Astor bought this property confiding in the justice of the State
of New York, firmly believing that in the litigation of his claim his
rights would be maintained."
It is creditable to the administration of justice in New York, and
creditable to the very institution of trial by jury, that Mr. Astor's
most unpopular and even odious cause was triumphant. Warned by this
verdict, the Legislature consented to compromise on Mr. Astor's own
terms. The requisite amount of "Astor stock," as it was called, was
created. Mr. Astor received about half a million of dollars, and the
titles of the lands were secured to their rightful owners.
The crowning glory of Mr. Astor's mercantile career was that vast and
brilliant enterprise which Washington Irving has commemorated in
"Astoria." No other single individual has ever set on foot a scheme so
extensive, so difficult, and so costly as this; nor has any such
enterprise been carried out with such sustained energy and
perseverance. To establish a line of trading-posts from St. Louis to
the Pacific, a four-months' journey in a land of wilderness, prairie,
mountain, and desert, inhabited by treacherous or hostile savages; to
found a permanent settlement on the Pacific coast as the grand _depot_
of furs and supplies; to arrange a plan by which the furs collected
should be regularly transported to China, and the ships return to New
York laden with tea and silks, and then proceed once more to the
Pacific coast to repeat the circuit; to maintain all the parts of this
scheme without the expectation of any but a remote profit, sending
ship after ship before any certain intelligence of the first ventures
had arrived,--this was an enterprise which had been memorable if it
had been undertaken by a wealthy corporation or a powerful government,
instead of a private merchant, unaided by any resources but his own.
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