8 The Fur Traders. 



ciLs were held in great state, for every member of the com- 

 pany felt as if he were sitting in Parliament, and every 

 dependent looked up to the assemblage with awe, as to the 

 House of Lords. 



"In the banquet hall, the tables groaned under the weight 

 of delicacies and there was no stint of wine for this was 

 a hard drinking period. While the chiefs thus reveled in 

 the hall, and made the rafters ring with bursts of elo- 

 quence and song, their merriment was echoed and prolong- 

 ed by the legions of white adventurers, half-breeds, Indian 

 hunters, and vagabonds of every class, who feasted sump- 

 tuously outside on the crumbs that fell from the great 

 men 's tables. ' ' 



The glory and wonderful success of the Northwest Com- 

 pany stimulated further enterprise in this "open, and ap- 

 parently boundless, sea of profit;" and in 1795, a combina- 

 tion was formed by several partners who had retired from 

 the Northwest Company because they w^ere dissatisfied 

 with the part allotted to them in the management of its af- 

 fairs, and Forsyth, Richardson & Company, an independ- 

 ent Montreal firm that for a number of years had main- 

 tained a trade around Lake Superior, which resulted in the 

 organization of a New Northwest Company or as it was 

 more generally known, the X. Y. Company. This organiza- 

 tion continued in existence until 1804. Another British 

 company which was founded after the Northwest Com- 

 pany had started on its prosperous career was the Mack- 

 inaw Company, so named because its principal station was 

 at Machilimaekinac. It operated mainly within the terri- 

 tories of the United States upon the shores of Lake Michi- 

 gan and westward to the Mississippi, and in Canadian 

 territory east of Lake Erie. 



Up to this period the fur trade in the L^nited States had 

 not been organized along any regular line ; for while skins 

 were casually collected by traders in their dealing with 

 the Indians and white hunters, the main supply of furs 

 used in the United States came from the Canadian com- 

 panies. 



"The Government of the United States had for some time 

 viewed with apprehension the growing power of these for- 

 eign combinations among the native tribes upon its bor 

 ders;" and in an effort to counteract their influence had 



