[BURPEE] YORK FACTORY TO THE BLACKFEET COUNTRY 313 
natives that come to York-fort; and once heard Mr. Brady, the sur- 
geon, converse with one of them in the French language. I have also 
frequently seen in the governor’s hand, a letter addressed to him from 
the chief factor at the French settlement on Nelson-river. It was 
written in French and Indian; and the purport of it was to establish 
‘a trade between them and the English at York-fort, for those heavy 
goods which the French stood in great need of, but could not bring from 
Canada, such as guns, kettles, tobacco, &c., and the English were 
desired to say, how much beaver they expected in exchange for these 
articles. The governor told us, that he had sent a copy of the letter 
to England; and added, that if the Company consented to such a treaty, 
we should get no furs but what came through the hands of the French, 
who would soon have huts all the way down Neison-river. 
“The linguists informed me, that they have had a description of 
the French factory at the head of Nelson-river from different Indians, 
who all agreed in the principal circumstances, and remarkably in this, 
that the French have a large boat or sloop upon the lake. These 
people formerly would have been glad to have had the English accom- 
pany them up the rivers; and were once very solicitous to engage us 
to go up, that we might head them, against the French Indians; but 
they are now very easy and silent upon that subject; the French by 
kind offices and a liberality in dealing, which we think of no conse- 
quence, have obtained so much influence over almost all the natives, 
that many of them are actually turned factors for the French at our 
settlements for heavy goods. This the Indians openly acknowledged 
to the linguist. in the year 1746, just before I left York-fort.” 
After Hendry’s day the ruins of the old fort are constantly referred 
to by explorers and traders who passed them on their way up the Saskat- 
chewan. When Cocking went up in 1772 he mentions Basquia as a 
“long frequented place where the Canadians rendezvous and trade with 
the natives.” Three years later, Alexander Henry, the elder, with Joseph 
and Thomas Frobisher and the notorious Peter Pond, landed at a Cre? 
encampment on the Pasquia a little above its mouth, and therefore not 
for from the site of Fort Poskoyac. The traders were politely enter- 
tained by a crafty old Indian river-baron named Chatique, who laid 
tribute upon all that they had, comforting them with the assurance that 
if ‘they did not pay up cheerfully he would take their lives as well as 
their possessions. Alexander Henry’s nephew and namesake passed the 
mouth of the Pasquia, or “ the little river of Montagne du Pas,” as he 
calls it, in 1808, and mentions that some traces of the old French estab- 
lishment were even then visible. 
