1792.] JOURNEYS OF FIDLER AND TRUDEAU. 265 



Hudson's Bay and the North- Wdst Companies, which had been 

 opposed to each other ever since the formation of the latter, should 

 be united ; that the British government should favor the establish- 

 ment of commercial communications across North America, for 

 which the rivers and lakes in the portion claimed by him for that 

 power afforded unrivalled facilities ; and that the East India Com- 

 pany should throw open to their fellow-subjects the direct trade 

 between the north-west coasts of America and China, which was 

 then, he says, " left to the adventurers of the United States, acting 

 without regularity or capital, or the desire of conciliating future 

 confidence, and looking only to the interest of the moment." 

 These recommendations were not thrown away, but were nearly all 

 adopted by those to whom they were addressed ; and the result has 

 been, the extension of British commerce and dominion throughout 

 the whole northern section of America. 



Whilst Mackenzie was engaged in his journey to the Pacific 

 coast, Mr. Fidler, a clerk in the service of the North-West Company, 

 made an expedition from Fort Buckingham, a trading-post on the 

 Saskatchawine River, south-westward, to the foot of the Rocky 

 Mountains,* along which he seems to have travelled, through the 

 regions drained by the head-waters of the Missouri. About the 

 same time, several trading voyages were made up the Missouri by 

 the French and Spaniards of St. Louis ; particularly by the mem- 

 bers of a company formed at that place by a Scotchman named 

 Todd, under the special protection of the Spanish government, the 

 object of which was to monopolize the whole trade of the interior 

 and western portions of the continent.f 



The trade of the citizens of the United States with the Indians 

 in the central portion of the continent was much restricted, for 

 many years after the establishment of the independence of the 

 republic, in consequence of the possession of Louisiana by the 

 Spaniards, and the retention by the British of several important 

 posts south of the great lakes, within the territory acknowledged as 



* On Arrowsmith's "Map of all the new Discoveries in North America," published 

 at London in 1795, several streams are represented, on the authority of Mr. Fidler, 

 as flowing from the Rocky Mountains on both sides ; but none corresponding with 

 them in course or position have been since found. 



f The journal of one of these voyages, made by M. Trudeau, in 1794, has been 

 preserved in the archives of the Department of State at Washington; it is, however, 

 devoted chiefly to the numbers, manners, customs, religion, &c, of the natives on 

 the banks of the Missouri, particularly of the Arickaras, inhabiting the country 

 under the 46th parallel of latitude. 



34 



