1787-1808.
Captain Vancouver -- La Pérouse in the Pacific -- The Straits
of Anian -- A Fantastic Episode -- Russian Hunters and Traders
-- The Russian Company -- Dissensions amongst the Northmen --
They send the _Beaver_ to Hudson's Bay -- The Scheme of Mackenzie
a Failure -- A Ferocious Spirit Fostered -- Abandoned
Characters -- A series of Outrages -- The affair at Bad Lake.
When Mackenzie, in July, 1793, reached the Pacific by land from the
east, he had been preceded by sea only three years by Captain George
Vancouver, the discoverer of the British Columbian coast. The same
year Gray, sailing from Boston in 1790, entered the Columbia River
farther south. But the title of Muscovy to the northern coasts had
already been made good by several Russians since Bering's time, and
the Company's charter secured to them the lands drained by the Fraser,
Mackenzie, and Peace rivers, to the west.
[Sidenote: La Pérouse in the Pacific.]
So little, however, was the Russian title recognized for some time,
that when this unfortunate expedition of La Pérouse, with the frigates
_Boussole_ and _Astralabe_, stopped on this coast in 1787, that
doughty destroyer of York and Prince of Wales' Forts did not hesitate
to consider the friendly harbour in latitude 58° 36' as open to
permanent occupation. Describing this harbour, which he named Port des
François, he says that nature seemed to have created at this extremity
of the world a port like that of Toulon, but vaster in plan and
accommodation; and then, considering that it had never been discovered
before, that it was situated thirty-three leagues north-west of
Remedios, the limit of Spanish navigation, about two hundred and
eighty-four leagues from Nootka, and one hundred leagues from Prince
William Sound. The mariner records his judgment that "if the French
Government had any project of a factory on this coast no nation could
have the slightest right to oppose it."
[Illustration: DE L'ISLE'S MAP, 1752.]
Thus was Russia to be coolly dislodged by the French! There is little
doubt but that the Company, judging by its declarations in committee
some years afterwards, would have had something to say in the matter.
But La Pérouse and his frigates sailed farther on in their voyage and
never returned to France. Their fate for a generation remained
unknown, until their shipwrecked hulls were accidentally found on a
desert island in the South Pacific. The unfinished journal of this
zealous admiral had, however, in the meantime been sent by him
overland by way of Kamschatka and Siberia to France, where it was
published by decree of the National Assembly, thus making known his
supposed discovery and his aspirations.
[Sidenote: Spanish claims.]
Spain also had been a claimant. In 1775 Bodega, a Spanish navigator,
seeking new opportunities to plant the Spanish flag, reached a
parallel of 58° on this coast, not far from Sitka; but this supposed
discovery was not followed by any immediate assertion of dominion. The
universal aspiration of Spain had embraced this whole region at a much
earlier day, and shortly after the return of Bodega another enterprise
was equipped to verify the larger claim, being nothing less than the
original title as discoverer of the straits between America and Asia,
and of the conterminous continent under the name of Anian. Indeed, a
Spanish document appeared, which caused a considerable fluttering of
hearts amongst the Adventurers, entitled "Relation of the Discovery of
the Strait of Anian made by me, Captain Lorenzo Ferren Maldonado,"
purporting to be written at the time, although it did not see the
light until 1781, when it immediately became the subject of a memoir
before the French Academy. This narrative of Maldonado has long since
taken its place with that of the celebrated Munchausen.
The whole fantastic episode of Anian's Straits is worthy of mention in
a history of the Company and its lands. There is no doubt of the
existence of early maps bearing straits of that name to the north. On
an interesting map by Zoltieri, bearing the date of 1566, without
latitude or longitude, the western coast of the continent is here
delineated with straits separating it from Asia, not unlike Bering's
Straits in outline and with the name in Italian, Stretto di Anian; and
towards the south the coast possesses a certain conformity to that
which we now know. Below the straits is an indentation corresponding
to Bristol Bay; then a peninsula somewhat broader than Alaska, which
is continued in an elbow of the coast; lower down appear three
islands, not unlike Sitka, Queen Charlotte and Vancouver; and lastly,
to the south appears the peninsula of Lower California. After a time
maps began to record the Straits of Anian; but the substantial
conformity of the early delineation with the reality has always been
somewhat of a mystery.[84]
The foundation of the story of Anian is said to lie in the voyage of
the Portuguese navigator, Caspar de Cortereal, in 1500-1505, who, on
reaching Hudson's Bay in quest of a passage to India, imagined he had
found it, naming his discovery "in honour of two brothers who
accompanied him."
