Astor
might arrive.
In the meantime Mr. Astor, finding his overtures rejected, proceeded
fearlessly to execute his enterprise in face of the whole power of the
Northwest Company. His main establishment once planted at the mouth of
the Columbia, he looked with confidence to ultimate success. Being able
to reinforce and supply it amply by sea, he would push his interior
posts in every direction up the rivers and along the coast; supplying
the natives at a lower rate, and thus gradually obliging the Northwest
Company to give up the competition, relinquish New Caledonia, and retire
to the other side of the mountains. He would then have possession of
the trade, not merely of the Columbia and its tributaries, but of the
regions farther north, quite to the Russian possessions. Such was a part
of his brilliant and comprehensive plan.
He now proceeded, with all diligence, to procure proper agents and
coadjutors, habituated to the Indian trade and to the life of the
wilderness. Among the clerks of the Northwest Company were several of
great capacity and experience, who had served out their probationary
terms, but who, either through lack of interest and influence, or a
want of vacancies, had not been promoted. They were consequently much
dissatisfied, and ready for any employment in which their talents and
acquirements might be turned to better account.
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