562 WASHINGTON IRVINo's ASTORIA. 



ness. Their conduct and example gradually corrupted the natives and 

 impeded the work of the Catholic missionaries. To check these abuses, and 

 to protect the fur trade from various irregularities practised by these loose 

 adventurers, an order was issued by the French government prohibiting all 

 persons on pain of death from trading in the interior without a license. These 

 licenses were granted in writing by the governor-general, and were given at 

 first only to persons of respectability. Each license permitted the fitting out 

 of two large canoes with merchandise for the lakes ; and no more than 

 twenty-five licenses were to be issued in one year. By degrees, however, 

 private licenses were also granted; and the number rapidly increased. Those 

 who did not choose to fit out expeditions themselves were permitted to sell 

 them to the merchants ; these employed the coureurs des bois to undertake 

 the long voyages on shares ; and thus the abuses of the old system were 

 revived and continued. 



" At length it was found necessary to establish fortified posts at the con- 

 fluence of the river and lakes for the protection of the trade, and the restraint 

 of these profligates of the wilderness. The most important of these was at 

 Michilmackinac, situate on the strait of the same name, which connects lakes 

 Huron and Michigan. It became the great interior mart and place of deposit, 

 and some of the regular merchants, who prosecuted the trade in person under 

 their licenses, formed establishments here. This, too, was a rendezvous for 

 the rangers of the woods, as well for those who came up with goods from 

 Montreal as for those who returned with peltries from the interior. Here 

 new expeditions were fitted out, and took their departure for lake Michigan 

 and the Mississippi, lake Superior and the north-west ; and here the peltries 

 brought in return were embarked for Montreal." Vol. i. pp. 2 10. 



The successes of the French adventurers, however, stimulated ri- 

 valry. The British merchants of New York and the Hudson Bay 

 Company were for a long- time troublesome competitors of the old 

 traders, whose fortunes were still further broken up in 1762 by the 

 cession of Canada to the English. When the trade revived it was 

 pursued by individual merchants, who allowed the interchange of 

 spirituous liquors among the natives, the consequences of which were 

 scenes of drunkenness, brutality, and brawl in the Indian villages and 

 around the trading houses. To suppress such irregularities, a part- 

 nership of merchants at Montreal formed the great " North-west Com- 

 pany" in 1787 ; and this trading body for a long time held sovereign 

 sway over the lakes and forests of Canada. The partners, twenty-three 

 in number, resided part of them at Montreal or Quebec; part, to- 

 gether with a numerous retinue of clerks, voyageurs, &c., at various 

 posts in the interior. The luxury in which these partners indulged in 

 their remote abodes, and especially at their great trading meetings, 

 is well described hy Mr. Irving. This gigantic corporation met with 

 opposition in their turn, and a rival association was established to carry 

 on trade in countries to the south of those before visited, called the 

 Michilmackinac or Mackinaw Company, who sent forth their light 

 perogues and barki by Green Bay, Fox River, and Osconsin, to that 

 great artery of the west, the Mississippi, and down that river to all 

 its tributary streams. Meanwhile the inhabitants of the United States 

 did not look on with indifference. As soon as their new government 

 had assumed a degree of regularity, and a certain security had been 

 gained for property, the merchants of the Union sought to rival the 

 English by opening a commercial communication with the Indians. 

 The effortsof Government failed, but the keen activity of private enter- 



