trade when he decided to send a ship round the
Horn, as well as an expedition overland, is not
to be doubted. He would place the Tonquin in
the sea-otter trade on the Coast and build posts
for the land trade in beaver on the Columbia and
at suitable points across the continent. Thus he
would control a mighty fur-trading system reach-
ing from the Great Lakes to the Pacific Ocean and
on to China and India. It was a bold plan worthy
of the genius and imagination of this pioneer of
American commerce.

Meanwhile a similar idea had entered the Rus-
sian mind. In 1806 the Inspector at New Arch-
angel, Alaska, had urged his Government to found
a settlement at the mouth of the Columbia and to
build a battleship for the purpose of driving the
American traders away. His enterprising sugges-
tion went further. He pointed out that, from the
settlement on the Columbia, the Russians could
advance southward to San Francisco and "in the
course of ten years we should become strong enough
to make use of any favorable turn in European
politics to include the coast of California in the
Russian possession." That the Russians planned
to descend upon the Columbia in 1810, a Boston
trader named Winship learned from his brother,

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