Mr. Astor was very fond of telling this story, which he regarded as one of the best jokes of the day.

All this time Mr. Astor had lived over his store, but in 1800, after he had been in business fifteen years, he moved his dwelling to 223 Broadway, on the site of the Astor House of to-day.  He lived here, with one removal, for upwards of twenty-five years.  The house was plain and simple, but he was satisfied with it.  He was now worth a quarter of a million dollars, and his business was growing rapidly.  The fur trade was exceedingly profitable.  A beaver skin could be bought from the trappers in western New York for one dollar and sold in London for six dollars and a quarter.  By investing this amount in English manufactures, the six dollars and a quarter received for the skin could be made to produce ten dollars paid for the English goods in New York.

The Chinese trade was also very profitable.  China was an excellent market for furs.  They brought high prices, and the proceeds could always be invested in teas and silks, which sold well in New York.  His profit on a voyage would sometimes reach seventy thousand dollars, and the average gain on a lucky venture of this kind was thirty thousand dollars.  The high prices produced by the war of 1812-15 were also in Mr. Astor’s favor.  His ships were all remarkably lucky in escaping capture by the enemy, and he was almost the only merchant who had a cargo of tea in the market.  Tea having reached double its usual price, he was enabled to reap immense profits from his ventures.

Mr. Francis, in his Old Merchants of New York, makes the following revelation of the manner in which Mr. Astor found it possible to carry on such an immense business.  He says: 

“A house that could raise money enough, thirty years ago, to send $260,000 in specie, could soon have an uncommon capital; and this was the working of the old system.  The Griswolds owned the ship Panama.  They started her from New York in the month of May, with a cargo of perhaps $30,000 worth of ginseng, spelter, lead, iron, etc., and $170,000 in Spanish dollars.  The ship goes on the voyage, reaches Whampoa in safety (a few miles below Canton).  Her supercargo, in two months, has her loaded with tea, some chinaware, a great deal of cassia, or false cinnamon, and a few other articles.  Suppose the cargo mainly tea, costing about thirty-seven cents (at that time) per pound on the average.

“The duty was enormous in those days.  It was twice the cost of the tea, at least; so that a cargo of $200,000, when it had paid duty of seventy-five cents per pound (which would be $400,000), amounted to $600,000.  The profit was at least fifty per cent, on the original cost, or $100,000, and would make the cargo worth $700,000.

“The cargo of teas would be sold almost on arrival (say eleven or twelve months after the ship left New York in May), to wholesale grocers, for their notes at four and six months—­say for $700,000.  In those years there was credit given by the United States of nine, twelve, and eighteen months!  So that the East India or Canton merchant, after his ship had made one voyage, had the use of Government capital to the extent of $400,000, on the ordinary cargo of a China ship.