Alaska.

To promote and protect these enterprises, a company was incorporated by
the Russian government with exclusive privileges, and a capital of two
hundred and sixty thousand pounds sterling; and the sovereignty of that
part of the American continent, along the coast of which the posts had
been established, was claimed by the Russian crown, on the plea that the
land had been discovered and occupied by its subjects.

As China was the grand mart for the furs collected in these quarters,
the Russians had the advantage over their competitors in the trade. The
latter had to take their peltries to Canton, which, however, was a mere
receiving mart, from whence they had to be distributed over the interior
of the empire and sent to the northern parts, where there was the chief
consumption. The Russians, on the contrary, carried their furs, by a
shorter voyage, directly to the northern parts of the Chinese empire;
thus being able to afford them in the market without the additional cost
of internal transportation.

We come now to the immediate field of operation of the great enterprise
we have undertaken to illustrate.

Among the American ships which traded along the northwest coast in 1792,
was the Columbia, Captain Gray, of Boston. In the course of her voyage
she discovered the mouth of a large river in lat. 46 19' north. Entering
it with some difficulty, on account of sand-bars and breakers, she came
to anchor in a spacious bay. A boat was well manned, and sent on shore
to a village on the beach, but all the inhabitants fled excepting the
aged and infirm. The kind manner in which these were treated, and the
presents given them, gradually lured back the others, and a friendly