Studies m American History 
95 
had the advantage in the general state of disorder. The 
merchants of Pennsylvania and New York, however, had no 
notion of close regulation of the Indian trade of the North- 
west. They were opposed to any fixing of prices and to any 
restrictions on the sale of rum. They were willing to confine 
the traders’ operations to posts, for this would diminish the 
advantages which the French were able to maintain in wan- 
dering unrestrained thru the woods. With trade confined to 
the posts, the long friendship maintained by the French for 
the Indians would offer few advantages.^^ 
As has been already suggested, the merchants of Montreal 
were the greatest beneficiaries of the anarchy of the fur trade 
in the Northwest. The coureurs des hois had ignored the 
edicts of the kings of France and had profited greatly by their 
untrammeled intercourse with the natives. The Scotch and 
English merchants who made Montreal their headquarters 
after 1763 were anxious to learn French methods of trade, and 
they gladly adopted the ways of these old traders. Both 
French and British opposed any effective control of the fur 
trade and strenuously maintained the necessity of a trade un- 
hampered by royal restraints. They maintained that only by 
freedom of trade could they keep the French and Spanish 
traders on the Mississippi out of the Nortkwest.^*^ 
The failure of the colonies to bring about any order in the 
fur trade was noted in England. It suggested to Lord Dart- 
mouth, the successor to Hillsborough, an idea of imperial 
control. In a letter to Johnson in 1773 he wrote: 
As the colonies do not seem disposed to concur in any general regu- 
lations for Indian trade I am at a loss to suggest any mode by which 
this important service can be otherwise provided than by the interposi- 
tion of the Supreme Legislature, the exertion of which would be in- 
Victor Coffin, The Province of Quebec and the Early American Revolution {Bulletin 
of the University of Wisconsin, Economics, Political Science, and History Series, Madison, 
1896, Vol. I, No. 3), 417, 418, describes the anarchy in this trade. 
Alvord, The Mississippi Valley in British Politics, I, 295. 
1*^ The merchants of Montreal wrote to Governor Murray of Quebec about 1765 : 
“We are apprehensive that if the Traders are not permitted to traffick with the Savages 
beyond your Majesty’s Posts & Garrisons this commerce will be totally lost to us as it 
is not possible for them all to winter in the Posts for Want of Provisions, besides several 
Nations some of whom are distant above 600 Leagues from any Post will not con- 
descend to come to supply their wants at so great Distance when they may be pro- 
vided by foreign Traders by the River Mississippi.’’ British Museum, Additional Manu- 
scripts 5491 :4. Transcript in Library of Congress, British Transcripts, 78. See also 
Alvord, The Mississippi Valley in British Politics, I, 297, 298. 
