This
Agreeable Intelligence Had A Happy Effect Upon The Canadian Voyagers,
Many Of Their Fears Being Removed:
Several of them seemed now disposed to
volunteer; and indeed on the same evening two men from the North-West
Company offered themselves and were accepted.
June 5.
This day Mr. Back and I went over to Fort Wedderburne to see Mr.
Robertson respecting his quota of men. We learned from him that,
notwithstanding his endeavours to persuade them, his most experienced
voyagers still declined engaging without very exorbitant wages. After
some hesitation however six men engaged with us who were represented to
be active and steady; and I also got Mr. Robertson's permission for St.
Germain, an interpreter belonging to this Company, to accompany us from
Slave Lake if he should choose. The bowmen and steersmen were to receive
one thousand six hundred livres Halifax per annum, and the middle men one
thousand two hundred, exclusive of their necessary equipments; and they
stipulated that their wages should be continued until their arrival in
Montreal or their rejoining the service of their present employers.
I delivered to Mr. Robertson an official request that the stores we had
left at York Factory and the Rock Depot with some other supplies might be
forwarded to Slave Lake by the first brigade of canoes which should come
in. He also took charge of my letters addressed to the Admiralty. Five
men were afterwards engaged from the North-West Company for the same
wages and under the same stipulations as the others, besides an
interpreter for the Copper Indians; but this man required three thousand
livres Halifax currency which we were obliged to give him as his services
were indispensable.
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