Page:History of California, Volume 3 (Bancroft).djvu/136

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MARITIME AND COMMERCIAL AFFAIRS.

was $4,360;[1] and at San Diego, $1,666. If the total of $13,500 were doubled, it is evident that the amount would be but a small part of the percentage due on imports. Only a few years later there were complaints that no accounts had been rendered by Herrera and his successors,[2] so that it is not strange I have been unable to find complete figures.

All seems to have been couleur de rose in Hartnell's business this year. Echeandía granted a general license for his vessels to touch at all the ports. McCullough from Callao, and the Brothertons from Liverpool, wrote most enthusiastically of the prospects for high prices, urging extraordinary efforts to buy more hides and tallow, and expressing fears only of rivalry from other firms, while four brigs, the Inca, Speedy, Eliza, and Pizarro, were successfully loaded with Californian produce.[3] Gale’s Sachem and the other Boston ships must have interfered seriously with Hartnell's purchases, but we have no information beyond their names and presence on the coast. Juan Ignacio Mancisidor also did a large business, selling the cargoes of the Nowlan and Olive Branch, and taking away large quantities of mission produce, though for him, as a Spaniard, trouble was in store. The Waverly and her two consorts introduced the Hawaiian flag to Californian waters, opened a new branch of territorial trade, and brought to the country William G. Dana, with others afterward prominent among resident traders.


  1. Habilitados' accounts in Vallejo, Doc., MS., i. passim; Dept. St. Pap., Ben. Mil., MS., lx. 1-4.
  2. Figueroa to Mex. govt in 1834. Dept. St. Pap., MS., iii. 209-10.
  3. Echeandía's permit of June 18 and Aug. 26, 1826, to Hartnell's vessels. Dept. Rec., MS., iv. 48; Vallejo, Doc., MS., xxix. 57. Letters of McCulloch, Begg & Co., Brothertons, for the year, in Id., MS., xxix. nos. 4, 6, 12-15, 21, 40, 43, 52, 65. Some beef was acceptable where hides and tallow were not forthcoming. The Eliza appears to have cleared at Callao for Costa Rica to deceive rivals. The Esther, sent to England with hides, had not been heard of. The tallow from each mission must be marked 'so that the peculiar tricks of each padre may be found out.' Cash is sent and more promised. Anderson's competition in Peru was especially feared. War between Buenos Aires and Brazil made prospects better. Yet P. Uría, from Soledad, protests on June 11th against being obliged to sell exclusively to Hartnell, and will in future accept the best offers.