1784.] NORTH-WEST COMPANY FORMED. 261 



which had long before been frequented by the French ; and their 

 success in trade was such as to induce others to make similar ex- 

 peditions. The Canadians were, however, exposed, on their way, 

 to great difficulties and annoyances from the Hudson's Bay Com 

 pany, with which they were unable separately to contend ; and 

 they, in consequence, in the year 1784, united their interests, and 

 assumed for their association the title of the North- West Company 

 of Montreal. Other associations were afterwards formed, under 

 different names ; but they were soon either dissolved or united with 

 the North- West Company. 



The organization of this new company was such, as to insure the 

 utmost regularity and devotion to the interests of the concern, 

 among all who were engaged in its service. The number of the 

 shares was at first sixteen ; it was afterwards increased to twenty, 

 and then to forty: a certain proportion of them was held by the 

 agents, residing in Montreal, who furnished the capital ; the remain- 

 der being distributed among the proprietors, or partners, who super- 

 intended the business in the forts or posts in the interior, and the 

 clerks, who traded directly with the Indians. The clerks were 

 young men, for the most part natives of Scotland, who entered the 

 service of the company for five or seven years ; and, at the end of 

 that time, or even earlier, if they conducted themselves well, they 

 were admitted as proprietors. The inferior servants of the com- 

 pany were guides, interpreters, and voyageurs, the latter being 

 employed as porters on land, and as boatmen on the water, all of 

 whom were bound to the interests of the body by hopes of advance- 

 ment in station or in pay, and of pensions in their old age. 



The agents imported from England the goods required for the 

 trade, had them packed into bundles of about ninety pounds 

 weight each, and despatched them to the different posts ; and they 

 received the furs in packs of the same size, and conducted the 

 shipment and sale of them. The furs, as also the articles for the 

 trade and use of the persons employed, were transported through 

 the continent principally in canoes, for which the Ottowa River, 

 Lakes Huron and Superior, and the other innumerable lakes, and 

 the streams connecting them farther north-west, offered great fa- 

 cilities ; the portage between the navigable waters on the lines of 

 the route being effected by the voyageurs, who carried the bundles, 

 and sometimes, also, the canoes, across the intervening tracts of 

 land. In this manner the goods and furs passed one, two, and even 

 three, thousand miles between the agent at Montreal and the pro- 



