142 Str ALEXANDER MACKENZIE

appointed an agent in Mackenzie’s own place;
there seems in consequence to have been a
quarrel between the cousins which lasted for
some years. Mackenzie was back in Montreal
in the summer of 1800, but he soon returned
to England, and probably remained there
until March, 1802, seeing his book through the
press. In the preface he is at pains to explain
the long delay in publication. This had been
ascribed by Weld, an English visitor to Mon-
treal in 1796, to a disagreement with ‘‘a noble
lord high in the confidence of the govern-
ment,” and by others to commercial secrecy.
Mackenzie says that the delay was due simply
to his busy life since 1794, together with his
diffidence as an author, “being much better
calculated to perform the voyages, arduous
as they might be, than to write an account of
them.”

The book came out late in 1801, a large
and handsome quarto volume of about 550
pages, illustrated by three admirable maps and
a fine engraving of the author from a portrait
by the famous artist Lawrence. The journal
of the voyages is prefaced by a history of the