name of “the South-West Company.” He became the master of all the stations within the American frontier; the United States government countenanced all his plans; and he was building up a mighty commercial scheme when the war of 1812 overthrew everything. Congress would not let Canadians trade in furs within the American frontier; and the Company was dissolved.
Astor had been putting together some separate facts about furs; and out of his meditations grew one of the grandest schemes that ever occurred to a private citizen. A sea otter which had a very fine fur had been found to abound all along the coast of the Pacific. This was one fact. Another was that the Chinese were the best customers for furs in the world, and that they especially prized the skins of this sea otter. A third fact was that explorers, British and American, had made out the Columbia River and Vancouver’s Island. Astor seized on the idea of establishing a set of trading ports across the whole continent, following the Missouri, and lighting upon the sources of the Columbia, and following it down to its outfall into the Pacific, where a mart should be established which would bring Russian and Chinese custom. Small posts were to be distributed in the interior, wherever rivers ran and Indians dwelt; and a coasting traffic which would pick up all that was left. It was Astor who conceived the idea of carrying out an American population, with its resources and institutions, to the Pacific.
President Jefferson and his Cabinet were enchanted with the scheme. They promised such protection as they could afford; but it was a plan which must be worked out by the contriver; and it was little that anybody could do to help him. He had to struggle with the great British Company, and with the alarmed and treacherous Indians, in addition to the risks which always attend colonisation in a barbarous and ungenial territory. He could not be at both ends of his line at once; and his agents were such as he could get. As usual, some were wilful, some were stupid, some were jealous and discontented, some were the spies of the rival company. After a host of difficulties had been overcome, the settlement of Astoria was founded at the mouth of the Columbia; an expedition by land, and the dispatch of a fine ship, the Tonquin, with commodities and a company of traders, agents and interpreters, seemed to guarantee the establishment of a trading colony which would make the Americans masters of the Pacific margin of the continent. But there were cabals and quarrels on board the Tonquin: and, after reaching the Columbia, and proceeding on her coasting voyage, her ship’s company was massacred by Indians, admitted in too great numbers; her last surviving inmate blew up her magazine, with a hundred Indians whom he had tempted on board again, and the surface of the sea was strewn with wreck and mangled bodies. The tidings of the fate of the Tonquin affected Astor more than any other bad news that ever reached him. Yet he had plenty. The land expedition suffered dreadfully from thirst, hunger, and the Indians; and it was eleven months in reaching Astoria in woful plight.
All might have ended as Astor had dreamed and planned, if he could have been present where most wanted, or even have voyaged and communicated by methods familiar to us now. But his mishaps were taken advantage of by rivals and treacherous or ill-judging agents; and, after the persistence of years, after a vast expenditure, and many a rally from defeat and disaster, all was over. Astor’s property was sold to the North-West Company for a third of its value; and the British commander of a frigate was virtually welcomed to Astoria by Astor’s own agent, who had induced the Indians (from among whom he had taken a wife) to lay aside their arms. The British captain was as much disgusted at the whole transaction as anybody, and threatened to compel the North-West Company to restore the value of the precious furs they had conveyed away: but he did his professional duty, which was to take possession in the name of King George, and to change the name of the settlement, from Astoria to Fort George.
John Jacob Astor will not be forgotten there, however. He will be remembered as the proximate cause of our great colony of British Columbia. His furs opened the way to our gold finding. It is not for this that I have sketched his enterprise, but because he is a modern representative of the ancient and perhaps eternal order of enlightened and enterprising merchants, with their mingled romance and shrewdness, ardour and caution, poetry and economy.
He bore his disappointment and loss with dignity, though thoroughly convinced that he was betrayed, and, in that sense, dishonoured. He said he could have better borne an honest capture by an avowed enemy, “in which there would have been no disgrace.” There was no need for him to regret the pecuniary sacrifice; for he had more wealth than he could use. What he left to his family may be conceived of from the incident which happened the other day, when the