When Isaac Allerton resigned from Plymouth's fur sales company in 1630, he left the others with a financial mess.
This original Mayflower passenger, and the fifth man to sign the Mayflower Compact, had not used the proceeds from fur sales to repay and cover the colony's expenses. Instead, he chose a path that served his own interests.
He charged inflated prices when supplying contractors, not only falsified the accounts, and had a number of unexplained personnel and expenses. He squandered nearly all the profits from fur sales, while the contractors' unpaid debts more than doubled. The entire colony had been kept in the dark by him.
After Allerton left, the contractors hired a new accountant to oversee every business expense. They desperately hoped their fortunes would improve, because French incursions from the north and competition from the Dutch to the southwest had cut off their steady access to high-quality beaver pelts.
The sixth commandment of the Ten Commandments forbade murder, let alone murder for beavers. But if people knew how enormous the profits of the fur trade were, perhaps those who condemned it would not think so anymore. A man used thirteen gallons of corn seed, costing 6 shillings and 8 pence, and traded the harvested crop with Indians for beaver pelts worth 327 pounds. The profit margin was nearly 1,000 percent.
British merchants could trade commonplace European goods at trading posts—cloth, kettles, beads, mirrors, axes, pots, and the like—for furs that were highly valuable in Europe. To compete with the British for supplies and attract Native Americans, the French offered gunpowder and firearms, and were willing to travel great distances in search of furs.
Sometimes the French lived among Native Americans and even intermarried with them. In short, they were like one people, which won the French greater affection