al, to
recruit their health, and to have a taste of civilized life; and these
were brilliant spots in their existence.

As to the principal partners, or agents, who resided in Montreal and
Quebec, they formed a kind of commercial aristocracy, living in
lordly and hospitable style. Their posts, and the pleasures, dangers,
adventures, and mishaps which they had shared together in their wild
wood life, had linked them heartily to each other, so that they formed
a convivial fraternity. Few travellers that have visited Canada some
thirty years since, in the days of the M'Tavishes, the M'Gillivrays, the
M'Kenzies, the Frobishers, and the other magnates of the Northwest,
when the company was in all its glory, but must remember the round of
feasting and revelry kept up among these hyperborean nabobs.

Sometimes one or two partners, recently from the interior posts, would
make their appearance in New York, in the course of a tour of pleasure
and curiosity. On these occasions there was a degree of magnificence of
the purse about them, and a peculiar propensity to expenditure at
the goldsmith's and jeweler's for rings, chains, brooches, necklaces,
jeweled watches, and other rich trinkets, partly for their own
wear, partly for presents to their female acquaintances; a gorgeous
prodigality, such as was often to be noticed in former times in Southern
planters and West India creoles, when flush with the profits of their
plantations.

To behold the Northwest Company in all its state and grandeur, however,
it was necessary to witness an annual gathering at the great interior
place of conference established at Fort William, near what is called
the Grand Portage, on Lake Superior. Here two or three of the leading
partners from Montreal proceeded once a year to meet the partners from
the various trading posts of the wilderness, to discuss the affairs
of the company during the preceding year, and to arrange plans for the
future.

On these occasions might be seen the change since the unceremonious
times of the old French traders; now the aristocratic character of the
Briton shone forth magnificently, or rather the feudal spirit of the
Highlander. Every partner who had charge of an interior post, and a
score of retainers at his Command, felt like the chieftain of a Highland
clan, and was almost as important in the eyes of his dependents as of
himself. To him a visit to the grand conference at Fort William was
a most important event, and