THE RED PJVER EXPEDITION. 199 



attempted to form a colony of Sutherlandshire High- 

 landers on the Red River, but the attempt was little 

 better than a failure. These two companies the 

 Hudson Bay and the North-Western having con- 

 tended with one another for the valuable fur-trade of 

 the country to their mutual injury, and until both 

 were nearly ruined, united in the year 1822, both 

 being since then merged in one under the ancient 

 title of the Hudson Bay Company. 



In order to carry on commercial operations, it was 

 essential to have a certain number of white men at 

 each of their numerous posts scattered over the con- 

 tinent from its western shores to where Canadian 

 civilisation, advancing from the Atlantic, was met 

 with. Each of these posts soon became the nucleus 

 of a small community. European women were scarce, 

 and communication with England was both difficult 

 and tedious ; so men were obliged to content them- 

 selves with Indian wives, and a half-breed population 

 was the result. For inland navigation along the 

 many lakes and rivers that form such a network over 

 a large proportion of our Xorth American possessions, 

 there is no better man than the French Canadian 

 voyageur. A large number of them have always been 

 in the Hudson Bay service, which accounts for the 

 fact of the French and English languages being spoken 

 by about equal numbers on the banks of the Red 

 River. The language of the voyageur class, no mat- 

 ter from what race he may have sprung, has long 



