Читать книгу Tillamook Passage - Brian MD Ratty - Страница 9

CHINA HAD BEEN TRADING FOR FUR PELTS for centuries, first with Russia and then with Spain. While the Celestial Kingdom loathed trading with western nations, there were certain commodities that the mandarins demanded, chief among them medicinal herbs, ginseng, and the soft, durable pelts of sea otters.

The Russians sent the pelts overland in trading caverns by way of Manchuria, while the Spanish church shipped the New World furs by way of Macao. Russia and Spain managed to keep this fur trading with China secret until Captain James Cook’s expedition returned to England after its third voyage in 1780. Among the crew of Captain Cook’s flagship, Resolution was an American, John Ledyard, who was a corporal in the Royal Marines. During the expedition, the ship traded with northwest natives for sea otter pelts. Then, on the homeward journey (after the death of Captain Cook in the Sandwich Islands), the ship called at Macao. There Mr. Ledyard watched as Chinese fur traders purchased the sea otter skins for over a hundred dollars per pelt. That high purchase price astounded all who witnessed it.

In 1782, after being promoted to the rank of sergeant, Mr. Ledyard was attached to a British frigate that sailed for America. Once the frigate had anchored in a bay off Long Island, Ledyard deserted and returned to his home in Connecticut. There he wrote a journal of Captain Cook’s last voyage, which was published in 1783. It was this account that fired the imaginations of the merchant Joseph Barrel and of Captain Gray.

With sails filling, the Boston ships weighed anchor at daybreak on October 1, 1787, beginning the first American expedition to the Pacific and northwest coast of the continent.