SURRENDERED FORTS. 103 
the town, in which this trade is carried on, 
being on the British side of the line, the few 
merchants that lived within the limits of the 
fort immediately crossed over to the other side, 
as soon as it was rumoured that the fort was 
/ 
to be given up. By the possession of a solitary 
fort, therefore, the people of the States have 
not gained the smallest portion of this part of 
the lake trade; nor is it probable that any 
of them will find it their interest to settle as 
merchants near the fort; for the British mer¬ 
chants, on the opposite side, as has already 
been shewn, can afford to sell their goods, 
brought up the St. Lawrence, on much lower 
terms than what goods brought from New 
York can be sold at; and as for the collecting 
of furs, it is not to be imagined that the Indians 
who bear such a rooted hatred to the people of 
the States, who are attached to the British, and 
who are not a people ready to forsake their 
old friends, will carry their furs over to their 
enemies, and give up their connexions with 
the men with whom they have been in the habit 
of dealing, and who can afford to pay them so 
much better than the traders on the opposite 
side of the water. 
Petroit, of all the places which have been 
given up, is the most important; for it is a 
town, containing at least twelve hundred in¬ 
habitants. Since its surrender, however* a 
