emolument, to be rejected; and on the thirteenth day of May, he left the "Eliza," and joined the "Ulysses," though not without serious misgivings. They remained on the Coast, collecting furs, until November; when they sailed for China, and arrived at Canton near the close of the year. There they found the "Eliza," which, after visiting several ports on the western coast of Mexico, reached Canton in October, and was then nearly ready to sail for home. Young STURGIS had found his situation on board of the "Ulysses" less uncomfortable than he had apprehended, but nevertheless far from being a pleasant one; and he eagerly accepted a proposal from Captain ROWAN to rejoin the "Eliza," and take the position of third mate on her homeward passage. As Captain LAMB could easily procure experienced officers at Canton, he consented to this arrangement; and, professing entire satisfaction with the manner in which Mr. STURGIS had performed his duties, promptly paid him his wages and commissions. The “Eliza❞ soon afterwards sailed, and arrived in Boston in the spring of the year 1800.

The reputation of Mr. STURGIS was now so far established, that he was immediately engaged to serve as first mate and assistant trader on board of the ship "Caroline," owned by Messrs. JAMES and THOMAS LAMB and others, and then fitting out for a three-years' voyage to the Pacific Ocean and China, under the command of Captain CHARLES DERBY of Salem.-a worthy man, but not particularly qualified for the enterprise, as he was in feeble health, had not before visited the coast, and knew nothing of the Indian trade. He appeared to be in a consumption when they sailed; and his health failed so rapidly, that, before the end of the first year, he virtu ally gave up the command to Mr. STURGIS; and, in the course of the second year, he formally resigned it to him, went on shore at the Sandwich Islands, and there died shortly afterwards.

Thus this young man, at the early age of nineteen, and with less than four years' experience at sea, became master of a large ship in a far distant country; the sole conductor of an enterprise requiring the highest quali fications of seamanship, together with the greatest energy and discretion in the management of a large crew, employed in peculiar and miscellaneous services on shore as well as on board; and requiring also unceasing vigilance and courage to prevent surprises and attacks by the savage inhabitants, and great judginent and skill in conducting a barter trade, now committed wholly to his care and responsibility. He proved himself worthy of the trust, for the voyage was completed with entire success. A valuable collection of furs was obtained on the cost; these were exchanged at Canton for an assorted China cargo, with which he returned to Boston in the spring of the year 1803, to the great satisfaction and profit of his employers.

It is difficult to imagine a state of more intense satisfaction and of more laudable pride, than that with which this youth, just entering upon manhood, and not yet invested with its legal responsibilities, must have greeted the shores of his native State. Only five years before, he had left it as a stripling before the mast, and he was now returning to it as the master of a noble ship, with a valuable cargo on board, the fruit in great measure of his own skill and exertions, and with the consciousness of an established reputation that would thereafter enable him to command opportunities in the road to rank and fortune.

These two voyages were unusual ones in many particulars. But especially remarkable was it that during them such responsibilities should have fallen on a mere boy, and that he should have been able to fill successfully the different trusts thus conferred upon him. Yet when we think of his previous, though brief, business life, and especially when we examine the "Day" kept by him during his first voyage, all astonishment ceases, for we find he was a fully developed man even at that time. He had cultivated to such an extent the habit of doing thoroughly the work before him to do,-mastering and understanding it in all its details,-that success could not fail to follow his efforts. Thus this "Diary" contains a minute and accurate record of all the transactions, not only of his own vessel and trade, but also of all the vessels which they met on the Coast, or of which they could obtain any account: a full account and description of their voyages, the places visited, with the latitude and longitude of each; also, an account of the various Indian tribes, their manners, habits and modes of traffic, with criticisms and comments of great interest and value upon the manner of conducting the trade, and the vices, faults, follies and mistakes of those engaged in it: a detailed statement of the course to be pursued in order to make a successful voyage; also, a sort of dictionary or list of the most familiar Indian words-the English in one column, and those of the several tribes opposite to them in corresponding ones, evidencing the pains he took for the accurate learning of their languages. Of these he became so thoroughly a master, that, as the writer of this memoir has been recently informed, by one engaged in like enterprises, and who saw him on the coast, he could converse easily with the natives in their own tongues upon all subjects, whether of religion, philosophy, morals or of trade.

