JOHANN JACOB ASTOR.
CASANOV.
Trader and Chief
The plan projected by Carver was actually carried out by the well-known explorers Lewis and Clark in 1804-6. Astor's penetrating mind now saw the situation clearly. He would erect a line of trading posts up the Missouri River and across the Rockies to the Columbia River on the Pacific Coast and while those on the east of the Rockies would be supplied from St. Louis, he would send ships to the mouth of the Columbia, and provide for the posts on the Pacific slope from the West. With great skill Astor made approaches to the Russian Fur Company on the Pacific Coast, offering his ships to supply their forts with all needed articles, and he thus established a good feeling between himself and the Russians.
The only other element of danger to the mind of Astor was the opposition of the North-West Company on the Pacific Coast. He knew that for years the Montreal merchants had had their eye on the region that their partner Sir Alexander Mackenzie, had discovered. Moreover, their agents, Thompson, Fraser, Stuart, and Finlay the younger, were trading beyond the summit of the Rockies in New Caledonia, but the fact that they were farther north held out some hope to Astor that an arrangement might be made with them. He accordingly broached the subject to the North-West Company and proposed a combination with them similar to that in force in the co-operation in the South-West Company, viz. that they should take a one-third interest in the Pacific Fur Company. After certain correspondence, the North-West Company declined the offer, no doubt hoping to forestall Astor in his occupation of the Columbia. They then gave orders to David Thompson to descend the Columbia, whose upper waters he had already occupied, and he would have done this had not a mutiny taken place among his men, which made his arrival at the mouth of the Columbia a few months too late.
Astor's thorough acquaintance with the North-West Company and its numerous employés stood him in good stead in his project of forming a company. After full negotiations he secured the adhesion to his scheme of a number of well-known Nor'-Westers. Prominent among these was Alexander McKay, who was Sir Alexander Mackenzie's most trusted associate in the great journey of 1793 to the Pacific Ocean. McKay had become a partner of the North-West Company, and left it to join the Pacific Fur Company. Most celebrated as being in charge of the Astor enterprise on the coast was Duncan McDougall, who also left the North-West Company to embark in Astor's undertaking. Two others, David Stuart and his nephew Robert Stuart, made the four partners of the new Company who were to embark from New York with the purpose of doubling the Cape and reaching the mouth of the Columbia.
A company of clerks and engagés had been obtained in Montreal, and the party leaving Canada went in their great canoe up Lake Champlain, took it over the portage to the Hudson, and descended that river to New York. They transferred the picturesque scene so often witnessed on the Ottawa to the sleepy banks of the Hudson River, and with emblems flying, and singing songs of the voyageurs, surprised the spectators along the banks. Arrived at New York the men with bravado expressed themselves as ready to endure hardships. As Irving puts it, they declared "they could live hard, lie hard, sleep hard, eat dogs—in short, endure anything."
But these partners and men had much love for their own country and little regard to the new service into which desire for gain had led them to embark. It was found out afterwards that two of the partners had called upon the British Ambassador in New York, had revealed to him the whole scheme of Mr. Astor, and enquired whether, as British subjects, they might embark in the enterprise. The reply of the diplomat assured them of their full liberty in the matter. Astor also required of the employés that they should become naturalized citizens of the United States. They professed to have gone through the ceremony required, but it is contended that they never really did so.