[Sidenote: Russians on the west coast.]
Meanwhile Russian hunters and traders from Okhotsk were extending
their expedition from the north-east coast of Siberia to the
north-west coast of North America. A Russian Government expedition
started from Okhotsk in 1790, under the command of Captain Billings,
an Englishman in the Russian service, and to Captain Taryteheff, one
of the members, are due important researches on the hydrography and
ethnology of these countries. The first attempt at permanent
settlement was due to three Russian traders, Shelekoff and the two
Golikoffs, who fitted out two or three vessels to be sent to "the land
of Alaska, also called America; to islands known or unknown, for the
purpose of trading in furs; of exploring the country and entering into
relations with the inhabitants." Their first expedition started in
1781, and the first settlement was founded on the Island of Kodiak.
The authority of the Russian Government was thus established on this
and the adjacent islands. In 1790, Shelekoff, then residing in
Irkoutsk, sent out a merchant named Baranoff to govern the new
colony.[85]
Thus the knowledge that they were being pressed in on opposite sides
by the Canadian traders on the south and east, and by Russians on the
north and west, reached the Company at the same time. As a matter of
fact, the knowledge of Baranoff's enterprise and the energy with which
it was being prosecuted did not come before the committee until
October, 1794; and it was in that very month that the report of
Mackenzie's journey reached them.
The next few years were devoted to devising and considering schemes to
counteract these two growing competitors--to oppose the further
progress of the Russians on the one hand, and to combat the
North-Westers on the other.
For twenty-seven years Baranoff continued to be the controlling mind
of the new Russian trading enterprise. Shelekoff died in 1795; and his
widow continued the business, and upon combining with the Milnikoff
Company it increased gradually in wealth. The charter of these joint
enterprises, to which the name of the Russian-American Fur Company was
given, was signed in August, 1798, and confirmed at St. Petersburg in
1799. That year witnessed the settlement of New Archangel, on the
island of Sitka.
The consequences of this increased output were not, however, felt in
the fur-markets at Leipsic. Europe was convulsed by war, and Napoleon
had laid an embargo on British goods. The furs, therefore, accumulated
for several years in the stores of the Hudson's Bay Company without
finding a mart.
From 1787 to 1817, for only a portion of which time the Russian
Company existed, the Unalaska district yielded upwards of 2,500,000
seal skins alone. The number of other skins reported at times was
prodigious.
But the time had not come for the Company to actively assert itself in
opposition to the Russians.
It was paying dearly now for its short-sightedness in not availing
itself of the opportunities afforded by the conquest of Canada to
penetrate into its chartered domain. In the second year of the century
the Honourable Adventurers had been obliged to borrow £20,000 from the
Bank of England, hoping that the cessation of war in Europe, and the
quarrels of the rival Montreal traders in North America, would permit
the Company to regain the advantage it had lost. For in the autumn of
1798 the Company had received advices that its prosperous Canadian
rival had taken a new step in the conduct of its affairs.
[Sidenote: Rival factions in the North-West Company.]
Difficulties and dissensions had begun to breed in the ranks of the
Northmen. A few disaffected spirits spoke of secession and carried
their intentions into effect, but the stronger partners were reluctant
to break up an alliance which had proved so prosperous. But in the
closing year, but one of the century, the situation became intolerable
and when the partners met, as was their custom at the Grand Portage,
Mackenzie bluntly told his associates that he had resolved to quit the
Company. He was led to this decision by a personal quarrel between
himself and Simon McTavish, the chief of the North-West Company.
Opposing factions sprang into being, attaching themselves to both
Mackenzie and McTavish, the latter of whom strongly resented the way
in which he was treated at the annual meeting by the partisans of the
former, and each now determined to take his course thenceforward
untrammelled by the other. Mackenzie went to England, where he
published an account of his travels in the north-west and obtained the
honour of knighthood, and in 1801 returned to Canada. Here his friends
flocked about him, and there saw the light of a new organization,
officially entitled the New North-West Company, or Sir Alexander
Mackenzie & Co., but more popularly as the X. Y. Co. The two rival
Canadian associations now put forth all their strength to establish
their commerce in the unknown and unfrequented regions. One of the
old North-West employees, Livingston, who had already, in 1796,
established a post nearly 100 miles north of Slave Lake, undertook to
carry the trade still farther north. But this he was never destined to
accomplish. A few days out on this journey he was confronted by the
aborigines, who slew him and his companions. An expedition to the Bow
River, however, was more successful, and in the midst of many hostile
Indians a trading post was established there. Other proofs of
enterprise on the part of McTavish and his associates were not
wanting.
