3332. FUR TRADE, Difficulties in.—
I
am sorry your enterprise for establishing a factory
on the Columbia river, and a commerce
through the line of that river and the Missouri,
should meet with the difficulties stated in your
letter. I remember well having invited your
proposition on that subject, and encouraged it
with the assurance of every facility and protection
which the government could properly
afford. I considered as a great public acquisition
the commencement of a settlement on
that point of the Western coast of America,
and looked forward with gratification to the
time when its descendants 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 employing like us
the rights of self-government. I hope the
obstacles you state are not insurmountable;
that they will not endanger, or even delay the
accomplishment of so great a public purpose.—
To John Jacob Astor. Washington ed. vi, 55.
Ford ed., ix, 351.
(M.
May. 1812)
