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conception of the prodigious future that awaits this vast and still unexploited part of the globe. As his plans and ideas enlarge in scope and grandeur, so they become more precisely detailed. They  go far beyond anything he could have imagined, and yet they are possible. Realizable. A splendid place is there for the taking. A coup d'état . He has both the taste for such an enterprise and the strength to risk it.
    Meanwhile, he disembarks empty-handed in the capital, Honolulu, and presents his letters of recommendation (given to him by officials of the Hudson Bay Company in Fort Vancouver) to the trading post there.
    Here, too, he finds a warm welcome.
    14
    Honolulu is a bustling capital.
    The bulk of the population is made up, essentially, of maritime adventurers, mostly deserters from the whaling fleets. Naturally, every race in the world is represented there, but Basque and Yankee elements predominate. Sutter is enthusiastically adopted by every social class and he has the good fortune to run into some old acquaintances from New York. Together with them, he joins in several speculative ventures, buying up cargoes of copra, mother-of-pearl and tortoiseshell that are lying out in the roadsteads, and he is lucky enough to amass a small fortune very quickly.
    During this period, the idea comes to him that he will employ a labour force of Kanakas, the Melanesians of New Caledonia, on his plantations of the future. It will take a lot of muscle-power to exploit California and reclaim the immense territories of the American West. Africa is too far away, and the Atlantic slave-trade is hampered by too much legislation these days. It is no longer possible to make a profit. Besides, it would be  amusing to cock a snook at international regulations and avoid the reciprocal boarding rights between ships by starting the slave-trade in unsuspected latitudes. Cargoes of islanders could be forcibly embarked. The Pacific must learn to be self-sufficient.
    He has already given his partners just a hint of his grandiose Californian schemes; now he broaches this new idea with them. That same evening, in a tavern, they sign the articles of constitution of Sutter's Pacific Trading Company, whose emblem is a black bishop's crozier surrounded by seven red dots on a white background. For his part, Sutter puts up 75,000 Dutch florins. The first consignment of Kanakas must arrive in eighteen months' time at the latest; they will disembark in a certain Californian bay whose whereabouts Sutter reveals in confidence. In the legal documents, his future possessions appear under the name of New Helvetia.
    Once the covenants are signed, they indulge in an orgy of rum.
    Now that this business is settled, he must think about departure, but that is no simple matter.
    Sutter is in a hurry.
    15
    In the roadsteads, there was not a single vessel destined for the ports of Mexico, nor one that was willing to take him to San Diego. There was only a Russian ship, ready to sail for Sitka, a Russian trading centre far up the American coast, at the northern extremity of the Pacific.
    The Russians, fanning out from Kamtchatka, were setting up numerous trading posts along the American coast. With the constant expansion of their empire, they were coming into collision with the growing power of the United States to the east; to the south, they had already reached the Mexican coast, where they had a number of colonies. Russian schooners plied regularly between Sitka and Mexico.
    Sutter does not hesitate, he embarks at once and sails as far north as the Aleutian Islands. Moreover, he gets on very well with the Russians; he establishes a rapport with them and assures himself of their support. But he has no intention of spending the rest of his life in Sitka. He leaves at the first opportunity.
    Aboard a swift schooner, he travels south, hugging the coast of Alaska, crossing the whaling-grounds, passing the mouth of the Oregon - well out to sea this time - moving further and