April 22 a ship was seen, which proved to be the “Isaac Todd,” on which came Mr. J. C. McTavish, who was to take charge of Fort George as governor. Work went on; loading and unloading the ship, buying provisions, the annoyances of small quarrels between various people. The entry in Henry’s diary of May 21, 1814, is partly finished, and then ends with a dash; for on Sunday, May 22, Alexander Henry, Donald McTavish, and five sailors were drowned while going out to the ship.
So perished Alexander Henry, the younger, after twenty-two years of adventure, extending from the Great Lakes to the Pacific, and from the Missouri River north to Lake Athabasca. It may fairly be said of all the books that have been written by the early travellers and traders in America this is the most interesting and the most curious.
CHAPTER XIX
ROSS COX I
On the 17th of October, 1811, the ship “Beaver,” Captain Cornelius Sowles, sailed from New York for the mouth of the Columbia River. She carried one partner, six clerks, and a number of artisans and voyageurs, of the Pacific Fur Company, an association of which John Jacob Astor was the chief proprietor. Among the clerks on this ship was Ross Cox, who, some years later, published a work in two volumes, called 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, Together with a Journey Across the American Continent.
Cox was a British subject, but, like many of his compatriots, was eager to secure an appointment in Mr. Astor’s company, for he was captivated by the love of novelty, and by the hope of speedily realizing an independence in the new country that was being opened.
It will be remembered that, for about a hundred years after its charter had been granted, the Hudson’s Bay Company made little effort to extend into the interior the trading-posts which it, alone, had the privilege of establishing on the shores of the Hudson’s Bay and its tributary rivers. True, trading-posts had been established in the interior, but chiefly by the French traders, who had practically possessed the country until the close of the French and Indian War. Then came the founding of the Northwest Fur Company of Canada, before long a formidable rival to the Hudson’s Bay Company. It was conducted on the wiser plan of giving each one of its employees the chance to rise and become a partner, provided only his success justified the promotion. The Hudson’s Bay Company, on the other hand, hired its men and paid them regularly, but offered no inducements to extra exertion on the part of its officers. The result could not be doubtful; the new company pressed the old one hard; and consolidation at length took place between the two.
In the early part of the last century, John Jacob Astor, whose fur trade with the interior had not been altogether satisfactory, determined to explore the northwest coast, and proposed to the Northwest Company to join him in establishing a trading-post on the Columbia River. The proposition was declined. Nevertheless, in 1809, Astor formed the Pacific Fur Company, and needing able and experienced traders, he induced a number of men connected with the Northwest Company to leave that establishment and join him. Among these were Alexander M’Kay, who had been a companion of Sir Alexander Mackenzie in earlier days.
