Albatros was an American-owned ship which brought to W. Price Hunt, partner of the Pacific Fur Company, at its Astoria post, news of the War of 1812. Hunt had left Astoria on August 4, 1812 on a trading mission to Russia, where his ship Beaver was damaged by a storm in the Bering Sea. Beaver's captain felt it was too dangerous to enter the Columbia River and return to Astoria, so the ship sailed for the Sandwich Islands for repairs. Hunt was to stay there until the annual Astoria resupply ship stopped there, on which he could return to Astoria. Hunt was stranded there from the end of 1812 awaiting the supply ship which, he later learned, had wrecked near the islands.