The dissensions between the two companies so far do not appear to have
had a prejudicial effect on the traffic, for on the 30th October,
1802, Lieutenant Governor Milnes, in a dispatch to Lord Hobart,[86]
gives an account of the flourishing state of the fur-trade which so
far, he says, from diminishing, appears to increase. New tracts of
country had been visited by the merchants employed in this traffic,
which had furnished new sources of supply, a large proportion of the
furs taken in the North-West being brought to Quebec for shipment.[87]
But, perhaps, a policy the most daring was pursued with regard to the
Hudson's Bay Company. It was not expected that either McTavish and his
allies, or the X. Y. concern would long be content to forego the
glory and profit attendant upon warfare at close quarters with the
Chartered Company.
"What is there in their charter," they asked themselves, "which gives
them benefits we cannot enjoy? We shall see."
[Sidenote: The Northmen at Hudson's Bay.]
They provided for a most effectual demonstration. In the spring of
1803, they sent the _Beaver_, a vessel of one hundred and fifty tons,
to Hudson's Bay, with instructions to exploit commerce under the very
guns of the Company's forts. Hardly had the _Beaver_ got under way
than an overland expedition was sent by the old French trading route
of Lakes St. Jean and Mistassini, to the same quarter. The result was
the construction of two posts, one on Charlton Island, and the other
at the mouth of Moose River. The astonishment of the Company's
servants can be imagined, when upon looking out one fine morning, they
beheld a band of swarthy half-breeds, captained by Orkneymen, rearing
premises adjacent to their own, and bidding defiance to the ancient
charter of the Honourable Hudson's Bay Company. They were told by
their superiors not to be alarmed; the scheme of their rivals would
not succeed any more than had those of the Quebec companies who a
century before had sought to penetrate overland to the Bay. The
company could always undersell them then; and it could now, and did.
The confidence of the factors was justified, and the Indians merely
smiled at the Northmen and their goods, bidding them return to their
country, or betake themselves to the west, where the tribes were
ignorant and knew not the value of things. So, after a season or two,
the North-West concern abandoned Moose River and Charlton Island, and
sought other and more fruitful fields in the west.
[Sidenote: The Fishery and Fur Company.]
Mackenzie himself was in London actively engaged in promoting a scheme
of his own. He sought to get the British Government to constrain the
Hudson's Bay Company to grant licenses to a company of British
merchants, to be established in London under the name of "The Fishery
and Fur Company," which company, for the purpose of combining the
fishery in the Pacific with the fur trade of the interior from the
east to the west coasts of the Continent of North America, would at
once "equip whalers in England, and by means of the establishments
already made and in activity at Montreal on the east and advanced
posts and trading houses in the interior towards the west coast, to
which they might extend it and where other establishments to be made
at King George Sound, Nootka Island, under the protection of the
Supreme Government, and on the River Columbia and at Sea Otter Harbour
under the protection of the subordinate Government of these places,
would open and establish a commercial communication through the
Continent of North America between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans to
the incalculable advantage and furtherance both of the Pacific Fishery
of America and American Fur Trade of Great Britain, in part directly
and in part indirectly, through the channel of the possessions and
factories of the East India Company in China," etc., "it being
perfectly understood that none of these maritime or inland
establishments shall be made on territory in the possession of any
other European nation, nor within the limits of the United States of
North America or of the Hudson's Bay Company." The scheme, however,
failed.
The death of McTavish, in 1804, brought about a reunion of the two
rival factions, and the North-West Company became stronger than ever.
They imitated the Chartered Company in establishing several of their
members in London as agents, who purchased the necessary merchandise
and saw it safely shipped, besides attending to the fur imports and
other regular business of the concern.
[Sidenote: Coalition of the North-West and X. Y. Companies.]
After the coalition of the old North-West and the X. Y. concern, and
the consequent suppression of all private adventurers in Canada, the
only rival of the Northmen in the Uplands was the Hudson's Bay
Company. It was alleged that thenceforward the ferocious spirit which
had been fostered among the clerks and servants of the two companies
by six years of continual violence was all turned against the Company.
