Voyages in the Northern Pacific/Introductory
INTRODUCTORY.
The only object the author of this work has in making his observations on the trade between the north-west coast of America and the Sandwich Islands and China, is, to point out to the merchants of this country the vast trade that is carried on between those places by the Americans and the Russians while an English flag is rarely to be seen.
He would particularly wish to call the attention of the people of this country to the state of the Sandwich Islands, by pointing out their vast importance to the West-India merchants; also the rapid progress the natives are making towards civilization (unaided by missionaries) by improving themselves, and cultivating an intercourse with other countries. The Russians are by no means ignorant of their importance, and have more than once attempted to obtain possession of them. To Russia they would be invaluable, as its colonists could cultivate sugar, tobacco, and coffee, and make rum sufficient for the supply of that vast empire. The effect which such a step would have on our West-India trade is too obvious to require any comment. However lightly the people of those islands may be thought of, there is an anxious wish on their part to cultivate intercourse with those who will trade with them, and there exists a desire for improvement beyond the most sanguine hope, of those who wish to see the condition of mankind bettered by social intercourse. Their battery or fort at Woahoo (Oahu), where guard is mounted and relieved with as much regularity and form as at the Tower of London; the policy of the king in charging foreign vessels pilotage and harbor dues, because a brig that he had purchased from the Europeans and sent to China with sandal wood had been made to pay pilotage and harbor dues, will prove that they are ready to imitate the customs of civilized nations.
The fur trade is now totally in the power of the Americans, as by the treaty of Ghent the establishment on the Columbia was given up to that republic. The following extract from the Montreal Herald of the i8th April, 1820, will show how far they are desirous of profiting by their possessions: "Military Expedition to the Upper Missouri—The 6th regiment of infantry left Bell Fountain on the 4th October. Colonel Atkins commands the expedition. Thus the public have at length the satisfaction to see fairly embarked, this interesting expedition, on the security of which depends the accomplishment of such mighty objects of the American people, viz:—the transfer of the fur trade from the English to the Americans; the extinction of British influence among American Indians, and the opening a direct intercourse with India by the Columbia and Missouri rivers."
For several years past it has been a favorite object of the American government to open an easy communication from their western settlements to the Pacific Ocean, and the above paragraph indicates the steps which have been taken to realize this vast project. The most western settlements which the Americans have are on the Missouri, and from the mouth of the Columbia on the Pacific Ocean they are distant about 3,000 miles. This immense space of desert territory, inhabited by Indian tribes, some of whom are hostile, presents obstacles of no ordinary kind to this scheme; while, at the same time, it is this very circumstance of the country being a wilderness, over which the Indian, and the wild beasts of the forest range undisturbed, that offers such peculiar inducement to the American design, not of colonizing the country, though this consequence would undoubtedly follow; but of making an immediate inroad on barbarism, by establishing a chain of posts at the distance of 50 or 100 miles along the great rivers as far as the Pacific Ocean. The fur trade is the great object of attraction to settlers in this wilderness; and so lucrative is this traffic, that it is well calculated to excite a competition amongst rival states. It can only be prosecuted by such nations as have a ready access to these deserts, where the wild animals which afford this valuable article of trade multiply undisturbed by civilized man. These nations are at present the British, whose possessions of Canada secures them access to the north-western desert of America, the Americans, who have free access to the wilderness that lies between their territories and the Pacific Ocean, and the Russians, whose immense empire borders on the north-west coast of America, giving them ample opportunities, which they have duly improved, of establishing settlements on its shores; of cultivating a friendly intercourse with the natives, and of exchanging European articles for the valuable furs which they collect in the course of their hunting excursions. The fur trade has been prosecuted with amazing enterprise and activity by the British Canadian companies. Every season they dispatch into the wilds a numerous body of their servants, clerks, and boatmen, amounting to about 800, who, traveling in canoes across the vast succession of lakes and rivers, which extend northwest nearly 3,000 miles into the American continent, and are connected with the great Canadian lakes of Huron, Superior, and Ontario, etc., bring back a valuable supply of furs from these remote regions, in exchange for such European articles as are in request among their savage customers. This trade having been prosecuted with such success by the British, the Americans seem in like manner resolved to profit by the vast tract of similar territory to which they have access. By the journey of Captains Lewis and Clark across the Rocky mountains to the Pacific Ocean, the whole of that western region is now laid open. Numerous adventurers have since crossed, by easier and better roads, this mountainous barrier where they found an open champaign country, well wooded and watered, and abounding in game. Captains Lewis and Clark were often astonished at the immense numbers of wild animals which they met with in all directions, consisting of bears, wolves, beavers, hares, foxes, racoons, etc., and various other animals, which are keenly pursued on account of their furs.
The plan of the Americans seems therefore to be, to form settlements in this country with a view to a trade in its great staple, namely fur; and by establishing a port which would gradually grow up into a village or a town at the mouth of the Columbia River on the Pacific Ocean, they could thence transport their cargoes to the great Indian markets, in exchange for the valuable produce of the East. Such is the project contemplated, and if it succeed, it would have this important consequence, that it would lay the foundation of an American colony on the shores of the Pacific Ocean. The peopling of the American continent is at present going on at a rapid rate; but by this means the seeds of population would be scattered with a more prodigal hand, and having once taken root, the shores of the Pacific would be quickly overspread with civilized inhabitants, drawing their support from the country in which they were settled, and in this respect independent of the parent state.