The Crater; Or, Vulcan's Peak: A Tale of the Pacific

by James Fenimore Cooper

At that time very little was written about the great fallacy of the present day, Free Trade; which is an illusion about which men now talk, and dispute, and almost fight, while no living mortal can tell what it really is. It is wise for us in America, who never had anything but free trade, according to modern doctrines, to look a little closely into the sophisms that are getting to be so much in vogue; and which, whenever they come from our illustrious ancestors in Great Britain, have some such effect on the imaginations of a portion of our people, as purling rills and wooded cascades are known to posses over those of certain young ladies of fifteen.

Free trade, in its true signification, or in the only signification which is not a fallacy, can only mean a commerce that is totally unfettered by duties, restrictions, prohibitions, and charges of all sorts. Except among savages, the world never yet saw such a state of things, and probably never will. Even free trade ports have exactions that, in a degree, counteract their pretended principle of liberty; and no free port exists, that is anything more, in a strict interpretation of its uses, than a sort of bonded warehouse. So long as your goods remain there, on deposit and unappropriated, they are not taxed; but the instant they are taken to the consumer, the customary impositions must be paid.

Freer trade—that is, a trade which is less encumbered than some admitted state of things which previously existed—is easily enough comprehended; but, instead of conveying to the mind any general theory, it merely shows that a lack of wisdom may have prevailed in the management of some particular interest; which lack of wisdom is now being tardily repaired. Prohibitions, whether direct, or in the form of impositions that the trade will not bear, may be removed without leaving trade free. This or that article may be thrown open to the general competition, without import duty or tax of any sort, and yet the great bulk of the commerce of a country be so fettered as to put an effectual check upon anything like liberal intercourse. Suppose, for instance, that Virginia were an independent country. Its exports would be tobacco, flour, and corn; the tobacco crop probably more than equalling in value those portions of the other crops which are sent out of the country. England is suffering for food, and she takes off everything like imposts on the eatables, while she taxes tobacco to the amount of many hundred per cent. Can that be called free trade?

There is another point of view in which we could wish to protest against the shouts and fallacies of the hour. Trade, perhaps the most corrupt and corrupting influence of life—or, if second to anything in evil, second only to politics—is proclaimed to be the great means of humanizing, enlightening, liberalizing, and improving the human race! Now, against this monstrous mistake in morals, we would fain raise our feeble voices in sober remonstrance. That the intercourse which is a consequence of commerce may, in certain ways, liberalize a man's views, we are willing to admit; though, at the same time, we shall insist that there are better modes of attaining the same ends. But it strikes us as profane to ascribe to this frail and mercenary influence a power which there is every reason to believe the Almighty has bestowed on the Christian church, and on that alone; a church which is opposed to most of the practices of trade, which rebukes them in nearly every line of its precepts, and which, carried out in its purity, can alone give the world that liberty and happiness which a grasping spirit of cupidity is so ready to impute to the desire to accumulate gold!

Fortunately, there was little occasion to dispute about the theories of commerce at the Reef. The little trade that did exist was truly unfettered; but no one supposed that any man was nearer to God on that account, except as he was farther removed from temptations to do wrong. Still, the governing principle was sound; not by canting about the beneficent and holy influences of commerce, but by leaving to each man his individuality, or restraining if only on those points which the public good demanded. Instead of monopolizing the trade of the colony, which his superior wealth and official power would have rendered very easy, governor Woolston acted in the most liberal spirit to all around him. With the exception of the Anne, which was built by the colony, the council had decided, in some measure contrary to his wishes, though in strict accordance with what was right, that all the vessels were the private property of Mark. After this decision, the governor formally conveyed the Mermaid and the Abraham to the state; the former to be retained principally as a cruiser and a packet, while the last was in daily use as a means of conveying articles and passengers, from one island to the other. The Neshamony was presented, out and out, to Betts, who turned many a penny with her, by keeping her running through the different passages, with freight, &c.; going from plantation to plantation, as these good people were in the practice of calling their farms. Indeed, Bob did little else, until the governor, seeing his propensity to stick by the water, and ascertaining that the intercourse would justify such an investment, determined to build him a sloop, in order that he might use her as a sort of packet and market-boat, united. A vessel of about forty-five tons was laid down accordingly, and put into the water at the end of six months, that was just the sort of craft suited to Bob's wishes and wants. In the mean time, the honest fellow had resigned his seat in the council, feeling that he was out of his place in such a body, among men of more or less education, and of habits so much superior and more refined than his own. Mark did not oppose this step in his friend, but rather encouraged it; being persuaded nothing was gained by forcing upon a man duties he was hardly fitted to discharge. Self-made men, he well knew, were sometimes very useful; but he also knew that they must be first made.

