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Rh They soon, however, became better acquainted, and he gave them an outline of the shipwreck, and the number of men on the island, and told them that his companion, Soper, was not far off.

The vessel proved to be an American schooner, called the "Philo," Isaac Perceval, master, on a sealing and trading voyage. This vessel finally took the whole party aboard; but their adventures were not yet ended. After they had sailed with him for some weeks, the captain, quarrelling with the mate of their party, determined to put them ashore on another island. Here they experienced something like their old life; but they knew that they were more on the track of vessels than before. Finally they were rescued by a small sloop of only twenty-eight tons' burthen, commanded by Mr. Anderson, the first officer of the "King George Whaler," in which tiny craft they were safely conveyed to Van Dieman's Land.

The present Hudson's Bay Company, which long held the undivided monopoly of trade with the Indians for furs over the most northern portion of the North American Continent—a region nearly one third larger than the whole extent of Europe—had up to the year 1821, a powerful rival in a company entitled the North-West Company. The agents and factors of these