For many years after this the Company was in constant apprehension that its profits would be curtailed by tribal wars.
Effect of Indian wars on the Company's business.
"Keep the Indians from warring with one another, that they may have more time to look after their trade," was a frequently repeated injunction. "If you prevent them from fighting they will bring a larger quantity of furs to the Factory," they wrote on one occasion to Geyer. The Governor admitted the premise, "but," said he, "perhaps your Honours will tell me how I am going to do it." The Company devoted a whole meeting to consider the matter, and decided that nothing was easier, provided their instructions were implicitly obeyed.
Fac-Simile of Company's Standard of Trade.
"Tell them what advantages they may make," they wrote; "that the more furs they bring, the more goods they will be able to purchase of us, which will enable them to live more comfortably and keep them from want in a time of scarcity. Inculcate better morals than they yet understand; tell them that it doth nothing advantage them to kill and destroy one another, that thereby they may so weaken themselves that the wild ravenous beasts may grow too numerous for them, and destroy them that survive." If Geyer delivered this message to the stern and valorous chiefs with whom he came in contact, they must have made the dome of heaven ring with scornful laughter. He was obliged to write home that fewer savages had come down than in former seasons because they expected to be attacked by their enemies. The Company then responded shortly and in a business-like manner, that if fair means would not prevail to stop these inter-tribal conflicts, that the nation beginning the next quarrel was not to be supplied for a year with powder or shot "which will expose them to their enemies, who will have the master of them and quite destroy them from the earth, them and their wives and children. This," adds the secretary, and in a spirit of true prophecy, "must work some terror amongst them."
The French at Michilimackinac.
A potent cause contributed to the lack of prosperity which marked Port Nelson under the French régime. It was the exploitation of the west by an army of traders and bushrangers. The new post of Michilimackinac had assumed all the importance as a fur-trading centre which had formerly belonged to Montreal. The French, too, were served by capable and zealous servants, none more so than Iberville himself, the new Governor of the Mississippi country.[38] His whole ambition continued to be centred upon driving out the English from the whole western and northern region, and destroying forever their trade and standing with the aborigines, and none more than he more ardently desired the suppression of the coureur de bois. "No Frenchmen," he declared, "should be allowed to follow the Indians in their hunts, as it tends to keep them hunters, as is seen in Canada; and when they are in the woods they do not desire to become tillers of the soil."
At the same time the value of the bushrangers to the French régime was considerable in damaging the English on the Bay.