MackEnzir’s Granp Desicn I4I

ners, his decision to withdraw. A veteran
trader wrote: ‘The old North West Com-
pany is all in the hands of McTavish Fro-
bisher, and Mackenzie is out. The latter
went off in a pet. The cause as far as I can
learn was who should be the first—McTavish
or Mackenzie, and as there could not be two
Czsars in Rome, one must remove.” ‘The
wintering partners did their best to retain
him, resolving unanimously, to McTiavish’s
intense annoyance, that, since Mackenzie
alone had their confidence, they could not dis-
pense with his services. But he had plans of
his own, and he refused to stay. He wanted
to publish his journal and to push his grand
design. He would consent no longer to
remain in a position where he felt himself
deprived of freedom.

He went that autumn to England. Before
he left Canada he may have come to some
arrangement with the opposition, for he wrote
to Roderick McKenzie in January, 1800, from
London, urging him to cut loose from the
North West Company and to unite with him.
This Roderick refused to do, as he had been