It was said that not only was a systematic plan formed for driving
their traders out of all valuable beaver companies, but that hopes
were entertained of reducing the Company to so low an ebb as in time
to induce them to make over their chartered rights to their commercial
rival. With this intent, a series of aggressive acts was now begun and
carried on against the servants of the Company.
[Illustration: THE RIVAL TRADERS.]
The Hudson's Bay Company had witnessed the encroachment of the
traders, first French, then English, as well as the establishment and
growth of the North-West association, without taking any active steps
to forcibly restrain them. Many years was the competition carried on
without any violent breach of the peace on either side. Oftentimes
indeed did the rival traders meet in the wilderness at a deserted
camp, or at some remote portage, but they bore no personal enmity in
their hearts. They shook hands, smoked, broke meat together, and
parted--one with his beaver skins to the east, the other to the
north--to Cumberland or York Factory. Doubtless the North-West concern
at the beginning of the century possessed a powerful advantage in the
system of profits and deserved promotion, while the Company's
servants, unstimulated by any hope of additional reward or certain
promotion, was calculated to foster apathy, rather than zeal.
[Sidenote: Murder of Labau.]
It was claimed by the Company that the Northmen employed for their
purposes men of the most abandoned character who, as Sir Alexander
Mackenzie expressed it, "considered the command of their employer as
binding on them, and however wrong or irregular the transaction the
responsibility rested with the principal who directed them." One of
the first instances of collision occurred in the year 1800. In that
year Frederick Schultz, a clerk of the old Company, commanded a post
near Nepigon. Amongst his men was a young lad about nineteen years of
age named Labau, who understood English, and had in the course of the
preceding winter become intimate with the servants of the Hudson's Bay
Company, who occupied a post near the same place. Labau was attracted
to the Company's service and, when the traders on both sides were
preparing to leave their wintering ground, resolved to go down to York
Factory. Intelligence of this having reached Schultz, he sent his
interpreter to order Labau to return to his duty, accompanied by a
reminder that he was in debt to the North-West Company. The young man
responded by offering to remit the money he owed the Company, but
declared that he would not remain any longer in its service. This
answer being reported to Schultz he vehemently declared that if the
scoundrel would not come back willingly he would know what to do with
him. The doughty Northman took his dagger, carefully whetted it, and
having dressed himself in his best attire, went over to the Hudson's
Bay post. Here he found Labau, and asked him in a furious tone whether
he would come with him. The young man, being intimidated, faltered out
an affirmative, but watching his opportunity sought to make his
escape out of the room, but Schultz was too quick for him. He drew his
dagger and aimed a blow which Labau tried in vain to avoid. He was
stabbed in the loin, and expired the same evening. After this exploit,
when Schultz returned to the assembly of the Northmen at the Grand
Portage, he met with an indifferent reception, Labau being rather
popular amongst his fellow-servants. It was, therefore, not thought
advisable to employ Schultz any longer in that quarter, although this
was the only notice taken of the murder. The murderer came down in the
canoes of the North-West concern to Montreal, where he remained at
large and unnoticed for months. He was afterwards taken into the
service of the Company, employed in a different region, and after
several years settled down undisturbed in Lower Canada.
[Illustration: YORK FACTORY.
(_From an old print._)]
There can be no doubt that much of the success of the Northmen was due
to the indiscriminate manner in which they extirpated the animals in
the country, destroying all without distinction, whether young or old,
in season or out of season. The miserable natives, over-awed by the
preparation and power of the strangers, and dreading the resentment of
the Northmen, witnessed this destruction without daring to resist,
although they complained bitterly that their country was wasted as if
it had been overrun by fire. It is well known that the best season for
hunting all the fur-bearing animals is the winter. The fur in summer
is universally of inferior quality, and this, too, is the season when
wild animals rear their young. For both these reasons it seemed
desirable that the hunting should be suspended during the summer
months, and this was effectually procured when all the best hunters,
all the young and active men of the Indian tribes, were engaged in a
distant excursion. There was consequently a material advantage in
requiring them to leave their hunting grounds in summer, and come to
the factories on the coast for a supply of European goods. While this
was the practice, no furs were brought from home but those of prime
quality, and as the beaver and other valuable fur-bearing animals were
protected from injury during the most critical time of the year, the
breed was preserved, and the supply was plentiful. But when the
traders came to the interior, there to remain throughout the year, the
Indians were tempted to conceal their hunts through the season. They
were too improvident to abstain from killing the breeding animals or
their young. The cub was destroyed with the full-grown beaver, and the
consequence might readily have been foreseen. These valuable animals,
formerly so numerous, rapidly approached the point of complete
extermination. It was observed that the district in which they once
abounded, and from which large supplies were formerly obtained, soon
came to produce few or none.
