Inferior posts would be established in the interior, and on all the tributary streams of the Columbia, to trade with the Indians; these posts would draw their supplies from the main establishment, and bring to it the peltries they collected.

Coasting craft would be built and fitted out, also at the mouth of the Columbia, to trade, at favorable seasons, all along the northwest coast, and return, with the proceeds of their voyages, to this place of deposit.

Thus all the Indian trade, both of the interior and the coast, would converge to this point, and thence derive its sustenance.
A ship was to be sent annually from New York to this main establishment with reinforcements and supplies, and with merchandise suited to the trade.

It would take on board the furs collected during the preceding year, carry them to Canton, invest the proceeds in the rich merchandise of China, and return thus freighted to New York.

As, in extending the American trade along the coast to the northward, it might be brought into the vicinity of the Russian Fur Company, and produce a hostile rivalry, it was part of the plan of Mr.Astor to conciliate the good-will of that company by the most amicable and beneficial arrangements.