LAKE TRADE. 
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small stockaded fort situated on an island. 
The agents of the North-West Company of 
merchants at Montreal, and a few independent 
traders, resided within the limits of the fort, and 
baitered goods there for furs brought in by dif¬ 
ferent tribes of Indian^, who are the sole in¬ 
habitants of the neighbouring country. On 
evacuating this place, another post was imme¬ 
diately established, at no great distance, on the 
Island of St. Joseph, in the Straits of St. Mary, 
between lakes Superior and Huron, and a small 
garrison left there, which has since been aug¬ 
mented to upwards of fifty men. Several 
traders, citizens of the States, have established 
themselves at Micliillimakinack; but as the 
British traders have fixed their new post so 
close to the old one, it is nearly certain that the 
Indians will continue to trade with their old 
friends in preference, for the reasons before 
mentioned. 
From this statement it appears evident, that 
the people of the States can only acquire 
by their new possession a small part of one 
branch of the sugar trade, namely, of that 
which is carried on on one of the nearer lakes. 
The furs brought down from the distant re¬ 
gions in the north-west to the grand portage, 
and from thence in canoes to Montreal along 
the Utawa River, are what constitute by far 
the principal part, both as to quantity and va- 
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