[Sidenote: Collision at Big Fall.]
In autumn, 1806, John Crear, a trader in the service of the Hudson's
Bay Company (also on the establishment of Albany Factory), occupied a
post at a place called Big Fall, near Lake Winipic. One evening a
party of Canadians in two canoes, commanded by Mr. Alexander
MacDonnell, then a clerk of the North-West Company, arrived, and
encamped at a short distance. On the following morning four of Crear's
men set out for their fishing grounds, about a mile off, immediately
after which Mr. MacDonnell came to the house with his men, and
charging Crear with having traded furs with an Indian who was indebted
to the North-West concern, insisted on these furs being given up to
him. On Crear's refusal, MacDonnell's men broke open the warehouse
door. William Plowman, the only servant that remained with Crear,
attempted to prevent them from entering; but one of the Canadians
knocked him down, while another presented a gun at Crear himself.
Although MacDonnell prevented him from firing, the Canadian struck
Crear in the eye with the butt end of his gun, which covered his face
with blood and felled him to the ground. Mr. MacDonnell himself
stabbed Plowman in the arm with a dagger, and gave him a dangerous
wound. The Canadians then rifled the warehouse; the furs, being taken
in summer, were of little value; but they carried off two bags of
flour, a quantity of salt pork and beef, and some dried venison, and
also took away a new canoe belonging to the Hudson's Bay Company. In
the following February MacDonnell sent one of his junior clerks with a
party of men, who again attacked Crear's house, overpowered him, beat
him and his men in the most brutal manner, and carried away a great
number of valuable furs. They also obliged Crear to sign a paper
acknowledging that he had given up the furs voluntarily, which they
extorted with threats of instant death if he should refuse. Mr.
Alexander MacDonnell had lately been promoted to the station of a
partner in the North-West concern.
In the year 1806, Mr. Fidler was sent with a party of eighteen men
from Churchill Factory, to establish a trading post at Isle a la
Crosse, near the borders of the Athabasca country, but within the
territories of the Hudson's Bay Company. He remained there for two
years, sending a detachment of his people to Green Lake and Beaver
River. During the first winter he had some success, but afterwards he
was effectually obstructed. On many former occasions the officers of
the Hudson's Bay Company had attempted to establish a trade in this
place, which is in the centre of a country abounding in beaver, but
they had always been obliged to renounce the attempt. The methods used
with Mr. Fidler may explain the causes of this failure.
Mr. John MacDonnell had been Mr. Fidler's competitor during the early
part of the winter, but (not being inclined to set all principles of
law and justice at defiance) was removed and relieved, first by Mr.
Robert Henry, and then by Mr. John Duncan Campbell. The North-West
concern having been established for many years at Isle a la Crosse
without any competition, had obtained what they call the attachment of
the Indians, that is to say, they had reduced them to such abject
submission that the very sight of a Canadian was sufficient to inspire
them with terror. In order that this salutary awe might suffer no
diminution, the post at Isle a la Crosse was reinforced with an extra
number of Canadians, so that the natives might be effectually
prevented from holding any intercourse with the traders of the
Hudson's Bay Company, and that the appearance of so very superior a
force, ready to overwhelm and destroy him, might deter Mr. Fidler from
any attempt to protect his customers. A watch-house was built close to
his door, so that no Indian could enter unobserved; a party of
professed batteilleurs were stationed here, and employed not only to
watch the natives, but to give every possible annoyance, night and
day, to the servants of the Hudson's Bay Company. Their fire-wood was
stolen, they were perpetually obstructed in hunting for provisions,
the produce of their garden was destroyed, their fishing lines taken
away in the night time, and their nets, on which they chiefly relied
for subsistence, cut to pieces. The ruffians who were posted to watch
Mr. Fidler, proceeded from one act of violence to another, and in
proportion as they found themselves feebly resisted, they grew bolder,
and at length issued a formal mandate that not one of the servants of
the Hudson's Bay Company should stir out of their house, and followed
up this with such examples of severity that Mr. Fidler's men refused
to remain at the post. They were compelled to leave it, and the
Canadians immediately burnt his house to the ground.
[Sidenote: The robbery at Bad Lake.]
