The sensation created in Europe by Cook's geographical discoveries, was much exceeded in its immediate effects by the excitement occasioned when it was known what a lucrative trade remained to be developed between China and the north-west coast of America. The furs collected by the Russians in the Fox Islands, sent by them to Kamtschatka, and thence to Kiachta, arrive in China, after passing through many hands, and performing a circuitous journey of many thousand miles, with a price enormously enhanced by the clumsy and complicated system by which they are forwarded to their destination. The Russians not yet acquainted with the refinements of commerce, and the Spaniards rendered torpid and inactive by the vices of a despotic government, had both remained in ignorance of the advantages that might be derived from a fur trade carried on directly between the coast of America and China, though the dominions of both adjoin the countries which support the trade. It remained for the English to make the circuit of the globe, in order to carry on a trade, which the nations more conveniently situated were too barbarous or too inert to engage in.

The last volume of Cook's voyages, in which captain King explains the profits that might be made by the fur trade, was published in 1784: and in the following year captain Hanna sailed from Canton, in a small brig of sixty tons, across the seas of Japan; and in the month of August arrived at Nootka Sound, which the experience of Cook had taught to be considered as the great mart of the furs of America.