Page 32 - Merchants and Mandarins China Trade Era

18.

within a few years the Americans monopolized the carrying

trade in furs from the Northwest Coast to Canton.

This monopoly at first meant profits for all who par­

ticiuated in the fur trade. Consequently, large numbers of

Boston merchants hastened to send vessels to the Northwest.

Although the fur trade expanded, competition also increased.

As a result merchants already engaged in the trade faced

shrinking profits. Searching for a competitive edge over

their rivals, these merchants sought to make their enterprises

more efficient. The biggest problem was the time wasted

sailing back and forth across the Pacific Ocean between trad­

ing seasons. A few merchants found the solution lay in

organizing the fur trade into a system of several vessels in

support of one another. Such a system though required suffic­

ient capital for the acquisition and maintenance of a fleet

of vessels and crews. Merchants who operated on this basis

continued to profit from the fur trade but to the detriment of

others who did not have the necessary capital to expand the

number of vessels they owned. As a result, the only merchants

able to survive profitably in the China fur trade were those

with large reserves of capital. Consequently, there tended to

be a very limited number of Boston merchants participating in

the Pacific China trade.

IV

1
Boston vessels engaged in the fur trade in the 1780 s

did not limit their voyages to the coastline of North America.

Many sailed through the southern oceans, searching for islands