Page:Voyages in the Northern Pacific - 1896.djvu/20

2 rapid progress the natives are making towards civilization (unaided by missionaries) by improving themselves, and cultivating an intercourse with other countries. The Russians are by no means ignorant of their importance, and have more than once attempted to obtain possession of them. To Russia they would be invaluable, as its colonists could cultivate sugar, tobacco, and coffee, and make rum sufficient for the supply of that vast empire. The effect which such a step would have on our West-India trade is too obvious to require any comment. However lightly the people of those islands may be thought of, there is an anxious wish on their part to cultivate intercourse with those who will trade with them, and there exists a desire for improvement beyond the most sanguine hope, of those who wish to see the condition of mankind bettered by social intercourse. Their battery or fort at Woahoo (Oahu), where guard is mounted and relieved with as much regularity and form as at the Tower of London; the policy of the king in charging foreign vessels pilotage and harbor dues, because a brig that he had purchased from the Europeans and sent to China with sandal wood had been made to pay pilotage and harbor dues, will prove that they are ready to imitate the customs of civilized nations.

The fur trade is now totally in the power of the Americans, as by the treaty of Ghent the establishment on the Columbia was given up to that republic. The following extract from the Montreal Herald of the i8th April, 1820, will show