38 Sir ALEXANDER MACKENZIE

carry on that work of exploration which was
a condition of its charter. Large political
questions were involved; the sovereignty of
the Pacific coast was claimed by both the
Spanish and the Russians; and the maritime
fur-trade, with the regal pelt of the sea-otter
as its prize, was beginning to bring British
vessels round Cape Horn to these remote
waters. In 1768 Carleton, the governor of
Canada, greatly under-estimating the diffi-
culty of the task, had recommended the
despatch of an expedition by land to the
Pacific. In 1784 the North West Company
had asked for a monopoly of the western trade
in consideration of its intention to explore the
whole western territory. After Mackenzie
had set out on his first journey, the Hudson’s
Bay Company was urged in England to
despatch a well-equipped party. Yet the
riddle was solved and the journey made, not
by an expedition fostered by the government
or by a powerful company, but by the effort
of one man acting in isolation. Never in the
annals of exploration have greater results