OF THE FUR TRADE. vii

For fome time after the conqueft of Canada, this trade was fufpended,
which muft have been very advantageous to the Hudfon’s Bay Com-
pany, as al] the inhabitants to the Weltward of Lake Superior, were
obliged to go to them for fuch articles as their habitual ufe had rendered
neceflary. Some of the Canadians who had lived long with them, and
were become attached to a favage life, accompanied them thither annually,
till mercantile adventurers again appeared from their own country, after
an interval of feveral years, owing, as I fuppofe, to an ignorance of the
country in the conquerors, and their want of commercial confidence in
the conquered. There were, indeed, other difcouragements, fuch as
the immenfe length of the journey neceflary to reach the limits beyond
which this commerce muft begin; the rifk of property; the expences
attending fuch a long tranfport; and an ignorance of the language of
thofe who, from their experience, muft be neceflarily employed as the
intermediate agents between them and the natives. But, notwithftand-
ing thefe difficulties, the trade, by degrees, began to {pread over the dif-
ferent parts to which it had been carried by the French, though at a
great rifk of the lives, as well as the property, of their new poffeffors,.
for the natives had been taught by their former allies to entertain hoftile
difpofitions towards the Englifh, from their having been in alliance with
their natural enemies the Iroquois; and there were not wanting a {ufficient
number of difcontented, difappointed people to keep alive {uch a notion;
fo that fora long time they were confidered and treated as objects of
hoftility. To prove this difpofition of the Indians, we have only to
refer to the conduét of Pontiac, at Detroit, and the furprife and taking

of Michilimakinac, about this period.

Hence