"I said the fur-trade was the key. It is so, because neither the French nor we are yet sufficiently powerful to ignore the strength of the Indian tribes. The fur-trade is the source of the savages for securing trade-goods. They will be bound closest to the country which gives them the best terms. If we can deprive the French of the ability to buy their goods as cheaply as we do, then we shall be able to trade to better advantage, with the Indians and so increase their friendship for us. At the same time the volume of the provincial trade will be increased."
"I see," I answered. "But you spoke before of a two-fold object in depriving the French of the right to obtain trade-goods through New York?"
"So I did, and that brings me to the enemy whom I mentioned. Heard you ever in Paris of one Murray—Andrew Murray!"
I shook my head.
"He hath connections with the French, and, too, with the Jacobites; but they would be well covered, no doubt. Murray owns the Provincial Fur Company of New York, which is the largest of all the trading agencies. He hath set himself deliberately to drive out of existence all the independent traders and secure the entire trade for himself. The trade with the French in Canada likewise is in his hands.
"Before the Provincial Government passed the prohibitive law of which I spoke, he carried on this trade openly, and the French traders, helped by a government subsidy, more often than not underbid our traders—using English goods, mind you, for the purpose. And then the French traders would sell their skins in the London market at a lower price than our own traders could afford to charge.
"After the passage of the law, in spite of efforts to enforce it, Murray contrived to build up a clandestine means of shipping goods to Canada, and while the French are more pressed for cheap trade-goods than they were, nevertheless they are better off than they should be, and our traders are put at a disadvantage. Now the time for which the law was passed is expired, and the Provincial Government hath enacted it again. It comes up this afternoon before the Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations, when Murray will petition for its rejection."
"But surely he will lose," I objected.
Juggins shook his head.
"I fear not. The best we can hope for is a compromise."