A trader, William Corrigal, in the service of the Company, was
stationed, in May, 1806, with a few men at a place called Bad Lake,
not far from Albany Factory. Near this post was another occupied by a
much larger number of men in charge of a partner in the North-West
concern named Haldane. Five of the Canadians in his service watching
their opportunity broke into Corrigal's house about midnight when he
and his men were in bed. The ruffians immediately secured all the
loaded guns and pistols they could find, and one of them seizing the
Company's trader and presenting a pistol at his breast swore to shoot
him if he made any resistance. In the meantime the others rifled the
storehouse and took away furs to the number of 480 beaver. On their
departure Corrigal dressed himself and went immediately to Haldane,
whom he found up, and fully attired, to complain of the conduct of his
servants and to demand that the stolen property be restored. The
answer of the Northman was that "He had come to that country for furs,
and furs he was determined to have." The robbers were permitted to
carry away the stolen peltries to the Grand Portage where they were
sold, and formed part of the returns of the North-West concern that
year. A robbery of the same character took place at Red Lake a little
later in the year. This trading house was also under the charge of
Corrigal, and was forcibly entered by eight of the Northmen, armed
with pistols and knives; under threats to murder the servants of the
Hudson's Bay Company they carried off furs to the amount of fifty
beaver. Not long after this they forcibly broke open the same
warehouse and robbed it of a large quantity of cloth, brandy, tobacco
and ammunition.
[Sidenote: Violence and robbery by the North-West Company.]
In the year 1808 Mr. John Spence, of the Hudson's Bay Company,
commanded a post fitted out from Churchill's Factory at Reindeer Lake,
in the neighbourhood of which there was a station of the North-West
Company commanded by Mr. John Duncan Campbell, one of the partners. In
the course of the spring, William Linklater, in the service of the
Hudson's Bay Company, was sent out to meet some Indians, from whom he
traded a parcel of valuable furs. He was bringing them home on a hand
sleigh, and was at no great distance from the house, when Campbell
came out with a number of men, stopped him, demanded the furs, and on
being refused drew a dagger, with which he cut the traces of the
sledge, while at the same time one of his men took hold of Linklater's
shoes, tripped him up, and made him fall on the ice. The sledge of
furs was then hauled away to the North-West concern's house. Campbell
offered to Mr. Spence to send other furs in exchange for those which
he had thus robbed him of; but they were of very inferior value, and
the latter refused the compromise. The furs were carried away, and no
compensation was ever made.
On a previous occasion, at Isle a la Crosse Lake (in the year 1805),
the same Campbell had attacked two of the servants of the Hudson's Bay
Company, and took a parcel of furs from them in the same way. Some of
the men from the Hudson's Bay House came out to assist their
fellow-servants, but were attacked by superior numbers of the
Canadians, and beaten off, with violence and bloodshed.
FOOTNOTES:
[84] See map, page 246.
[85] To exhibit anew the exaggeration common to the acquisition of new
possessions, I may observe that Shelekoff reported that he had
subjected to the crown of Russia, "fifty thousand men in the Island of
Kodiak alone." But Lisiansky, who took a prominent part in the Russian
Company, remarks, in 1805, that "the population of the island, when
compared with its size, is very small." After the "minutest research"
at that time he found it amounted to only four thousand souls.
[86] Canadian archives.
[87] The tables enclosed in the dispatch show, first, the names and
numbers of the posts occupied in the Indian country (exclusive of the
King's posts), the number of partners, clerks and men employed, the
latitude and longitude of each post being also given. The grand total
shows that there were 117 posts, 20 partners, 161 clerks and
interpreters, 877 common men, in all of a permanent staff 1,058 men,
thus divided: Ninety-five in the territory of the United States from
the south side of Lake Superior to the division of the waters falling
into the Mississippi on the one side and Hudson's Bay on the other;
seventy-six on the waters falling into the St. Lawrence from the
Kaministiquia, and also from the St. Maurice; six hundred and thirty
on the waters falling into Hudson's Bay, and two hundred and
fifty-seven on the waters falling into the North Sea by the Mackenzie
River. Besides these there were eighty or one hundred Canadians and
Iroquois hunters, not servants, ranging free over the country and
about five hundred and forty men employed in canoes on the Ottawa
River. The average duties paid annually on landing in Britain amounted
to upwards of £22,000 sterling and the price paid for the furs
exported from Quebec in 1801, at the London sales, was £371,139 11s.
4d.