[Urged by some Indian friends, in 1802, Mr. Sturgis obtained and sent home a fine specimen, with a request that a quantity should be ordered at the annual Leipsic fair, where he supposed they might be obtained. About 5,000 were procured, which he took out with him on the next voyage, and arrived at Kigarnee, one of the principal trading places on the coast, early 1804. Having previously encouraged the Indians to expect them, the first question was, if he had "clicks" (the Indian name for the ermine skin) for sale, and being answered in the affirmative, great earnestness was manifested to obtain them, and it was on that occasion that he purchased 560 prime sea-otter skins, at that time worth $50 apiece at Canton, in a single forenoon, giving for each five ermine skins, that cost less than thirty cents each in Boston. He succeeded in disposing of all his ermines at the same rate, before others carried them out but in less than two years from that time, one hundred of them would not bring a sea-otter skin].

Among a portion of the Indians, the management of trade was entrusted to the women. The reason given by the men was, that women could talk with the white men better than they could, and were willing to talk more.

When the natives had a number of skins for sale, it was usual to fix a price for those of the first quality as a standard, which required a great deal of haggling. In addition to the staple articles of blankets, or cloth, or muskets, &c., that constituted this price, several smaller articles were given as presents, nominally, but in reality formed part of the price. Of these articles, different individuals would require a different assortment: a system of equivalents was accordingly established. For instance, an iron pot and an ax were held to be of equal value so of a knife and a file, a pocket looking-glass and a pair of scissors.

Various efforts were made by the Indians to obtain a more valuable article than the established equivalent. To avoid trouble, which would certainly follow if the trader yielded in a single instance, he often found it necessary to waste hours in a contest with a woman about articles of no greater value than a skein of thread or a sewing-needle. From various causes, the northwest trade was liable to great fluctuations. The laws of supply and demand were frequently disregarded, and prices consequently often unsettled. Prime sea-otter skins were obtained for articles that did not cost fifty cents at home.

While most of those who have rushed into this trade without knowledge, experience, or sufficient capital to carry it on, have been subjected to such serious losses, they were compelled to abandon it; to all who pursued it systematically and perseveringly, for a series of years, it proved highly lucrative. Among those who were the most successful in this trade, were the late firm of J. & T. H. Perkins, J. & Thos. Lamb, Edward Dorr & Sons, Boardman & Pope, Geo. W. Lyman, Wm. H. Boardman, the late Theodore Lyman, and several others, each of whom acquired a very ample fortune.

These fortunes were not acquired, as individual wealth not unfrequently is, at the expense of our own community, by a tax upon the whole body of consumers, in the form of enhanced prices, often from adventitious causes. They were obtained abroad by giving to the Indians articles which they valued more than their furs, and then selling those furs to the Chinese for such prices as they are willing to pay; thus adding to the wealth of the country at the expense of foreigners, all that was acquired by individuals beyond the usual return for the use of capital, and suitable compensation for the services of those employed. This excess was sometimes very large. More than once a capital of $40,000, employed in a northwest voyage, yielded a return exceeding $150,000. In one instance, an outfit not exceeding $50,000, gave a gross return of $284,000. The individual who conducted the voyage is now a prominent merchant of Boston.

(In conclusion, the lecturer gave a brief account of the two great fur companies.) In 1785 an association of merchants was formed in Siberia for the purpose of collecting furs in the North Pacific. In 1799 they were chartered under the name of the Russian American Company, with the exclusive privilege of procuring furs within the Russian limits, (54 40') for a period of twenty years, which has since been extended.

The British Hudson Bay Company was chartered by Charles II., in 1669, with the grant of the exclusive use and control of a very extensive though not well-defined country, north and west of Canada. This uncertainty as to limits, led to the formation of an association of merchants in Canada in 1787, called the Northwest Company, for carrying on the fur trade without the supposed boundaries of the Hudson Bay Company.

Those in the service of these concerns soon came in collision. Disputes and personal violence followed. At length, in June, 1816, a pitched battle was fought near a settlement that had been made by Lord Selkirk, upon the Red River, under a grant from the Hudson Bay Company, between the settlers and a party in the service of the Northwest Company, in which Governor Semple and seventeen of his men were killed. This roused the attention of the British government, and in 1821, the two companies were united, or rather, the Northwest Company was merged into the Hudson Bay Company. Previous to this, however, the Northwest Company had, in 1806, established trading posts beyond the Rocky Mountains. During the last war with Great Britain, they got possession of Mr. Astor's settlement at the mouth of the Columbia, and extended their posts on several branches of that river. These establishments being united, it infused new life, and their operations have since been conducted with increased vigor. They have now, practically, a monopoly of the fur trade, from 42 to 54 40', on the western sea-board, and from 49 to the Northern Ocean, upon the rest of the American continent.

With the exception of the British East India Company, the Hudson Bay Company is the most extensive and powerful association of individuals for private emolument now in existence, and their influence has hitherto prevented an adjustment of the Oregon question. . . . The whole business of collecting furs upon our western continent, without the acknowledged limits of the United States, is now monopolized by two great corporations, the Russian and British Fur Companies.

After the peace in 1815, the British Northwest Company partly in consequence of the monopoly of the East India Company were compelled to seek the aid of American merchants and American vessels, in carrying on an important branch of their business. For a number of years, all the supplies for British establishments, west of the Rocky Mountains, were brought from London to Boston, and carried hence to the mouth of the Columbia in American ships, and all their collections of furs sent to Canton, consigned to an American house, and the proceeds shipped to England or the United States, in the same vessels ; a fact which speaks loudly in favor of the freedom of our institutions and the enterprise of our merchants. Our respected fellow citizens, Messrs. Perkins & Co., furnished the ships, and transacted the business.