OF THE FUR TRADE, &c. XIX

they met their agents at the Grande Portage, with their canoes laden
with rich furs from the different parts of. that immenfe traét of country.
But this fatisfaQion was not to be enjoyed without fome interruption;
and they were mortified to find that Mr. Pangman had prevailed on
Meflrs. Gregory and Macleod to join him, and give him their fupport
in the bufinefs, though deferted by Mr. Pond, who accepted the terms

offered by his former affociates.

In the counting houfe of Mr. Gregory I had been five years; and at
this period had left him, with a fmall adventure of goods, with which
he had entrufted me, to feek my fortune at Detroit. He, without
any folicitation on my part, had procured an infertion in the agree-
ment, that I fhould be admitted a partner in this bufinels, on con-
dition that I would proceed to the Indian country in the following
{pring, 1785. His partner came to Detroit to make me fuch a propo-
~fition. I readily affented to it, and immediately proceeded to the
Grande Portage, where I joined my affociates. |

We now found that independent of the natural difficulties of the
undertaking, we fhould have to encounter every other which they, who
were already in poffeflion of the trade of the country, could throw in
our way, and which their circumftances enabled them to do. Nor did
they doubt, from their own fuperior experience, as well as that of their
clerks and men, with their local knowledge of the country and its
inhabitants, that they fhould foon compel us to leave the coun-
try to them. The event, however, did not juftify their expecta-
tions; for, after the fevereft flruggle ever known in that part of the

c2 world,