Under the French rule the savages had not been furnished with liquors, but the English soon sold whisky and rum in great quantities to them, receiving the best furs in return.  As a consequence, intemperance spread rapidly among the savages, and threatened to put an end to their industry as gatherers of furs.  To check the evil results of this irregular trading, a company was established in 1785, called the North-west Company.  It was managed by twelve partners, some of whom resided at Montreal, and others at the trading posts in the interior.  Their chief station was at Fort William, on Lake Superior.  Here, at stated times, the agents would come up from Montreal and hold a consultation for the purchase of furs.  These meetings always drew crowds of French and Indian trappers, boatmen, and others, who brought in large quantities of skins.

A few years later a third company was organized, with its principal station at Michilimackinac, near Lake Huron.  It was called the Mackinaw Company, and its field of operations was the country bordering Lake Superior, and that lying between the Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains.  The company was English, but did not hesitate to operate in American territory, so little regard did Great Britain pay to the rights of the infant republic.

“Although peace had been concluded, the frontier forts had not been given up.  Oswego, Niagara, Detroit, Michilimackinac, and other posts were still in the hands of the English.  The Indian tribes continued hostile, being under English influence.  No company had as yet been formed in the United States.  Several French houses at St. Louis traded with the Indians, but it was not until 1807 that an association of twelve partners, with a capital of forty thousand dollars, was formed at St. Louis, under the name of the Missouri Company.

“The trade, it will thus be seen, was almost wholly in the hands of the English companies—­the Hudson’s Bay Company in the north, the North-west Company in the Canadas, the Mackinaw Company in the territories of the United States—­and the few American traders in the field had to rely on their individual resources, with no aid from a Government too feeble in its infancy to do more than establish a few Indian agencies, and without constitutional power to confer charter privileges.”

The voyage of Captain Cook had brought to the notice of the fur dealers of the world the sea otter of the northern Pacific, and the announcement made upon the return of the expedition drew large numbers of adventurers to the west coast of America, in search of the valuable skins of these animals.  In 1792, there were twenty-one vessels, principally American, on the coast.

It was into this field, already occupied by powerful and hostile corporations, that the young German entered.  He was perfectly aware of the opposition his efforts would encounter from them, but he was not dismayed.  He began business in 1786, in a small store in Water Street, which he furnished with a few toys and notions suited to the tastes of the Indians who had skins to sell.  His entire capital consisted of only a few hundred dollars, a portion of which was loaned him by his brother.  He had no assistants.  He did all his own work.  He bought his skins, cured, beat, and sold them himself.