katchewan river, in 53° north latitude and longitude 102° west."*

"It may be proper," says McKenzie, "to observe that the French had two settlements upon the Saskatchewan long before and at the conquest of Canada; the first at the Pasquia, near Carrot river, and the other at Nipawi, where they had agricultural instruments and wheel carriages, marks of both being found about these establishments, where the soil is excellent." All the posts in the north-west were under the control of the Governor of Canada, and were recognized as being within its limits.

In the year 1746, when a number of French traders had been murdered by the Indians, Gallissoniere (the Governor) suggests the propriety of abandoning the northern and western posts, so as to compel the Indians "to come to Michilimackinac, and even to Montreal, in search of what they want." He informs Lieutenant St. Pierre that he is at liberty to determine, according to circumstances, as to whether the different licenses to the northern posts shall be carried into execution or not. They were; and the only reason for not undertaking to coerce the Indians in the manner suggested was, that the trade of the north-west would pass into the hands of the English at Hudson's Bay.‡

Between the period of the fall of Quebec, and the year 1766, the trade by the lakes and the St. Lawrence was greatly interrupted. Few, if any, of the old "commanders" remained. They were men of education, with strong national feeling, and, for the most part, officers of the army; and they withdrew, when New France became a British possession.||

Carver, who visited the country north of Lake Superior, in 1767, says that, on the waters which fall into Lake Winnipeg,

* History of the Fur Trade, pp. v. vi. Sir A. McKenzie, 1789-93.

† Ibid. p. lxxiii. Nipawi is in 104° west longitude, and seems to have been established by Captain de la Corne, some time prior to 1746. See Appendix L.

See extracts from N. Y. Hist. Doc., appendix M.

See Sir W. Johnson to Lords of Trade; also, extracts from Sir A. McKenzie's History of the Fur Trade.

"the neighbouring nations take great numbers of excellent furs, some of these they carry to the factories and settlements belonging to Hudson's Bay Company, situated above the entrance of the Bourbon river; but this they do with reluctance on several accounts; for some of the Assinipoils and Killistinoes, who usually traded with the Company's servants, told me that, if they could be sure of a constant supply of goods from Michilimackinac, they would not trade anywhere else.'

The Canadians who had lived long with the Indians continued to reside among them after the conquest. They had done so from the time of Du Lhut. They enjoyed the confidence of the tribes among whom they dwelt. There had always been many border men in the old colonies, who engaged in the Indian trade. In the year 1746 eight of them, led by a Canadian, succeeded in passing from the Ohio to north shore of Lake Superior.† They were, however, generally ignorant of the north-west; and they knew, after Canada became a dependency of England, by recent experience, that the former allies of the Indians had taught them to cherish feelings of hatred to Englishmen. When, then, the English began to engage in the fur trade of the west, they employed the coureurs des bois, as their intermediate agents, in dealing with the Indians. The trade, by the way of the lakes, was rapidly resuscitated, and extended from the Missouri river to the Polar sea, and west to the Rocky Mountains.§ One of the

* See extracts from Carver's Travels, Appendix L.

+ See extracts from New York Hist., Doc., appendix M.

‡ Parkman's war of Pontiac, and Paris documents in the N. Y. Hist., Doc. S" "The northern Indians, by annually visiting their southern friends, the Athapascow Indians have contracted the small pox-which has carried off nine-tenths of them, particularly those people who compose the trade at Churchill Factory. The few survivors follow the example of their southern neighbours and trade with the Canadians, who are settled in the heart of the Athapascow country. I was informed by some northern Indians that the few who remain of the Copper Tribe have found their way to one of the Canadian houses in the Athapascow Indians' country, where they get supplied with everything at less, or about half the price they were formerly obliged to give; so

English traders, Thomas Curry, in the autumn of 1766, accompanied by several guides and interpreters, went to Fort Bourbon, on the Saskatchewan, and returned after a most fortunate adventure, the following spring.*

Within a very short period of time, an animated competition prevailed among the fur traders, and occasional conflicts ensued which pointed to the necessity of union.†

