If the new company “acquired” the Arctic regions, these regions would, owing to the company’s nationality, become for all practical purposes a part of the United States. What would the first inhabitant say? Would the other Powers permit it?
The Swedes and Norwegians were the owners of the North Cape, situated within the seventieth parallel, and made no secret that they considered they had rights extending beyond Spitzbergen up to the Pole itself. Had not Kheilhau, the Norwegian, and Nordenskiold, the celebrated Swede, contributed much to geographical progress in those regions? Undoubtedly.
Denmark was already master of Iceland and the Faroe Isles, besides the colonies in the Arctic regions at Disco, in Davis’s Straits; at Holsteinborg, Proven, Godhavn, and Upernavik, in Baffin Sea; and on the western coast of Greenland. Besides, had not Behring, a Dane in the Russian service, passed through in 1728 the straits now bearing his name? And had he not thirteen years afterwards, died on the island also named after him? And before him, in 1619, had not Jon Munk explored the eastern coast of Greenland, and discovered many points up to then totally unknown? Was not Denmark to have a voice in the matter?
There was Holland, too. Had not Barents and Heemskerk visited Spitzbergen and Nova Zembla at the close of the sixteenth century? Was it not one of her children, Jan Mayen, whose audacious voyage in 1611 gave her possession of the island named after him situated within the seventy-first parallel?
And how about Russia? Had not Behring been under the orders of Alexis Tschirikof? Had not Paulutski, in 1751, sailed into the Arctic seas? Had not Martin Spanberg and William Walton adventured in these unknown regions in 1739, and done notable exploring work in the straits between Asia and America? Had not Russia her Siberian territories, extending over a hundred and twenty degrees to the limits of Kamtschatka along the Asiatic littoral, peopled by Samoyeds, Yakuts, Tchouktchis, and others, and bordering nearly half of the Arctic Ocean? Was there not on the seventy-fifth parallel, at less than nine hundred miles from the Pole, the Liakhov Archipelago, discovered at the beginning of the eighteenth century?
And how about the United Kingdom, which possessed in Canada a territory larger than the whole of the United States, and whose navigators held the first place in the history of the frozen north? Had not the British a right to be heard in the matter?
But, not unnaturally, the British Government considered that they had quite enough to do without troubling themselves about an advertisement in the New York Herald. The Foreign Office did not consider the consignee of codfish even worthy of a pigeon-hole; and the Colonial Office seemed quite ignorant of his existence until the Secretary’s attention was called to the subject, when the official reply was given that the matter was one of purely local interest, in which her Majesty’s Government had no intention of concerning themselves.
In Canada, however, some stir was made, particularly among the French; and at Quebec a syndicate was formed for the purpose of competing with the company at Baltimore. The other countries interested followed the Canadian lead. Although the Governments haughtily ignored the audacious proposition, speculative individuals were found in Holland, Scandinavia, Denmark, and Russia to venture sufficient funds for preliminary expenses with a view to acquire imaginary rights that might prove profitably transferable.
Three weeks before the date fixed for the sale the representatives of these various syndicates arrived in the United States.
The only representative of the American company was the William S. Forster whose name figured in the advertisement of the 7th of November.