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The others are accountant, trader, steward, armourer, ship-wright, carpenter, cooper, blacksmith, mason, tailor, and labourers. These must not trade with natives, under penalties for so doing. Council mess together, also servants. Called by bell to duty, work from six to six in summer; eight to four in winter. Two watch in winter, three in summer. In emergencies, tradesmen must work at anything. Killing of partridges the most pleasant duty.

      Company signs contract with servants for three or five years, with the remarkable clause: "Company may recall them home at any time without satisfaction for the remaining time. Contract may be renewed, if servants or labourers wish, at expiry of term. Salary advanced forty shillings, if men have behaved well in first term. The land and sea officers' and tradesmen's salaries do not vary, but seamen's are raised in time of war."

      A ship of 200 tons burden, bearing provisions, arrives yearly in August or early September. Sails again in ten days, wind permitting, with cargo and those returning. Sailors alone get pay when at home.

      The annual trade sent home from this fort is from ten to four thousand made beaver, in furs, felts, castorum, goose feathers, and quills, and a small quantity of train oil and whalebone, part of which they receive from the Eskimos, and the rest from the white whale fishery. A black whale fishery is in hand, but it shows no progress.

      York Factory.—On the north bank of Hayes River, three miles from the entrance. Famous River Nelson, three miles north, makes the land between an island. Well-built fort of wood, log on log. Four bastions with sheds between, and a breastwork with twelve small carriage guns. Good class of quarters, with double row of strong palisades. On the bank's edge, before the fort, is a half-moon battery, of turf and earth, with fifteen cannon, nine-pounders. Two miles below the fort, same side, is a battery of ten twelve-pounders, with lodge-house and powder magazine. These two batteries command the river, but the shoals and sand-banks across the mouth defend us more. No ship comes higher than five miles below the fort.

      Governed like Prince of Wales Fort. Complement of men: forty-two. The natives come down Nelson River to trade. If weather calm, they paddle round the point. If not, they carry their furs across. This fort sends home from 7,000 to 33,000 made beaver in furs, &c., and a small quantity of white whale oil.

      Severn Fort.—On the north bank of Severn River. Well-built square house, with four bastions. Men: eighteen. Commanded by a factor and sloop master. Eight small cannon and other warlike stores. Sloop carries furs in the fall to York Factory and delivers them to the ship, with the books and papers, receiving supply of trading goods, provisions, and stores. Severn full of shoals and sand banks. Sloop has difficulty in getting in and out. Has to wait spring tides inside the point. Trade sent home, 5,000 to 6,600 made beaver in furs, &c.

      Albany Fort.—On south bank of Albany River, four miles from the entrance. Large well-built wood fort. Four bastions with shed between. Cannon and warlike stores. Men: thirty; factor and officers. River difficult. Ship rides five leagues out and is loaded and unloaded by large sloop. Trade, including two sub-houses of East Main and Henley, from 10,000 to 12,000 made beaver, &c. (This fort was the first Europeans had in Hudson Bay, and is where Hudson traded with natives.)

      Henley House.—One hundred miles up the river from Albany. Eleven men, governed by master. First founded to prevent encroachments of the French, when masters of Canada, and present to check the English.

      East Main House.—Entrance of Slude River. Small square house. Sloop master and eleven men. Trade: 1000 to 2000 made beaver in furs, &c. Depth of water just admits sloop.

      Moose Factory.—South bank of Moose River, near entrance. Well-built wood fort—cannon and warlike stores. Twenty-five men. Factor and officers. River admits ship to good harbour, below fort. Trade, 3,000 to 4,000 made beavers in furs, &c. One ship supplies this fort, along with Albany and sub-forts.

      These are the present Hudson's Bay Company's settlements in the Bay. "All under one discipline, and excepting the sub-houses, each factor receives a commission to act for benefit of Company, without being answerable to any person or persons in the Bay, more than to consult for good of Company in emergencies and to supply one another with trading goods, &c., if capable, the receiver giving credit for the same."

      The movement to the interior was begun from the Prince of Wales Fort up the Churchill River. Next year, after his return from the discovery of the Coppermine, Samuel Hearne undertook the aggressive work of going to meet the Indians, now threatened from the Saskatchewan by the seductive influences of the Messrs. Frobisher, of the Montreal fur traders. The Governor at Prince of Wales Fort, for a good many years, had been Moses Norton. He was really an Indian born at the fort, who had received some education during a nine years' residence in England. Of uncultivated manners, and leading far from a pure life, he was yet a man of considerable force, with a power to command and the ability to ingratiate himself with the Indians. He was possessed of undoubted energy, and no doubt to his advice is very much due the movement to leave the forts in the Bay and penetrate to the interior of the country. In December of the very year (1773) in which Hearne went on his trading expedition inland, Norton died.

      In the following year, as we have seen, Hearne erected Cumberland House, only five hundred yards from Frobisher's new post on Sturgeon Lake. It was the intention of the Hudson's Bay Company also to make an effort to control the trade to the south of Lake Winnipeg. Hastily called away after building Cumberland House, Hearne was compelled to leave a colleague, Mr. Cockings, in charge of the newly-erected fort, and returned to the bay to take charge of Prince of Wales Fort, the post left vacant by the death of Governor Norton.

      The Hudson's Bay Company, now regularly embarked in the inland trade, undertook to push their posts to different parts of the country, especially to the portion of the fur country in the direction from which the Montreal traders approached it. The English traders, as we learn from Umfreville, who was certainly not prejudiced in their favour, had the advantage of a higher reputation in character and trade among the Indians than had their Canadian opponents. From their greater nearness to northern waters, the old Company could reach a point in the Saskatchewan with their goods nearly a month earlier in the spring than their Montreal rivals were able to do. We find that in 1790 the Hudson's Bay Company crossed south from the northern waters and erected a trading post at the mouth of the Swan River, near Lake Winnipegoosis. This they soon deserted and built a fort on the upper waters of the Assiniboine River, a few miles above the present Hudson's Bay Company post of Fort Pelly.

      A period of surprising energy was now seen in the English Company's affairs. "Carrying the war into Africa," they in the same year met their antagonists in the heart of their own territory, by building a trading post on Rainy Lake and another in the neighbouring Red Lake district, now included in North-Eastern Minnesota. Having seized the chief points southward, the aroused Company, in the next year (1791), pushed north-westward from Cumberland House and built an establishment at Ile à la Crosse, well up toward Lake Athabasca.

      Crossing from Lake Winnipeg in early spring to the head waters of the Assiniboine River, the spring brigade of the Hudson's Bay Company quite outdid their rivals, and in 1794 built the historic Brandon House, at a very important point on the Assiniboine River. This post was for upwards of twenty years a chief Hudson's Bay Company centre until it was burnt. On the grassy bank of the Assiniboine, the writer some years ago found the remains of the old fort, and from the well-preserved character of the sod, was able to make out the line of the palisades, the exact size of all the buildings, and thus to obtain the ground plan.

      Brandon House was on the south side of the Assiniboine, about seventeen miles below the present city of Brandon. Its remains are situated on the homestead of Mr. George Mair, a Canadian settler from Beauharnois, Quebec, who settled here on July 20th, 1879. The site was well chosen at a bend of the river, having the Assiniboine in front of it on the east and partially so also on the north. The front of the palisade faced to the east, and midway in the wall was a gate ten feet wide, with inside of it a look-out tower (guérite) seven feet square. On the south side was the long store-house. In the centre had stood a building said by some to have been the blacksmith's shop. Along the north wall were the buildings for residences and other purposes. The remains of other forts, belonging to rival companies, are not far away, but of these we shall speak again.

      The

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