De Mofras Exploration of Oregon
163
mated at more than five million francs, or two hundred
thousand pounds sterling, in an ordinary year.[ 1]
To give an idea of this immense commerce, we will
limit ourselves to giving from the official abstract the
quantity of principal goods sold at public auction December 20, and January 17, last:
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
528,000
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
22,000
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
4,000
Fox—silver, red, black, and white
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
7,000
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
10,000
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
7,000
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
18,000
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
60,000
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
1,000
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
5,000
Humps and tongues of bison and deer.
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
6,000
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
50
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
700
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
3,000
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
600
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
1,000
It is unnecessary to mention other less important
articles. In this enumeration beaver and otter skins
constitute a very considerable value.
The articles imported from England by the Company,
generally of inferior quality, consist principally of coarse
cloths, wearing apparel, ordinary fabrics of various
kinds, calico, crockery, glassware, household utensils,
common cutlery, copper ornaments for the Indians, carpenters' and joiners' tools. Let us add that if the Company was wrong in selling firearms and powder to the
Indians, it has, at least up to the present, avoided spreading among them the use of spiritous liquors.
↑ See MacCulloch's Dictionary of Commerce; and Silliman's Journal:
On the fur trade.—V. 25, p. 34.
Importations by the Hudson's Bay Company, London, 1843, 1844. —de Mofras.