is plan. He combined the salmon fishery with the fur trade. A
fortified trading post was to be established on the Columbia, to carry
on a trade with the natives for salmon and peltries, and to fish and
trap on their own account. Once a year, a ship was to come from the
United States, to bring out goods for the interior trade, and to take
home the salmon and furs which had been collected. Part of the goods,
thus brought out, were to be dispatched to the mountains, to supply the
trapping companies and the Indian tribes, in exchange for their furs;
which were to be brought down to the Columbia, to be sent home in
the next annual ship: and thus an annual round was to be kept up. The
profits on the salmon, it was expected, would cover all the expenses
of the ship; so that the goods brought out, and the furs carried home,
would cost nothing as to freight.

His enterprise was prosecuted with a spirit, intelligence, and
perseverance, that merited success. All the details that we have met
with, prove him to be no ordinary man. He appears to have the mind to
conceive, and the energy to execute extensive and striking plans. He had
once more reared the American flag in the lost domains of Astoria;
and had he been enabled to maintain the footing he had so gallantly
effected, he might have regained for his country the opulent trade of
the Columbia, of which our statesmen have negligently suffered us to be
dispossessed.

It is needless to go into a detail of the variety of accidents and
cross-purposes, which caused the failure of his scheme. They were such
as all undertakings of the kind, involving combined operations by sea
and land, are liable to. What he most wanted, was sufficient capital
to enable him to endure incipient obstacles and losses; and to hold
on until success had time to spring up from the midst of disastrous
experiments.

It is with extreme regret we learn that he has recently been compelled
to dispose of his establishment at Wappatoo Island, to the Hudson's
Bay Company; who, it is but justice to say, have, according to his own
account, treated him throughout the whole of his enterprise, with great
fairness, friendship, and liberality. That company, therefore, still
maintains an unrivalled sway over the whole country washed by the
Columbia and its tributaries. It has, in fact, as far as its chartered
powers permit, followed out the splendid scheme contemplated by Mr.
Astor, when he founded his establishment at the