4* 



12 A general History of the par Trade, 



Wadin had received Mr. Pond and one of his own clerks to 

 dinner; and, in the course of the night, the former was shot 

 through the lower part of the thigh, when it was said that 

 he expired from the loss of blood, and was buried next 

 morning at eight o'clock. Mr* Pond and the clerk were 

 tried for this murder at Montreal, and acquitted : neverthe- 

 less, their innocence was not so apparent as to extinguish 

 the original suspicion. 



The other circumstance was this. In the spring of the 

 year, Mr. Pond sent the abovementioned clerk to meet the 

 Indians from the Northward, who used to go annually to 

 Hudson's Bay ; when he easily persuaded them to trade 

 with him, and return back, that they might not take the 

 contagion which had depopulated the country to the East- 

 ward of them: but most unfortunately they caught it here, 

 and carried it with them, to the destruction of themselves 

 and the neighbouring tribes. 



The country being thus depopulated, the traders and 

 their friends from Canada, who, from various causes already 

 mentioned, were very much reduced in number, became 

 confined to two parties, who began to think seriously of 

 making permanent establishments on the Missinipi river, 

 and at Athabasca; for which purpose, in 1781-2, they se- 

 lected their best canoe-men, being ignorant that the small- 

 pox penetrated that way.. The most expeditious party got 

 only in time to the Portage la Loche, or Mjthy-Ouinigam, 

 which divides the waters of the Missinipi from those that 

 fall into the Elk river, to dispatch one canoe strong handed, 

 and light loaded, to that country ; but, on their arrival there, 

 they found, in every direction, the ravages of the small- 

 pox ; so that, from the great diminution of the natives, they 

 returned in the spring with no more than seven packages of 

 beaver. The strong woods and mountainous countries af- 

 forded a refuge to those who fled from the contagion of the 

 plains ; but they were so alarmed at the surrounding des s 

 iruction, that they avoided the traders, and were dispirited 

 Irom hunting, except for their subsistence. The traders^ 

 however, who returned into the country in the year 1782-3, 

 found the inhabitants in some sort of tranquillity, and more 

 numerous than they had reason to expect, so that their suc- 

 cess was proportionably better. 



During the winter of 1783-4, the merchants of Canada, 

 engaged in this trade, formed a junction of interests, un- 

 der the name of the North- West Company, and divided it 