Is there not, then, in this daily record which he kept a full explanation of his marvellous success? By this constant study of all the details and various elements and phases of the business in which he was engaged, he became the master of his profession, and was able, whenever a better opening offered, to fill it acceptably. If young men could remember and act upon the lesson these facts teach, it would be to them of great value. To acquaint oneself thoroughly with all the details of one's business, to perform its duties not only faithfully but with the determination to learn all that can be learned in it, is the sure road to promotion. Most are satisfied with accomplishing the labor required of them: but those who succeed are never satisfied so long as there is anything more to be done or learned.

Of course the owners of the vessel were solicitous for the continuance of such an agent in their service. She was accordingly at once fitted out, and sailed under his command on another similar voyage, which also proved eminently successful, terminating in June, in the year 1806.

Mr. STURGIS, or, as he was then uniformly styled, Captain STURGIS, was now foremost among all engaged in this department of commercial enterprise; and his services were of course eagerly sought for. Mr. THEODORE LYMAN, a merchant of Boston, largely interested in the North-west trade, had, at this time, two ships on the Coast; and was fitting out another for the same destination, named the "Atahualpa." He offered Captain STURGIS very liberal terms to take command of this ship and proceed to the Coast for one season, and assume the charge and direction of all his

business there; and thence to go on to Canton, taking with him one of the other two vessels, and the furs collected by all of them, to be exchanged for homeward cargoes. This offer was accepted; and, in October, he sailed on his fourth voyage round the world. Thus the sailor-boy of 1798 had become in 1806, as it were, an admiral, in command of a fleet upon the Coast, where, eight years before, he had arrived in the humblest station. This expedition also proved very profitable both to Mr. LYMAN and to himself, and terminated on his arrival in Boston in June, 1808.

The threatening aspect of the foreign relations of the United States, and the embargo which then paralyzed commercial enterprise, detained Mr. STURGIS at home until April, in the year 1809; when he again sailed in command of the "Atahualpa," for Mr. LYMAN, upon a direct voyage to Canton, with an outfit exceeding three hundred thous and Spanish milled dollars, to be invested there in a return cargo. In this adventure the late Mr. JoHN BROMFIELD was associated with him,-a gentleman of great intelligence and elevated character. A warin friendship immediately grew up between them, which constituted much of the happiness of their lives, until the lamented death of Mr. BROMFIELD, in the year

1849.

The vessel, lightly armed with a few small cannon, came to anchor in Macao Roads (about seventy miles from Canton) on the night of the 21st of August; and, early the next morning, was attacked by a fleet of sixteen Ladrone or piratical vessels, some of them heavily armed, under command of APPOTESI, a noted rebel chief. The fight was a very desperate one on the part of the comparatively small crew of the "Atahualpa," and continued for more than an hour; some of the pirates being so near as to succeed in throwing combustibles on board, which set the vessel on fire in many places. But the coolness and intrepidity of her commander, aided by the presence and assistance of Mr. BROOMFIELD, inspired her gallant crew with invincible courage. The pirates were repulsed with great slaughter, and the ship was enabled to escape, and find protection under the guns of the Portuguese fort. She was again attacked by them on her passage up, in company with four other American ships, but finally reached Canton in safety. This voyage, like all the rest in which he had been engaged, terminated very successfully, and he arrived at Boston in April,

1810.

66

By twelve years of arduous effort and unremitted toil in the service of others, at sea and in foreign lands, and by prudent economy, Mr. STURGIS had now acquired sufficient means for establishing himself in business on his own account. He concluded, therefore, to abandon the sea; and now entered into copartnership with Mr. JOHN BRYANT, under the name and firm of BRYANT & STURGIS," as merchants Tesident in Boston for the prosecution of foreign trade. This copartnership continued for more than half a century, being for many years the oldest in the city of Boston, and was indeed terminated only by the death of Mr. STURGIS. Although these gentlemen were unlike in many respects, and entertained different views on many subjects, their connection was entirely harmonious; and the writer of this memoir heard Mr. STURGIS, not long before his decease, . remark that no unpleasant word bad ever passed between them. Their business was principally with places upon the Coast of the Pacific and with China; and, from the year 1810 to 1810, more than half of the

trade carried on with those countries from the United States was under their direction. They occasionally, however, had commercial intercourse with nearly every quarter of the world.

We have thus given a hasty and brief review of the business life of Mr. STURGIS. His persevering energy, quick perception and thorough business habits have worked results far reaching in their effect upon the commercial enterprise of the country. It would, therefore, be both pleasant and instructive to dwell longer upon this portion of his life's work, but it is impossible at the present time to do so.

