PROCEEDINGS FOR 1895 LXXXI 
B. Faribault had not had time to copy when he visited Paris in 1851, 
some 68 volumes, leaving yet for future examination 400 volumes and 
cartons, exclusive of the “Correspondance Générale.” All this goes to 
prove that the office of our archivist, at home or abroad, was not a 
sinecure. 
The journal of Le Gardeur de St. Pierre, made accessible for the first 
time to the English reader, sheds light upon the expedition made by him 
and Marin for the discovery of a western sea. 
In 1755, he, with a party of Indians, formed part of Dieskau’s 
expedition to Lake George, where he was killed whilst Dieskau was trying 
to draw the British forces into an ambuscade, 
New details follow on the campaign of 1759-60, in General Haldi- 
mand’s correspondence and that of his secretaries, 1762-91 : the rivalry 
between the Hudson Bay Company, chartered in London in 1670, and our 
Northwest Company, founded in 1783-84, by Montreal merchants, modi- 
fied in 1798 and partly re-constructed under the name of the X Y Com- 
pany by partners who had broken from the Northwest Company. The 
rivalry culminated, in 1816, at Assiniboia by the murder of the governor, 
Mr. Semple, under the cannons of the fort. 
The correspondence of the period shows that in 1797-98, the Northwest 
Company had built a canal on the Canadian side of Sault Sainte Marie, 
one of the finest canals constructed on this continent, 
The early canals, erroneously described as French works, were 
opened under English rule, as results from Bougainville’s “ Mémoires sur 
l’état de la Nouvelle-France,” 1757. No canal then existed at the Cascades. 
Colonel Gother Mann, R.K., in his report on the state of the canals, dated 
24th October, 1800, says they were first built between 1779 and 1783, and 
recommends their enlargement. 
‘Much of the interest in the history of these canals lies in the fact that. 
they were the germ of the vast canal system now in existence.” 
The names of Lord Selkirk, Sir John Johnson, Baby, Franchère, 
Mabane, Ennys, Frobisher, occur repeatedly in this extensive collection. 
of letters. 
1887.—Much needed light has been thrown by the copying of the 
voluminous correspondence of General Haldimand, a distinguished soldier 
of Swiss extraction and an able administrator, charged with watching 
over the destinies of Canada in peculiarly troublous times. 
There are few of our governors whose official acts have been more 
misrepresented and motives unjustly ignored or challenged by our his- 
torians. 
Haldimand was born at Yverdun in Switzerland. In 1756, he was 
commandant at Philadelphia, and served with distinction during the seven 
years’ war. 
On the capitulation of Montreal in 1760, he was appointed to the 
Proc. 1895. F. 
