Earuy Lire 9

their treatment of the Indians or of each
other. Even murder could not be punished,
because there was no court before which the
offender could be tried. As the trade ex-
panded, competition became keener and the
methods of the traders more unscrupulous.
When two or three traders competed in the
same area the furs went to the highest bidder,
and the highest bidder was generally he who
consented to ply the Indians most thoroughly
with liquor. All accounts are agreed as to
the terrible effects of liquor on the Indians;
as Mackenzie wrote, they were “great sufferers
from their communication with the subjects of
civilized nations.”” ‘The traders resorted to
every means, not stopping short of murder, to
secure the furs, persuading the Indians to
break their pledges to rival traders and to the
Hudson’s Bay Company. Unrestricted com-
petition not only debauched the natives, but
damaged the trade and extinguished such
good opinion as the Indians had of the white
strangers. Retribution threatened in an
Indian rising in 1780, in which a few white
men were killed; but before this had spread

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