We now informed him that we were provided with instruments by which we could ascertain the state of the air and water and that we did not imagine the winter to be so near as he supposed; however we promised to return on discovering the first change in the season.  He was also told that, all the baggage being left behind, our canoes would now of course travel infinitely more expeditiously than anything he had hitherto witnessed.  Akaitcho appeared to feel hurt that we should continue to press the matter further and answered with some warmth:  “Well, I have said everything I can urge to dissuade you from going on this service on which it seems you wish to sacrifice your own lives as well as the Indians who might attend you:  however if after all I have said you are determined to go some of my young men shall join the party because it shall not be said that we permitted you to die alone after having brought you hither; but from the moment they embark in the canoes I and my relatives shall lament them as dead.”

We could only reply to this forcible appeal by assuring him and the Indians who were seated around him that we felt the most anxious solicitude for the safety of every individual and that it was far from our intention to proceed without considering every argument for and against the proposed journey.

We next informed him that it would be very desirable to see the river at any rate, that we might give some positive information about its situation and size in our next letters to the Great Chief; and that we were very anxious to get on its banks for the purpose of observing an eclipse of the sun which we described to him and said would happen in a few days.  He received this communication with more temper than the preceding, though he immediately assigned as a reason for his declining to go that “the Indians must now procure a sufficient quantity of deer-skins for winter clothing for themselves, and dresses for the Canadians who would need them if they had to travel in the winter.”  Finding him so averse to proceed and feeling at the same time how essential his continuance with us was, not only to our future success but even to our existence during the winter, I closed the conversation here, intending to propose to him next morning some modification of the plan which might meet his approbation.  Soon after we were gone however he informed Mr. Wentzel, with whom he was in the habit of speaking confidentially, that, as his advice was neglected, his presence was useless and he should therefore return to Fort Providence with his hunters after he had collected some winter provision for us.  Mr. Wentzel having reported this to me the night was passed in great anxiety and, after weighing all the arguments that presented themselves to my mind, I came reluctantly to the determination of relinquishing the intention of going any distance down the river this season.  I had considered that, could we ascertain what were the impediments to the navigation