[BURPEE] AN ADVENTURER FROM HUDSON BAY 93 



their competition, and it was no doubt a direct result of this journey of 

 Cocking's that the year after his return to York Factory he was sent in- 

 land again by Chief Factor Andrew Graham, with Samuel Hearne, to 

 build Cumberland House on the Saskatchewan. When Alexander Henry 

 visited Cumberland House, in October, 1775, he found it "garrisoned by 

 Highlanders, from the Orkney Islands, and under the command of a 

 Mr. Cockings, by whom, though imwelcome guests, we were treated with 

 much civility." How long thereafter Cocking remained in charge of 

 Cumberland House, or what his subsequent history may have been, there 

 is no present means of knowing, nor is any information available as to 

 his life previous to his remarkable journey from York Factory to the 

 Blackfeet country.^ 



It may not be without interest to give two practically contemporary 

 descriptions of the famous trading post of the Hudson's Bay Company 

 which was the starting-point of Cockings expedition, as of so many other 

 remarkable journeys in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The 

 first of these is taken from Drage's ''Account of a Voyage for the Dis- 

 covery of a North- West Passage by Hudson's Straights, to the Western 

 and Southern Ocean of America, performed in the Year IT-iG and 1747;" 

 and the second from Andrew Graham's account of the forts of the Hud- 

 son's Bay Company in 1771, as given in Dr. George Bryce's "Remark- 

 able History of the Hudson's Bay Company," Chapter xiii. 



" The situation of the Factory," says Drage, " is a clear Space 

 made in the Woods, which surround it on three Sides, the Factory having 

 an open Front to the Water, from which it stands a small Distance with- 

 in the Bank; to the North and Eastward covered with a good Battery, 

 and to the South-East is a Dock for building or repairing either Sloops 

 or Boats; behind the Battery, and between that and the Dock, there is 

 a Space of land which they call the Plantation, and here the Indians 

 who come to the Factory pitch their Tents; and there is generally a 

 Tent or two of old and infirm Indians, both Men and Women, who get 

 their Maintenance from the Factory. This Part, which is on the Back 

 of the Battery and Dock, and called the Plantation, is separated from 

 the Factory by two Rows of high Palissades, between the first of which 

 and the second are Store-houses, the Cookery and some Workshops, low 

 built, and so placed as they would be of little Service to an Enemy to 

 cover an Attack of the Place. Within the inner Palissades are small 

 Spots of Turnips, Collards, Sallads, and other Garden Stuff, belonging 



' Some further particulars as to Cocking and his expedition inland with 

 Hearne, will be found in Agnes Laut's Conquest of the Great Northirer^t — 

 published since the above was written. 