The name of this new sloop was the Martha, being thus called in compliment to her owner's sober-minded, industrious and careful wife. She (the sloop, and not Mrs. Betts) was nearly all cabin, having lockers forward and aft, and was fitted with benches in her wings, steamboat fashion. Her canvas was of light duck, there being very little heavy weather in that climate; so that assisted by a boy and a Kannaka, honest Bob could do anything he wished with his craft. He often went to the Peak and Rancocus Island in her, always doing something useful; and he even made several trips in her, within the first few months he had her running, as far as Betto's group. On these last voyages, he carried over Kannakas as passengers, as well as various small articles, such as fish-hooks, old iron, hatchets even, and now and then a little tobacco. These he exchanged for cocoa-nuts, which were yet scarce in the colony, on account of the number of mouths to consume them; baskets, Indian cloth, paddles which the islanders made very beautifully and with a great deal of care; bread-fruit, and other plants that abounded more at Betto's group than at the Reef, or even on the Peak.

But the greatest voyage Betts made that season was when he took a freight of melons. This was a fruit which now abounded in the colony; so much so as to be fed even to the hogs, while the natives knew nothing of it beyond the art of eating it. They were extraordinarily fond of melons, and Bob actually filled the cabin of the Martha with articles obtained in exchange for his cargo. Among other things obtained on this occasion, was a sufficiency of sandal-wood to purchase for the owner of the sloop as many groceries as he could consume in his family for twelve months; though groceries were high, as may well be supposed, in a place like the Reef. Betts always admitted that the first great turn in his fortune was the money made on this voyage, in which he embarked without the least apprehension of Waally, and his never-ceasing wiles and intrigues. Indeed, most of his sales were made to that subtle and active chief, who dealt very fairly by him.

All this time the Rancocus was laid up for want of something to freight her with. At one time the governor thought of sending her to pick up a cargo where she could; but a suggestion by a seaman of the name of Walker set him on a different track, and put on foot an adventure which soon attracted the attention of most of the sea-faring portion of the community.

It had been observed by the crew of the Rancocus, not only in her original run through those seas, but in her two subsequent passages from America, that the spermaceti whale abounded in all that part of the ocean which lay to windward of the group. Now Walker had once been second officer of a Nantucket craft, and was regularly brought up to the business of taking whales. Among the colonists were half a dozen others who had done more or less at the same business; and, at the suggestion of Walker, who had gone out in the Rancocus as her first officer, captain Saunders laid in a provision of such articles as were necessary to set up the business. These consisted of cordage, harpoons, spades, lances, and casks. Then no small part of the lower hold of the Henlopen was stowed with shook casks; iron for hoops, &c., being also provided.

As the sandal-wood was now obtained in only small quantities, all idea of sending the ship to Canton again, that year, was necessarily abandoned. At first this seemed to be a great loss; but when the governor came to reflect coolly on the subject, not only he, but the council generally, came to the conclusion that Providence was dealing more mercifully with them, by turning the people into this new channel of commerce, than to leave them to pursue their original track. Sandal-wood had a purely adventitious value, though it brought, particularly in that age, a most enormous profit; one so large, indeed, as to have a direct and quick tendency to demoralize those embarked in the trade. The whaling business, on the other hand, while it made large returns, demanded industry, courage, perseverance, and a fair amount of capital. Of vessels, the colonists had all they wanted; the forethought of Saunders and the suggestions of Walker furnished the particular means; and of provisions there was now a superabundance in the group.