Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 14.djvu/47



LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846 39

not arrived when I left, but only a synopsis of it that the charter of the company would expire in 1863, and of course its privileges with it. If the facts be otherwise, and its existence as a corporate body, under British charter, is perpetual, my speculations about its officers becoming- American citizens are fallacious. Exclusive of the Hudson's Bay Company's imports, the external commerce of Oregon is of very limited extent ; it is a petty trade, not sufficiently systematized to be reducible to a statistical table, and I can give no better idea of its extent than to state that during the whole year of 1846 a barque of three hundred tons came twice from the Sandwich islands, bringing each time about half a cargo of dry goods, groceries, - hardware, etc., bought at Oahu. An American ship was also in the river this year, but came in ballast for a freight of lum- ber, &c., to the islands. Three mercantile houses divide the business of the Territory, small as it is, and I believe each has a favorable balance on its side. The prices imposed in selling to the consumer are enormously high, and these he must pay from the produce of his labor, or dispense with the most neces- sary articles of clothing, cooking utensils, groceries and farm- ing implements. An American axe costs $5 ; a cross-cut saw, $15 ; all articles manufactured of iron 25 cents per pound, &c., &c. The impediments to commerce here are, first, the want of a fixed currency ; second, the remoteness of the foreign market and its uncertainty, and more particularly the hazardous nature of the navigation in and out of the river, and the tediousness of ascending and descending it. These last make the freight and premium on insurance very high, which adds to the cost of the imported article, and detracts proportionally from that which is offered in payment for it, and which, to realize any- thing, must be carried abroad. The misfortune is, that these impediments create and depend upon each other, and are likely to continue, and painfully retard the growth of this promising country. If the commerce were more extensive, it would afford payment to pilots, and construct light-houses, beacons, and buoys, which would greatly diminish the risk and expense of