ments; and to procure further supplies of skins, the Indians were encouraged to penetrate into the interior, generally accompanied by some of the Canadians, who carried out small stocks of European goods, which they peddled among the Indians, bringing back rich returns of furs, and inducing the Indians themselves to resort to the settlements for the purpose of trade. These coureurs des bois, as the Canadian traders were called, soon acquired a fondness for the life of the woods, and fell into great licentiousness of manners, equally injurious to the Indians and to themselves; in consequence of which, and by reason of the remonstrances and representations of the French missionaries, who were untiring, but, like other missionaries in North America, quite unsuccessful, in their efforts to Christianize effectually and civilize the Indians, the government of Canada adopted the regulation of allowing no person to go on these trading expeditions without a permit; and at length, for the preservation of order and other objects, established military posts, at the confluence of the large lakes. Men of a better class also began to prosecute and superintend the trade in the Indian country in person; and had penetrated as far west as the river Saskatcheuine, beyond Lake Winnipek, at the time of the conquest of Quebec by the English. Much of this trade, it will be perceived, was within the limits of the Hudson's Bay Company's territory, which company had the trading posts of Fort Churchill and York Fort on the waters of Hudson's Bay to the north of Lake Winnipek, but no establishment in the interior of the country, its enterprise having always fallen much short of its extravagant pretensions.

For a few years after the peace of 1763, the fur trade from Montreal was suspended, and the Indians were obliged to deal with the Hudson's Bay Company almost exclusively; but, in 1766, English (or rather Scottish) merchants from Upper Canada, began to engage in the business, and established a post and dépôt at Michilimackinac, which continued for a long time to be the great resort of the trade, from which it spread out in all directions beyond Lake Superior, on the upper waters of the Mississippi, and so north to Lake Winnipek, and the Saskatcheuine, and Lake Athabasca. The first great advance beyond Lake Winnipek was made by Mr. Joseph Frobisher, in 1775; and the next by Mr. Pond to Athabasca Lake, in 1778, near which Fort Chepe

wyan was established. At length, in 1783, in order to systematize the trade, and prevent mutual conflict, and balance the power and resources of the Hudson's Bay Company, the principal persons, engaged in the business from Canada, formed a junction of interests under the name of the Northwest Company, having its head-quarters at Montreal, and the superior management of its affairs being chiefly intrusted to Messrs. Benjamin and Joseph Frobisher and Mr. Simon McTavish. This was not an incorporated company, but merely a commercial partnership; and from time to time, as other enterprising individuals manifested a disposition to engage in the trade, they were received into the Company by the creation of new shares; the shares being unequally divided between different individuals, some of whom were engaged in the importation of the European goods necessary for the business, and in the exportation of the proceeds, and the supply of capital, and others in actual trade at the interior posts or among the Indians. Of this company Mackenzie became, in 1787, an associate; and under its auspices made his two great voyages, first to the Arctic Sea, and afterwards to the Pacific.*

Mackenzie embarked at Fort Chepewyan, in latitude 58° 40' and longitude 110° 30', on the Lake of the Hills, the 3d of June, 1789, and proceeded by the way of Slave Lake, and a river since called Mackenzie's River, to the Arctic Sea in latitude 69° and longitude 135°, and from thence returned by the same way to Fort Chepewyan, after an absence of a hundred and two days; having thus discovered the sea at a point about half way between Icy Cape above Behring's Straits, and the mouth of Coppermine River, where it was seen by Hearne, in 1771.†

Again he embarked at Fort Chepewyan, the 10th of October, 1792, and this time proceeded west by the Unjigah or Peace River, ascending that river by canoes, to the Rocky Mountains, which he struck in latitude 56°, and crossed in latitude 54°; and, after successive journeys of three or four days among the rapids and streamlets of the summit-level, at length embarked on a great navigable river flowing towards the West. This, it appears, was the Tacoutche Tesse, which reaches the sea just north of latitude 49°, in the sound between Qua

* Mackenzie's Voyages, Introduction.

Ibid. Vol. I.

dra's Island and the mainland. After proceeding some time on this river, and learning from the Indians that it ran a long, southerly course before gaining the sea, Mackenzie determined to proceed westwardly by land, and for this purpose reascended the river some distance to the point he had pitched upon for the commencement of his land journey. After a march of thirteen days, he struck a rapid stream, called Salmon River, on which he again embarked, and thus, on the 20th of July, 1792, reached the Pacific Ocean near the place called, by Vancouver, King's Island, in latitude 52°, to the north of Queen Charlotte's Sound. Having there accomplished the object of his expedition, he remained on the coast but a few days, and returned, by the same route he had pursued in coming, to Fort Chepewyan, after an absence of eleven months.

