of the two Companies to depend more upon the activity of their agents, the knowledge they possess of the motions of the Indians, and the quantity of rum they carry, than upon the liberality of the credits they give, but is also productive of an increasing deterioration of the character of the Indians and will probably ultimately prove destructive to the fur trade itself.  Indeed the evil has already in part recoiled upon the traders; for the Indians, long deceived, have become deceivers in their turn, and not unfrequently, after having incurred a heavy debt at one post, move off to another to play the same game.  In some cases the rival posts have entered into a mutual agreement to trade only with the Indians they have respectively fitted out, but such treaties, being seldom rigidly adhered to, prove a fertile subject for disputes and the differences have been more than once decided by force of arms.  To carry on the contest the two Companies are obliged to employ a great many servants whom they maintain often with much difficulty and always at a considerable expense.*

(Footnote.  As the contending parties have united the evils mentioned in this and the two preceding pages are now in all probability at an end.)

There are thirty men belonging to the Hudson’s Bay Fort at Cumberland and nearly as many women and children.

The inhabitants of the North-West Company’s House are still more numerous.  These large families are fed during the greatest part of the year on fish which are principally procured at Beaver Lake, about fifty miles distant.  The fishery, commencing with the first frosts in autumn, continues abundant till January, and the produce is dragged over the snow on sledges, each drawn by three dogs and carrying about two hundred and fifty pounds.  The journey to and from the lake occupies five days and every sledge requires a driver.  About three thousand fish averaging three pounds apiece were caught by the Hudson’s Bay fishermen last season; in addition to which a few sturgeon were occasionally caught in Pine Island Lake; and towards the spring a considerable quantity of moose meat was procured from the Basquiau Hill, sixty or seventy miles distant.  The rest of our winter’s provision consisted of geese, salted in the autumn, and of dried meats and pemmican obtained from the provision posts on the plains of the Saskatchewan.  A good many potatoes are also raised at this post and a small supply of tea and sugar is brought from the depot at York Factory.  The provisions obtained from these various sources were amply sufficient in the winter of 1819-20; but through improvidence this post has in former seasons been reduced to great straits.

Many of the labourers and a great majority of the agents and clerks employed by the two Companies have Indian or half-breed wives, and the mixed offspring thus produced has become extremely numerous.