Our sensations on being once more in a comfortable dwelling after the series of hardships and miseries we had experienced may be imagined.  Our first act was again to return our grateful praises to the Almighty for the manifold instances of His mercy towards us.  Having found here some articles which Mr. Back had sent across from Moose-Deer Island I determined on awaiting the arrival of Akaitcho and his party in order to present these to them and to assure them of the promised reward as soon as it could possibly be procured.

In the afternoon of the 14th Akaitcho with his whole band came to the fort.  He smoked his customary pipe and made an address to Mr. Weeks in the hall previous to his coming into the room in which Dr. Richardson and I were.  We discovered at the commencement of his speech to us that he had been informed that our expected supplies had not come.  He spoke of this circumstance as a disappointment indeed sufficiently severe to himself, to whom his band looked up for the protection of their interests, but without attaching any blame to us.  “The world goes badly,” he said “all are poor; you are poor, the traders appear to be poor, I and my party are poor likewise, and since the goods have not come in we cannot have them.  I do not regret having supplied you with provisions for a Copper Indian can never permit white men to suffer from want of food on his lands without flying to their aid.  I trust however that we shall, as you say, receive what is due next autumn, and at all events,” he added in a tone of good humour, “it is the first time that the white people have been indebted to the Copper Indians.”  We assured him the supplies should certainly be sent to him by the autumn if not before.  He then cheerfully received the small present we made to himself and, although we could give a few things only to those who had been most active in our service, the others who perhaps thought themselves equally deserving did not murmur at being left out in the distribution.  Akaitcho afterwards expressed a strong desire that we should represent the character of his nation in a favourable light to our countrymen.  “I know,” he said, “you write down every occurrence in your books, but probably you have only noticed the bad things we have said and done, and have omitted the good.”  In the course of the desultory conversation which ensued he said that he had been always told by us to consider the traders in the same light as ourselves, and that for his part he looked upon both as equally respectable.  This assurance, made in the presence of Mr. Weeks, was particularly gratifying to us as it completely disproved the defence that had been set up respecting the injurious reports circulated against us amongst the Indians in the spring, namely that they were in retaliation for our endeavours to lower the traders in the eyes of the Indians.  I take this opportunity of stating my opinion that Mr. Weeks, in spreading these reports, was actuated by a mistaken idea that he was serving