In the notice of this voyage given in Lardner's "History of Maritime and Inland Discovery," written apparently without the perusal of Mackenzie's original narrative, it is very erroneously stated (or implied), that he reached the sea at the mouth of the river Tacoutche; the material fact being wholly disregarded, that he left that river far up towards its source, and proceeded by land to the Salmon River, and thence by that to the sea.*

Mackenzie supposed the Tacoutche Tesse to be the Columbia; in which it is now well known he was mistaken.‡ He gives the latitude of the portage on the summit level, where he left the waters of the Peace River, for those which empty into the Pacific. The northernmost branch of the Columbia, in fact, takes its rise in the same neighbourhood; and, after it has run almost due south through nearly four degrees of latitude, and again southerly and westerly three degrees more, it then receives its great southern branch, and the united waters flow west and northwest for about five degrees to the ocean. If Mackenzie had happened to strike one of the sources of the Columbia, and had embarked on that, he would have had a much longer and more arduous journey before him to reach the sea; and he could not so easily have left the Columbia and made for the sea overland,

History of Maritime and Inland Discovery, Vol. III. ch. 12. Mackenzie, &c. Mackenzie's Voyages, Vol. II. P. 284. American State Papers, Vol. IV. p. 381.

because of the great body of intervening waters, which belong to the large river Tacoutche. By striking the northeasternmost branch of the latter.stream, he was enabled to proceed directly west, and then, by a short and comparatively easy land journey, to strike the Salmon River, and so to reach at once the sea. Of course, the great River of the West still remained unexplored, except as it had been entered from its mouth by Gray, Vancouver, and others; and Mackenzie himself adopts for its designation the very name Captain Gray had applied.

But Mackenzie's voyage was of the highest importance. It proved, by actual experiment, the facility of going from sea to sea across the North American Continent, in its broadest part, almost wholly by water, as Carver had suggested. The consequences of this discovery, commercial and political, are exhibited and foreshadowed, as it were, in the concluding paragraphs of Mackenzie's work, as follows;

"The discovery of a passage by sea, northeast or northwest from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, has for many years excited the attention of governments, and encouraged the enterprising spirit of individuals. The non-existence, however, of any such practical passage being at length determined, the practicability of a passage through the continents of Asia and America becomes an object of consideration. The Russians, who first discovered, that along the coasts of Asia no useful or regular navigation existed, opened an interior communication by rivers, &c., and through that long and wide-extended continent, to the strait that separates Asia from America, over which they passed to the adjacent islands and continent of the latter. Our situation, at length, is in some degree similar to theirs ; the non-existence of a practicable passage by sea, and existence of one through the continent, are clearly proved; and it requires only the countenance and support of the British government, to increase in a very ample proportion this national advantage, and secure the trade of that country to its subjects.

"Experience has proved that this trade, from its very nature, cannot be carried on by individuals. A very large capital, or credit, or indeed both, is necessary; and, consequently, an association of men of wealth to direct, with men of enterprise to act, in one common interest, must be formed on such principles, as that, in due time, the latter may succeed the former, in continual and progressive succession.

"The junction of such a commercial association with the Hudson's Bay Company is the important measure which I would

propose; and the trade might be carried on with a very superior degree of advantage, both public and private, under the privilege of their charter, and would prove, in fact, the complete fulfilment of the conditions, on which it was first granted. By enjoying the privilege of the company's charter, though but for a limited period, there are adventurers who would be willing, as they are able, to engage in and carry on the proposed commercial undertaking, as well as to give the most complete and satisfactory security to government for the fulfilment of its contract with the company. It would, at the same time, be equally necessary to add a similar privilege of trade on the Columbia river, and its tributary waters."

By these waters, that discharge themselves into Hudson's Bay, at Fort Nelson, it is proposed to carry on the trade to their source at the head of the Saskatchewine river, which rises in the Rocky Mountains, not eight degrees of longitude from the Pacific Ocean. The Tacoutche or Columbia flows also from the same mountains, and discharges itself in the Pacific, in latitude 46 degrees 20 minutes. Both of them are capable of receiving ships at their mouths, and are navigable throughout for boats."

But, whatever course may be taken from the Atlantic, the Columbia is the line of communication from the Pacific Ocean pointed out by nature, as it is the only navigable river in the whole extent of Vancouver's minute survey of that coast. Its banks, also, form the first level country in all the southern extent of continental coast from Cook's entry, and, consequently, the most northern situation fit for colonization, and suitable for the residence of a civilized people. By opening this intercourse between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and forming regular establishments through the interior, and at both extremes, as well as along the coasts and islands, the entire command of the fur trade of North America might be obtained, from latitude 48 degrees north to the pole; except that portion of it which the Russians have in the Pacific. To this may be added the fishery in both seas, and the markets of the four quarters of the globe. Such would be the field for commercial enterprise ; and incalculable would be the produce of it, when supported by the operations of that credit and capital, which Great Britain so preeminently possesses. Then would this country begin to be remunerated for the expenses it has sustained in discovering and surveying the coast of the Pacific Ocean, which is at present left to American adventurers, who, without regularity VOL. L. No. 106.

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