This Mode Of
Carrying On The Trade Not Only Causes The Amount Of Furs Collected By
Either 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.
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