bring much needed provisions. By cooperating with Russian colonial authorities to strengthen their material presence in Russian America, it was hoped by Astor to stop the NWC or any other British presence to be established upon the Pacific Coast. A tentative agreement for merchant vessels owned by Astor to ship furs gathered in Russian America into the Qing Empire was signed in 1812. While intended to gain control of the regional fur trade, the Pacific Fur Company floundered in the War of 1812. The possibility of an occupation by the Royal Navy forced the sale of all company assets across the Oregon Country. This was formalized on 23 October 1813 with the raising of the Union Jack at Fort Astoria. On 30 November HMS Racoon arrived at the Columbia River and in honor of George III of the United Kingdom, Fort Astoria was renamed Fort George. After the forced merger in 1821 of the North West Company into their long time rivals, the Hudson's Bay Company, in a short time the HBC controlled the majority of the fur trade across the Pacific Northwest. This was done in a manner that "the Americans were forced to acknowledge that Astor's dream" of a multi-continent economic web "had been realized... by his enterprising and far-sighted competitors." South West Company The South West Company handled the Midwestern and Southwestern fur trade. In the Midwest, it also competed with regional companies along the upper Missouri, upper Mississippi, Platte rivers and as far south as New Mexico. These competitors were mostly companies based in Saint Louis, Missouri, which were active in the fur trade as well as in trade of general merchandise, and which were typically founded and led by French colonial families, such as Pratte, Chouteau, Cabanne and Ceran St. Vrain amongst the most prominent, both before and after the Louisiana Purchase or Astor setting up his company. Competition in the wilderness areas between men of the companies sometimes erupted into physical violence and outright attacks. In 1834, the American Fur Company sold its Western Division to Bernard Pratte and Pierre Chouteau Jr., with whom they had been already cooperating, with the latter continuing the business as Pratte, Chouteau & Company. Later history For a time, it seemed that the company had been destroyed but, following the war, the United States passed a law excluding foreign traders from operating on U.S. territory. This freed the