< Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 26.djvu
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De Mofras Exploration of Oregon
163
mated at more than five million francs, or two hundred
thousand pounds sterling, in an ordinary year.[1]
To give an idea of this immense commerce, we will limit ourselves to giving from the official abstract the quantity of principal goods sold at public auction December 20, and January 17, last:
528,000
22,000
4,000
7,000
10,000
7,000
18,000
60,000
1,000
5,000
6,000
50
700
3,000
600
1,000
It is unnecessary to mention other less important articles. In this enumeration beaver and otter skins constitute a very considerable value.
IMPORTS
The articles imported from England by the Company, generally of inferior quality, consist principally of coarse cloths, wearing apparel, ordinary fabrics of various kinds, calico, crockery, glassware, household utensils, common cutlery, copper ornaments for the Indians, carpenters' and joiners' tools. Let us add that if the Company was wrong in selling firearms and powder to the
Indians, it has, at least up to the present, avoided spreading among them the use of spiritous liquors.
- ↑ See MacCulloch's Dictionary of Commerce; and Silliman's Journal: On the fur trade.—V. 25, p. 34. Importations by the Hudson's Bay Company, London, 1843, 1844. —de Mofras.
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