56 INTRODUCTION 



this point, if possible, in order to prevent farther doubts from 

 arising hereafter respecting a passage out of Hudson's Bay * 

 into the Western Ocean, as hath lately been represented by the 

 American Traveller. The particulars of those remarks you are 

 to insert in your Journal, to be remitted home to the Company. 



" If you should want any supplies of ammunition, or other 

 necessaries, dispatch some trusty Indians to the Fort with a 

 letter, specifying the quantity of each article, and appoint a 

 place for the said Indians to meet you again. 



" When on your return, if at a proper time of the year, 

 and you should be near any of the harbours that are frequented 

 by the brigantine Charlotte^ or the sloop Churchill^ during their 

 voyage to the Northward, and you should chuse to return in 

 one of them, you are desired to make frequent smokes as you 

 approach those harbours, and they will endeavour to receive 

 you by making smokes in answer to yours ; and as one 

 thousand seven hundred and seventy-one will probably be 

 the year in which you will return, the Masters of those vessels 

 at that period shall have particular orders on that head. 



whose country lies far West of any of the Company's or Canadian settlements, 

 must have traffic with the Spaniards on the West side of the Continent ; 

 because some of the Indians who formerly traded to York Fort, when at war 

 with those people, frequently found saddles, bridles, muskets, and many other 

 articles, in their possession, which were undoubtedly of Spanish manufactory. 



I have seen several Indians who have been so far West as to cross the top 

 of that immense chain of mountains which run from North to South of the 

 continent of America. Beyond those mountains all rivers run to the West- 

 ward. I must here observe, that all the Indians I ever heard relate their 

 excursions in that country, had invariably got so far to the South, that they did 

 not experience any Winter, nor the least appearance of either frost or snow, 

 though sometimes they have been absent eighteen months, or two years.' 



[^ In the year 1745 Anthony Hendry, under instructions from the Hudson's 

 Bay Company, had travelled inland from York Factory to the upper waters of 

 the Saskatchewan River, where he met the E-arch-e-thinnews or Blackfeet 

 Indians.] 



* As to a passage through the continent of America by the way of Hudson's 

 Bay, it has so long been exploded, notwithstanding what Mr. Ellis has urged 

 in its favour, and the place it has found in the visionary Map of the American 

 Traveller, that any comment on it would be quite unnecessary. My latitude 

 only will be a sufficient proof that no such passage is in existence. 



