springs of action at {240} Astoria, just as if he had been on the spot. Work well, work ill, his commands remained like the laws of the Medes and Persians: there was no discretionary power left to alter them.
The ship, therefore, with Mr. Hunt on board, reached her destination without any accident or delay; visited New Archangel, Sitka, and St. Paul's, taking in at these places a valuable cargo of furs, chiefly seal-skins; but was detained in these boisterous seas much longer than had been calculated upon, for she had not left the most northern of these parts, which is St. Paul's, before the beginning of November.[85]
And here we have another instance of that fatal policy pursued by Astor in giving to his captains powers which made them independent of the consignees. This was the case with Captain Thorn, who left what he pleased, and carried off what he pleased; and when M'Dougall and the other parties remonstrated with him for leaving the infant colony so bare, he put his hand in his pocket and produced his instructions from Astor, which at once shut their mouths. The same game was now played by Captain Sowle. Mr. Hunt could not prevail upon him, on his way back from the Russian settlements, to touch at Columbia; and when Mr. Hunt threatened to remove him and give the command to another, he then, as Captain Thorn had done before him, produced his private instructions from Mr. Astor, justifying his proceedings; for after Mr. Hunt's arrival {241} at Columbia, he often repeated, in the anguish of his soul, that "the