Nor have we the space to notice at length his political career. It could not be otherwise than that a person of the mental strength and activity of Mr. STURGIS should soon become generally known and appreciated, and that any political party should desire to increase its power and influence by sending him as its representative in the public councils. Nor was it less natural, that one whom rapid and unexampled success must have inspired with confidence, should be willing to widen the sphere of his reputation and influence. We find accordingly that in the year 1814 he was elected a representative of the town of Boston in the Legislature of Massachusetts: and such was his capacity and fidelity that from that period until 1845, he was, for the greater portion of the time, a member of the House or of the Senate. He was, however, too independent and selfrelying, and too single-minded in his conceptions of duty, ever to be popular among the leaders of a political party; yet in business circles his political influence was the greater on that account. Always true to him. self, it is no wonder that the public trusts he held-those we have mentioned and many others-were honorably and acceptably filled.

Among the varied attainments of Mr. STURGIS perhaps the most remarkable was his ability as a writer. With few early advantages, and amidst occupations certainly unfavorable to the cultivation of letters, we find him exhibiting unusual beauty, clearness and power of composition. In 1845-6, he delivered, before the Mercantile Library Association of Boston, and subsequently, by request, before the members of the House of Representatives, "Three Lectures upon the North-west Coast," written in a clear, simple and expressive style, indicating familiarity with English literature, and at times exhibiting the truest eloquence in sentiment and description. They are particularly valuable, however, for their development of the habits of life and the moral and intellectual characters of those Indian tribes by one who lived with them on terms of familiar and confiding friendship, and as constituting the most important and trustworthy record, if not the only one, of their later, soon to become their final, history.

His opportunities were such as particularly qualified him for this undertaking, since his first visit to the Coast was made in 1799, about twenty years after Cook's discovery of Nootka Sound, and while the generation was still living that "witnessed the arrival of the first white man among them; and many of the very individuals who were prominent at the time of Cook's visit were still in the prime of life, and became personally known to him." He passed a number of years among them at the time when they were first becoming known to the civilized world, and were in a state approximating to that in which the discoverers of the northern portion of our continent found the aboriginal inhabitants; and he continued to carry on the trade with them, personally or by agents, until it ceased to

be valuable, witnessing its growth, maximum, decrease, and final abandonment by the citizens of the United States.

These Lectures were received with great favor by the audiences before which they were delivered.

We have further evidence of Mr. STURGIS force and power as a writer in a pamphlet which he published upon the Oregon Question.

In the year 1821-22, the people of the United States were startled by claims suddenly and unexpectedly made by the Russian Government to the exclusive possession of the most valuable portions of the North-west Coast, amounting virtually to the right of exclusive possession of the whole American Continent north of the 51° of latitude, and of holding the Pacific Ocean as a close sea to that extent, although about four thousand miles across.

The Emperor had issued a ukase to this effect, which had been communicated by the Russian minister, the Chevalier DE POLETICA, to our Government. By it, all foreign vessels coming within one hundred miles of the shores of the territories so claimed were declared subject to confiscation and forfeiture, with the cargoes on board.

To Mr. ADAMS's inquiry for an explanation "of the grounds of right, upon principles generally recognized by the laws and usages of nations, which could warrant the claims and regulations contained in the edict," M. DE POLETICA declared himself happy to fulfil the task; and he undertook in an official communication to maintain them upon three bases,— the titles of first discovery, of first occupation, and of peaceable and uncontested possession for more than half a century. These propositions he undertook to establish by a variety of historical references and statements, which certainly, to one not otherwise informed, made out a very plausible, if not a very strong case.

Such an event could not fail to excite the deepest interest among those who were engaged in the trade on the Coast, then at its height, and particularly in the mind of Mr. STURGIS, who was thoroughly master of the subject by means of his personal exploration of the most important portions of the territory included in the ukase, and of the study he had made of its history, both by inquiry of the natives, and in the published voyages of the discoverers and adventurers in those regions. The importance of the trade at that time was so great, and the indignity to the United States which would be involved in a summary enforcement of the threat was so manifest, that war between the two countries seemed inevitable, unless the justice of these claims could be demonstrated, or the assertion of them should be abandoned.

Mr. STURGIS immediately prepared, and published in the North American Review, a reply to them and to the several arguments adduced by the Russian minister, which, it is believed, constitutes a refutation as annihilating as any to be found in the records of political discussion. His familiarity with all the essential facts and elements of the case from the earliest known period, his admirable array of the argument, and the clear and vigorous style in which it was presented, leave nothing to be desired It gave the coup de grace to the most material portions of the claim, and secured for the author an extensive reputation for being among the ablest public writers, as he had long been among the first of the eminent merchants, of his country.