Page:The History of Oregon Bancroft 1888.djvu/38

20 and New York merchants made a profit by shipping it from Atlantic ports where wheat was worth more than twice its Oregon price, that for want of shipping, the fur company and two or three American merchants should be privileged to enjoy all the benefits of such a market, the farmers at the same time being kept in debt to the merchants by the low price of wheat. Many long articles were published in the Spectator exhibiting the enormous injury sustained on the one hand and the extraordinary profits enjoyed on the other, some of which were answered by James Douglas, who was annoyed by these attacks, for it was always the British and not the American traders who were blamed for taking advantage of their opportunity. The fur company had no right to avail themselves of the circumstances causing fluctuation; only the Americans might fatten themselves on the wants of the people. If the fur company kept down the price of wheat, the American merchants forced up the price of merchandise, and if the former occasionally made out a cargo by carrying the flour or lumber of their neighbors to the Islands, they charged them as much as a vessel coming all the way out from New York would do, and for a passage to Honolulu one hundred dollars. In the summer of 1846 the supercargo of the Toulon, Benjamin Stark, jun., after carrying out flour for Abernethy, refused to take the return freight except upon such terms as to make acceptance out of the question; his object being to get his own goods first to market and obtain the price consequent on the scarcity of the supply. Palmer relates that the American merchants petitioned the Hudson's Bay Company to advance their prices; and that it was agreed to sell to Americans at a higher price than that charged to their own people, an arrangement that lasted for two years.