Montreal and bought out all the posts and factories of that company, situated in the north-west, which were south of the lines.  With these posts, the factors, trading clerks, and men were, as a matter of course, cast on the patronage and employment of that eminent German furrier.  That he might cover their employment, he sent an agent from Montreal into Vermont to engage enterprising young men, in whose names the licenses could be taken out.  He furnished the entire capital for the trade, and sent agents, in the persons of two enterprising young Scotch gentlemen, from Montreal and New York to Michilimackinack, to manage the business.  This new arrangement took the popular name of the American Fur Company.  In other respects, except those related, the mode of transacting the trade, and the real actors therein, remained very much as they were.  American lads, whose names were inscribed in the licenses at Michilimackinack, as principals, went inland in reality to learn the business and the language; the engagees, or boatmen, who were chiefly Canadians or metifs, were bonded for, in five hundred dollars each.  In this condition, I found things on my arrival here.  The very thin diffusion of American feeling or principle in both the traders and the Indians, so far as I have seen them, renders it a matter of no little difficulty to supervise this business, and it has required perpetual activity in examining the boats and outfits of the traders who have received their licenses at Mackinack, to search their packages, to detect contraband goods, i.e. ardent spirits, and grant licenses, passports, and permits to those who have applied to me.  To me it seems that the whole old resident population of the frontiers, together with the new accessions to it, in the shape of petty dealers of all sorts, are determined to have the Indians’ furs, at any rate, whether these poor red men live or die; and many of the dealers who profess to obey the laws wish to get legally inland only that they may do as they please, law or no law, after they have passed the flag-staff of Sainte Marie’s.  There may be, and I trust there are, higher motives in some persons, but they have not passed this way, to my knowledge, the present season.  I detected one scamp, a fellow named Gaulthier, who had carried by, and secreted above the portage, no less than five large kegs of whisky and high wines on a small invoice, but a few days after my arrival.  It will require vigilance and firmness, and yet mildness, to secure anything like a faithful performance of the duties committed to me on a remote frontier, and with very little means of action beyond the precincts of the post, and this depends much on the moral influence on the Indian mind of the military element of power.