endants should have spread themselves through the
whole length of that coast, covering it with free and independent
Americans, unconnected with us but by the ties of blood and interest,
and enjoying like us the rights of self-government."

The cabinet joined with Mr. Jefferson in warm approbation of the plan,
and held out assurance of every protection that could, consistently with
general policy, be afforded. Mr. Astor now prepared to carry his scheme
into prompt execution. He had some competition, however, to apprehend
and guard against. The Northwest Company, acting feebly and partially
upon the suggestions of its former agent, Sir Alexander Mackenzie, had
pushed one or two advanced trading posts across the Rocky Mountains,
into a tract of country visited by that enterprising traveller, and
since named New Caledonia. This tract lay about two degrees north of the
Columbia, and intervened between the territories of the United States
and those of Russia. Its length was about five hundred and fifty miles,
and its breadth, from the mountains to the Pacific, from three hundred
to three hundred and fifty geographic miles.

Should the Northwest Company persist in extending their trade in that
quarter, their competition might be of serious detriment to the plans
of Mr. Astor. It is true they would contend with him to a vast
disadvantage, from the checks and restrictions to which they were
subjected. They were straitened on one side by the rivalry of the
Hudson's Bay Company; then they had no good post on the Pacific where
they could receive supplies by sea for their establishments beyond the
mountains; nor, if they had one, could they ship their furs thence to
China, that great mart for peltries; the Chinese trade being comprised
in the monopoly of the East India Company. Their posts beyond the
mountains had to be supplied in yearly expeditions, like caravans,
from Montreal, and the furs conveyed back in the same way, by long,
precarious, and expensive routes, across the continent. Mr. Astor, on
the contrary, would be able to supply his proposed establishment at
the mouth of the Columbia by sea, and to ship the furs collected there
directly to China, so as to undersell the Northwest Company in the great
Chinese market.

Still, the competition of two rival companies west of the Rocky
Mountains could not but prove detrimental to both, and fraught with
those evils, both to the trade and to the Indians, that had attended
simila