Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 2).djvu/171

1768-1782] giving a good account of the merchandise intrusted to my care, and receiving a reward for my labours. In the morning he took his leave, wishing me the speedy arrival of some Indians who might be able to relieve me from such pressing necessity by supplying me with plenty of more nourishing and palatable food.

[127] This civility from one of the Hudson's Bay Company's servants leads me to make some few observations in vindication of that respectable body, whose character has been so severely, and I think so unjustly, censured.

Mr. Joseph Robson, one of the company's servants, who resided in their factory six years as surveyor and supervisor of the buildings, in a work published by him some years since, animadverts in very strong terms on the mode in which the governors of forts exert what he calls their uncontroulable authority, and asserts that their extreme tyranny is a perpetual source of personal disgust. He also says, that "the overplus trade is big with iniquity, and no less inconsistent with the company's true interest, than it is injurious to the natives, who by means of it are become more and more alienated, and are either discouraged from hunting at all, or induced to carry all their furs to the French." It may be necessary here to observe, that the overplus trade arises from the peltry which the company's servants obtain in barter with the ————