OF THE FUR TRADE, &c. xi

Mr. James Finlay was the firft who followed Mr. Curry’s example,
and with the fame number of canoes, arrived, in the courfe of the next
feafon, at Nipawee, the laft of the French fettlements on the bank of
the Safkatchiwine River, in latitude nearly 43+ North, and longitude
103 Welt: he found the good fortune, as he followed, in every refpedt,

the example, of his predeceflor.

As may be fuppofed, there were now people enough ready to replace
them, and the trade was purfued with fuch avidity, and irregularity, that
in a few years it became the reverfe of what it ought to have been. An
animated competition prevailed, and the contending parties carried the
trade beyond the French limits, though with no benefit to themfelves or
neighbours, the Hudfon’s-Bay Company; who in the year 1774, and
not till then, thought proper to move from home to the Ealt bank of
Sturgeon Lake, in latitude 53. 56. North, and longitude 102. 15. Weft,
and became more jealous of their fellow fubjeéts; and, perhaps, with
more caufe, than they had been of thofe of France. From this period
to the prefent time, they have been following the Canadians to their
different eftablifhments, while, on the contrary, there is not a folitary
inflance that the Canadians have followed them; and there are many
trading pofts which they have not yet attained. This, however, will no
longer be a myftery when the nature and policy of the Hudfon’s-Bay
Company is compared with that which has been purfued by their rivals

in this trade.—But to return to my fubjeét.

This competition, which has been already mentioned, gave a fatal
blow to the trade from Canada, and,'with other incidental caufes, in my

b opinion,