Page:The Columbia river , or, Scenes and adventures during a residence of six years on the western side of the Rocky Mountains among various tribes of Indians hitherto unknown (Volume 1).djvu/12

 *dian traders had advanced many hundred miles beyond Lake Superior, and established several trading posts in the heart of the country, some of which the voyageurs still call by their original names; such as Fort Dauphin, Fort Bourbon, and others.

The conquest of that province opened a new source of trade to British enterprise; and while the officers of the Hudson's Bay Company fancied their charter had secured them in the undisturbed possession of their monopoly, an active and enterprising rival was gradually encroaching on their territories, and imperceptibly undermining their influence with the Indians; I allude to the North-West Fur Company of Canada, which originally consisted of a few private traders, but subsequently became the first commercial establishment in British America.

It is not here necessary to enter into a detail of the formation and increase of this Company. Its first members were British and Canadian merchants; among whom Messrs. Rocheblave, Frobisher, Fraser, M'Tavish, Mackenzie, and M'Gillivray, were the most prominent. Their clerks were