In 1813 they acquired possession of Astoria on the Columbia, the settlement having been sold to them by Mr. Astors partners in consequence of the war between the United States and Great Britain. The two companies were afterward involved for two years in actual war. In 1821 they united in one company, called the Hudson bay company, with the privileges of the old company extended by act of parliament over all the territory occupied by both. The license granted on May 30, 1838, for 21 years, expired in 1859. Formerly the company possessed large establishments scattered from Labrador to the Pacific, and from the northern boundaries of Canada to the Arctic ocean, which are of no value for any other purpose. In 18(33 the proprietors sold the controlling interest in the company to a new body of proprietors, who in reorganizing increased the capital stock from £500,000 to £2,000,000, and elected Sir Edmund Head, who had been governor general of Canada, governor, and Sir Curtis Lampson, an American long resident in England, as deputy governor.

The new organization, after protracted negotiation with the governments of Great Britain and Canada, transferred to the latter in 1809 almost the whole of their territorial rights, embracing an area nearly equal to that of the 13 original states of the American Union, for £300,000, reserving only a limited area in the vicinity of each fort or station. In 1870 a long pending dispute between the United States and the Hudson bay company, growing out of the claims of settlers in Oregon, Puget sound, etc, was settled by a commission sitting in Washington, awarding to the Hudson bay company $000,000. The charter of the company having expired, with ail its rights of jurisdiction and territorial powers, it is now simply a trading company. The furs collected are sold at the great semi-annual sales of the company in London. Until within a recent date the mode of conducting these sales was at auction by the candle." A pin having been stuck into a lighted candle, the bidding was continued until the pin fell in consequence of the approach of the flame, and the highest bidder before the fall of the pin was declared the purchaser.-The importance of the fur trade led. to the early settlement of the western territories of the United States. The first organization for carrying it on was that commissioned in 1762 by M. d'Abadie, director general of Louisiana, made up by merchants of New Orleans, under the title of Pierre Li-gueste Laclede, Antoine Maxan, and co.

Laclede, the principal projector, conducted the expedition to St. Genevieve, Mo., arriving there Nov. 3, 1763. The same year he selected for the site of his establishment the spot now occupied by the city of St. Louis, and then gave it that name. The place soon became of similar importance to Mackinaw and Montreal. The brothers Auguste and Pierre Chouteau were of his party; and they, with Pierre, son of the latter, became identified with the fur trade. (See Chouteau.) In 1859 Martin Bates of New York and Francis Bates of St. Louis became the successors of Pierre Chouteau, jr., and still continue in the trade. The vast Indian territories bordering the great tributaries of the Missouri and the Mississippi opened a boundless and almost unexplored field for the operations of the fur traders. The Rocky mountains served only for a time as a barrier to their explorations, their trading posts, before ten years of the present century had elapsed, being established on Lewis and Columbia rivers. The furs, collected by long and tedious navigation in canoes and Mackinaw boats from the most distant sources, were brought down the dangerous rapids of the streams, and packed upon the backs of men around falls, and past the shoals which the hardiest voyageurs might not navigate.

Their market was then reached by another voyage of several months to New Orleans, where they were exchanged for a return freight of groceries; or to the great trading post of Mackinaw, whence the voyageurs went back with English goods. For 40 years preceding 1847 the annual value of the trade to St. Louis is supposed to have been between $200,000 and $300,000, and the latter half of this term much more than the larger sum named; but it was of still greater importance in developing the resources of the wild territories west of the Mississippi, and opening these to the settlement of civilized races.-Of the eastern merchants engaged in this trade, the most prominent was John Jacob Astor, who embarked in it in 1784, at the same time making his residence in New York. He was a purchaser of furs in Montreal, which until the treaty of 1795 could be taken only to England for sale. Afterward he introduced them into New York, whence he shipped them to different parts of Europe and to China, his ships bringing from the latter in exchange the rich products of the East. About 1807 he engaged in the trade on the northern frontier, competing with the wealthy companies of Canada that had long occupied this field.

Subsequently his trade was extended to the northwest, and the magnitude of his operations became immense, under a charter in the name of the American Fur Company," of which he furnished the entire capital. He made a persistent effort to carry on the business between the Pacific coast and China, founding the town of Astoria at the mouth of the. Columbia river; but that establishment being broken up in 1813 by the bad faith of a partner, who sold it for a nominal sum and placed it under the British flag, he afterward confined his operations to the region east of the Rocky mountains, his chief post being at Mackinaw. -The acquisition of the territory of Alaska by the United States in 1867 opened to Americans a new field for the prosecution of the fur trade. Until then the large fur products of that country had been collected by the Russian American fur company of St. Petersburg, through its agents in Alaska, and being concentrated annually at Sitka were sent to London and Russia. The furs from Alaska are mainly those of the fur seal taken on two small islands in Behring sea; the sea otter skins, taken mostly along the shores of the Aleutian or Fox islands; and general furs, such as those of the beaver, fox, marten, and bear, found in the forests of the mainland.