OF THE FUR TRADE; &c. eee

has been a military eftablifhment fince the upper pofls were given up to
the Americans in the year 1794; and is the Weiternmoft military
pofition which we have in this country. It is a place of no trade, and
the greater part, if not the whole of the Indians, come here for no other
purpofe but to receive the prefents which our government annually
allows them, They are from the American territory (except about
thirty families, who are the inhabitants of the lake from the French river,
and of the Algonquin nation) and trade in their peltries, as they ufed
formerly to do at Michilimakinac, but principally with Britifh fubjetts.
The Americans pay them very little attention, and tell them that they
keep poffeflion of their country by right of conqueft: that, as their
brothers, they will be friends with them while they deferve it; and that
their traders will bring them every kind of goods they Feaulls which
oe may teen tae their induftry.

~~ Our See dee treat them in a very different manner, and, under the
charaéter of the reprefentatives of their father; (which parental title the
natives give to his prefent Majefty, the common father of all his people)
prefent them with fuch things as the actual {tate of their flores will

allow.

How far this condu@, if continued, may, at a future exigency, keep
thefe people in our intereft, if they are even worthy of it, is not an object
of my prefent confideration: at the fame time, I cannot avoid exprel-
fing my perfect conviCtion, that it would not be of the leafl advantage
to our prefent or future commerce in that country, or to the people

themfelves; as it only tends to keep many of them in a ftate of idlenels
about