I embrace this opportunity to acknowledge myself and command under singular obligations to yourself and agents for the assistance which you have rendered us, and the polite treatment with which we have been honored. With sentiments of high respect for the establishment and yourself,
I am, Sir,
Your obedient servant,
Z. M. Pike.
Hugh M'Gillis, Esq.,
Proprietor and Agent of the N. W. Company
established at Zond [Fond] Du Lac.
Art. 9. Letter, Hugh M'Gillis to Pike. (Orig. No. 6, pp. 17-19.)
Leech Lake, Feb. 15th, 1806.
Sir:
Your address presented on the 6th inst. has attracted my most serious consideration to the several objects of duties on importations; of presents made to, and our consultations with, Indians; of inclosing our stores and dwelling-houses; and finally, of the custom obtaining to hoist the British flag in the territory belonging to the United States of America. I shall at as early a period as possible present the agents of the N. W. Company with your representations regarding the paying duties on the importation of goods to be sent to our establishments within the bounds of the territory of the United States, as also their being entered at the custom house of Michilimackinac; but I beg to be allowed to present for consideration, that the major part of the goods necessary to be sent to the said establishments for the trade of the ensuing year, are now actually in our stores at Kamanitiguia, our headquarters on Lake Superior, and that it would cause us vast expense and trouble to be obliged to convey those goods back to Michilimackinac to be entered at the custom-house office. We therefore pray that the word of gentlemen with regard to the quantity and quality of the said goods, to be sent to said establishment, may be considered as equivalent to the certainty of a custom-house register. Our intention has never been to injure your traders, paying the duties established by law. We hope those representations to your government respecting our concerns with the Indians may have been dictated with truth, and not exaggerated by envy to prejudice our interests and to throw a stain on our character which may require time to efface from the minds of a people to whom we must ever consider ourselves indebted for that lenity of procedure of which the present is so notable a testimony. The inclosures to protect our stores and dwelling-houses from the insults and barbarity of savage rudeness, have been erected for the security of my property and person in a country, till now, exposed to the wild will of the frantic Indians. We never formed the smallest idea that the said inclosures might ever be useful in the juncture of a rupture between the two powers, nor do we now conceive that such poor shifts will ever be employed by the British government in a country overshadowed with wood so adequate to every purpose. Forts might in a short period of time be built far superior to any stockades we may have occasion to erect.
We were not conscious, Sir, of the error I acknowledge we have been guilty of committing, by exhibiting to view on your territory any standard of Great Britain. I will pledge myself to your government, that I will use my utmost endeavors, as soon as possible, to prevent the future display of the British flag, or the presenting of medals, or the exhibiting to public view any other mark of European power, throughout the extent of territory known to belong to the dominion of the United States. The custom has long been established and we innocently and inoffensively, as we imagined, have conformed to it till the present day.