In 1783, the North-West Company was formed at Montreal, with a capital which was divided into sixteen shares, but no portion of it was deposited. In the spring of the following year, two of the shareholders went to the Grand Portage, near the head of Lake Superior, for the purpose of seeing the principal traders, whom it was proposed to embrace in the company. The arrangements which had been made, were agreed to, and confirmed by all, except a Mr. Pond, who was not satisfied with the share allotted him. He and a Mr. Pangman, who seems to have been overlooked, came to Montreal to organize another company, intending, if successful, to return again to the north-west for the purpose of superintending the trade. Pond united with the first company. But Pangman, being joined by Gregory, McLeod and McKenzie, formed a separate organization. These rival companies soon came into conflict, and Sir A. McKenzie, says,—“ After the murder of one of our partners and the laming of another, and the narrow escape of one of the clerks, who received a bullet through his powder horn in the execution of his duty, a union of the two Companies was effected in July, 1787." The X. Y. Company which had several forts, and for a time carried on an extensive trade in the north-west, united with the North-West

that the few surviving northern Indians, as well as the Hudson's Bay Company have now lost every shadow of any future trade from that quarter, unless the Company will establish a settlement within the Athapascow country and undersell the Canadians."Hearne's Journal, 1771.

*History of the Fur Trade-P. VIII. Sir A. McKenzie.

+ McKenzie's History of the Fur Trade.

History of the Fur Trade, p. LIII. Sir A. McK.

Company in 1803.* "The Hudson's Bay Company, who, in the year 1774, and not till then, thought proper to move from home to the east bank of Sturgeon lake, in latitude 53° 56' north, and longitude 102° 15' west, and became more jealous of their fellow subjects, and perhaps with more cause, than they had been of those of France. From this period to the present time, they have been following the Canadians to their different establishments, while, on the contrary, there is not a solitary instance that the Canadians have followed them; and there are many trading posts which they have not yet attained. This, however, will no longer be a mystery, when the nature and policy of the Hudson's Bay Company is compared with that which has been pursued by their rivals in the trade." There seems to have been no misunderstandings or conflicts between the two Companies until after the arrival of Lord Selkirk. The North-West Company extended their posts beyond the Rocky Mountains, and upwards of three hundred Canadians were employed in carrying on a traffic over the country between California and Russian America.§

At some seasons of the year not less than three thousand traders were assembled at Fort William, which had become the chief entrepôt of the North-West Fur Trade.

The Hudson's Bay Company did not enter the Valley of the Saskatchewan before the year 1780, nor the Valley of the Red river before 1805. || They followed the North-West

* A Journal of fifteen years' residence among the Indians. Daniel Harmon. This does not agree with the statement of Sir E. Ellice, before the Committee of the House of Commons, 1857. He says these Companies remained separate until both united with the H. B. Company. Question 5776.

It is probable he had partly forgotten the circumstances.

+ History of the Fur Trade, p. IX. Sir A. McK.

Harmon's Journal.

§"Occurrences in North America," p. 125. This book was written by the Right Hon. Edward Ellice and Wm. McGillivray. mittee of House of Commons, enquiring into tion 5992.

See statement of Ellice before Comaffairs of H. B. Company, 1857. Ques

McKenzie's History of the Fur Trade. Harmon's Journal. Testimony of Mc Donell and Dawson before a Committee of the Legislative Assembly of Canada, 1857.

Company as they extended their posts to the north and west, and for a time the traders of the two companies remained on the most friendly terms. With the accession of Lord Selkirk to the head of the H. B. Company's affairs, a policy of violence and lawlessness was adopted.*

The period from 1811 to 1820 was one of conflict between the North-West and Hudson's Bay Companies. A grant was made of several thousand square miles to Lord Selkirk by the Hudson's Bay Company in the Red river district, six years after that company first entered that part of the country, and one hundred and forty years after they had obtained their charter.

Lord Selkirk, acting in the interests of the Hudson's Bay Company, at once set to work to expel the Canadian traders. Many of their posts and forts were taken, and some of them destroyed. Their supplies were seized. Forcible possession was taken of their letters and correspondence, and an attack was made upon a band of their traders, in which the people of the Hudson's Bay Company were defeated and upwards of twenty lives were sacrificed. Representations were made, by leading partners of the North-West Company, both to the Imperial and Canadian Governments, of the actual condition of affairs, in which the conduct of Lord Selkirk and his agents was denounced, and the pretensions to exclusive possession denied.† On the 12th of February, 1817, Earl Bathurst addressed a despatch to the Governor General, in which he said :-"You will also require, under similar penalties, the restitution of all forts, buildings, or trading stations, with the property which they contain, which may have been seized or taken possession of by either party, to the party who originally established or constructed the same, and who were possessed of them previous to the recent disputes between the two Companies."

*The various places where these companies had forts or other posts are named in Harmon's Journal.

+ Occurrences in North America, 1817.