grew into a flourishing and lucrative trade, and for the succeeding century made the American influence the predominating factor in their destinies.

Reference has already been made to the fur trade which was early carried on by the vessels of the United States between the northwest coast of America and Canton. This trade had its origin in the action of several merchants of Boston in 1787, who formed an association for the purpose of combining the fur trade of that coast with the Chinese trade. With this object in view they freighted two ships, the Columbia, Captain Kendrick, and the Washington, Captain Gray, with articles especially adapted for barter with the Indians, and the vessels set sail, via Cape Horn, on their long voyage through an unknown sea. After many trials they reached their destination, in 1788, exchanged their merchandise for furs, loaded them on the Columbia, under command of Gray, which vessel made the voyage to Canton, there bartered the furs for a cargo of tea and returned to Boston by the Cape of Good Hope, after an absence of three years, thus having the distinction of being the first ship to carry the American flag around the world.

Kendrick, with the Washington, remained on the coast, and afterwards established himself on the Hawaiian Islands, where he lost his life by accident in 1793. Gray left Boston on his second trading voyage in 1790, and it was in the course of this expedition that he discovered and entered the Columbia River. To the Boston fur traders must be ascribed the credit of laying the foundation of the great territorial possessions

of the United States on the Pacific slope of the continent.1

The pioneer venture of the Columbia marked out the course of traffic to be pursued by the many ships which soon followed. They sailed mainly from the ports of New England, ladened with merchandise and trinkets for the Indians, and passing around Cape Horn went direct to the northwest coast. Here they exchanged with the natives their goods for furs. As the inclement weather approached they resorted to the Hawaiian Islands, where they spent the winter drying and curing their peltries. The following spring found them again trading along the American coast, whence returning to the islands they took on board the skins gathered the year before, and sailed for Canton. By the sale or barter of these furs they laid in a cargo of teas, silks, porcelain, etc., and returned to the United States after an absence of two or three years. The profits of this trade, as already shown, were very large, amounting in successful voyages, according to some narratives, to "one thousand per cent. every second year." But it involved great perils and arduous labors, and called forth energy, courage, and skill-characteristics which distinguished the early American navigators.2

Captain Vancouver, R. N., who was sent out by the

1 Hist. of Oregon, etc., R. Greenhow, Boston, 1845, pp. 179, 200, 229, 235; Oregon and Eldorado, T. Bulfinch, Boston, 1866, pp. 1-3; Northwest Fur Trade, W. Sturgis, Hunt's Mag. xiv. 534.

Hist. of Oregon, R. Greenhow, 266; 1 Astoria, Washington Irving, New York, p. 31; Adventures of the First Settlers, etc., A. Ross, London, 1849, p. 4; Hist. of Hawaiian People, W. D. Alexander, New York, 1891, p. 127.

British government on a voyage of discovery, visited these islands in 1792, and found American traders already located there. He discourses at some length in his narrative upon "the commercial interests they are endeavoring to establish in these seas; " refers to the new industry being developed by them in sandalwood, which abounded in the islands and commanded an exorbitant price in China and India; and he states that such immense profits had been derived by the Americans from the fur trade that it was expected as many as twenty vessels would arrive the next season from New England to engage in the industry. Captain Delano of Boston, already cited as an early voyager of extensive travels, spent some time at the Hawaiian Islands in 1801. He speaks of a company of Boston merchants which had been established there for some years engaged in the fur and sandalwood trade, which they had found very profitable; and he predicted the future importance of the islands because of their central situation, the delightful climate, and fertile soil. For twenty or thirty years the Americans had almost the exclusive control of this lucrative trade, for the reason that the Russians were limited to the overland intercourse with China, and private British ships were excluded from the Canton market by the monopoly of the East India Company, which did not venture into the fur trade. Sandalwood proved a great additional source of profit to the Americans, as it also was to the islanders. The king and chiefs held the cutting of the wood as a special privilege, and it was described as "a mine of wealth" for them. By means of it they were

enabled to supply themselves with schooners, boats, arms, ammunition, liquors, etc. Writers of the period refer to sandalwood as "the standard coin," it being for the natives the chief article of barter.1

In the course of time, however, the character of the commerce and intercourse with the islands changed. For various reasons the fur trade lost much of its value, and the supply of sandalwood began to be exhausted. In this languishing state of trade, an industry, new to the North Pacific, suddenly sprang into importance, but fortunately for the American supremacy in the islands it was one in which they had long held preeminence in other parts of the world. The first vessel engaged in whaling arrived in the Hawaiian Islands in 1819, but the number rapidly multiplied and the commerce of the islands was soon transformed by them.

While they were yet colonists of Great Britain, the Americans had shown their superior skill in the whaling industry. The statistics show that in 1775 the principal countries engaged in it were as follows: France, a very few vessels; Holland, 129 vessels; England, 96; while the American colonies had 309 vessels, manned by 4000 seamen, with a product in oil and whalebone of $1,111,000 in value. Edmund Burke, in his famous speech for conciliation with the colonies, devoted one of his eloquent passages to the American whaler. He said: "Look at the manner in which the people of New England have of late carried on the

11 A Voyage of Discovery, etc., Captain George Vancouver, London, 1798, pp. 172, 188; Delano's Voyages, 397, 399; Alexander's Hawaii, 156; Papers of Hawaiian Hist. Society, No. 8, p. 15.

whale fishery. Whilst we follow them among the tumbling mountains of ice, and behold them penetrating into the deepest recesses of Hudson's Bay and Davis's Straits, whilst we are looking for them beneath the Arctic circle, we hear that they have pierced into the opposite region of Polar cold-that they are at the Antipodes, and engaged under the frozen serpent of the South. . . . No ocean but what is vexed with their fisheries, no climate that is not witness to their toils. Neither the perseverance of Holland, nor the activity of France, nor the dextrous and firm sagacity of English enterprise, ever carried their perilous mode of hardy enterprise to the extent to which it has been pushed by this recent people -a people who are still, as it were, in the gristle, and not yet hardened into the bone of manhood." 1

The war of the Revolution, from which Burke would have gladly saved them, and which suspended their activity in that direction, did not turn the New Englanders from their chosen avocation. Within two months after the preliminary treaty of peace was signed and before the permanent treaty had been agreed upon, a London newspaper of the period announced: "On the third of February, 1783, the ship Bedford, Captain Moores, belonging to Massachusetts, arrived in the Downs. She was not allowed regular entry until after some consultation between the commissioners of customs and the Lords of the Council, on account of the many acts of Parliament yet in force against the rebels of America. She was loaded with 587 barrels of whale oil and manned

1 2 Works of Edmund Burke, Boston, 1866, p. 117.