r had implicit faith. And faith is the first requisite in
success.

Captain Cook had skirted the Pacific Coast from Cape Horn to Alaska,
and had brought to the attention of the fur-dealing and fur-wearing
world the sea-otter of the Northern Pacific.

He also gave a psychological prophetic glimpse of the insidious
sealskin sacque.

In Seventeen Hundred and Ninety, a ship from the Pacific brought a
hundred otterskins to New York. The skins were quickly sold to London
buyers at exorbitant prices.

The nobility wanted sea-otter, or "Royal American Ermine," as they
called it. The scarcity boomed the price. Ships were quickly fitted
out and dispatched. Boats bound for the whale fisheries were diverted,
and New Bedford had a spasm of jealousy.

Astor encouraged these expeditions, but at first invested no money in
them, as he considered them "extra hazardous." He was not a speculator.

Until the year Eighteen Hundred, Astor lived over his store in Water
Street, but he then moved to the plain and modest house at Two Hundred
and Twenty-three Broadway, on the site of the old Astor House. Here he
lived for twenty-five years.

The fur business was simple and very profitable. Astor now was
confining himself mostly to beaver-skins. He fixed the price at one
dollar, to be paid to the Indians or trappers. It cost fifty cents to
prepare and transport the skin to London. There it was sold at from
five to ten dollars. All of the money received for skins was then
invested in English merchandise, which was sold in New York at a
profit. In Eighteen Hundred, Astor owned three ships which he had
bought so as to absolutely control his trade. Ascertaining that London
dealers were reshipping furs to China, early in the century he
dispatched one of his ships directly to the Orient, loaded with furs,
with explicit written instructions to the captain as to what the cargo
should be sold for. The money was to be invested in teas and silks.

The ship sailed away, and had been gone a year.

No tidings had come from her.

Suddenly a messenger came with news that the ship was in the bay. We
can imagine the interest of Mr. and Mrs. Astor as they locked their
store and ran to the Battery. Sure enough, it was their ship, riding
gently on the tide, snug, strong and safe as when she had left.

The profit on this one voyage was seventy thousand dollars. By
Eighteen Hundred and Ten, John Jacob Astor was worth two million
dollars