10 Sir ALEXANDER MAcKENZIE

widely a far more disastrous scourge swept
almost the whole North-West. Small-pox
broke out, and, passing from tribe to tribe,
in many districts wiped out more than half
the native population.

This disaster, together with the quarrels
of the traders, made some organization of the
fur-trade necessary to avert its extinction.
Free competition had plunged the country
into anarchy; control of some sort was essen-
tial. Probably the best course would have
been for the British government, unwilling to
assume control itself, to have granted, under
strict conditions, a monopoly of the trade to
a strong company; this could have kept its
agents under regulation, controlled their inter-
course with the Indians, and prohibited the
use of spirits. But it was an age of hatred for
monopolies, and the charter of the Hudson’s
Bay Company stood in the way. In conse-
quence the trade remained free to all comers
in theory; but in fact the Canadian traders
joined together in a voluntary organization
which for forty years virtually controlled and
governed a great part of north - western