A
Candidate Had To Enter, As It Were, "Before The Mast," To Undergo
A Long Probation, And To Rise Slowly
By his merits and services.
He began, at an early age, as a clerk, and served an
apprenticeship of seven
Years, for which he received one hundred
pounds sterling, was maintained at the expense of the company,
and furnished with suitable clothing and equipments. His
probation was generally passed at the interior trading posts;
removed for years from civilized society, leading a life almost
as wild and precarious as the savages around him; exposed to the
severities of a northern winter, often suffering from a scarcity
of food, and sometimes destitute for a long time of both bread
and salt. When his apprenticeship had expired, he received a
salary according to his deserts, varying from eighty to one
hundred and sixty pounds sterling, and was now eligible to the
great object of his ambition, a partnership in the company;
though years might yet elapse before he attained to that enviable
station.
Most of the clerks were young men of good families, from the
Highlands of Scotland, characterized by the perseverance, thrift,
and fidelity of their country, and fitted by their native
hardihood to encounter the rigorous climate of the North, and to
endure the trials and privations of their lot; though it must not
be concealed that the constitutions of many of them became
impaired by the hardships of the wilderness, and their stomachs
injured by occasional famishing, and especially by the want of
bread and salt.
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