Page 45 - Merchants and Mandarins China Trade Era

31.
party to establish Fort Astoria. Simultaneously an overland

expedition left New York for the Northwest via St. Louis.

This latter group planned to explore the interior where the

Company planned to build its outposts. The two groups did not

meet at Astoria until 1812. Astor's Company did manage to

erect the main fort, but deaths and internal problems of

authority continually plagued the establishment. By then,

moreover, the United States had declared war on England.

During the early months of the War, English warships appeared

at Baker's Bay with orders to seize Fort Astoria. Members of

Astor's Pacific Fur Company, most of whom were Canadians,

quickly and peacefully surrendered the establishment to the

English. Throughout the War the United States did nothing to

protect or recdpture the fort. Astor himself could not aid

his operations, since the English navy forced the ma jority

of American vessels to lie at anchor either at Canton or in

the United States.

For the Americans who had to remain at Canton during

the War, life was boring and tedious. English warships kept
a constant guard outside the entrance of the Pearl River, on

which Canton was located. American warships never appeared

in China, so there was little to do but wait. For the seamen,

life aboard American merchantmen was not pleasant. In January

1815 the American consul reported that Americans who had es­

caped from English ships refused to return to their own country's
36
vessels. The Chinese government virtually ignored the War,

36
Consular Des atches: Canton, B.C. Wilcocks, Jan. 6, 1815.
(
L5 ilas Holbrook , Sketches, by a Traveller Boston, 1830), p. 41.