an the boundary line through the straits of Saint Mary's and Lake
Superior to the Lake of the Woods. As soon as the smoke of the war
cleared off, namely, in 1816, Congress enacted that British traders and
capital should be excluded from the American lines, that no British
subjects should receive licenses to trade, and that all such persons who
went inland in subordinate capacities should be bonded for by the
American traders who employed them. This law seemed to bear particularly
on this section of country, and is generally understood to have been
passed to throw the old North West Company, and other British traders,
trading on their own account, out of this hitherto very lucrative branch
of trade. John Jacob Astor, of New York, went immediately to Montreal
and bought out all the posts and factories of that company, situated in
the north-west, which were south of the lines. With these posts, the
factors, trading clerks, and men were, as a matter of course, cast on
the patronage and employment of that eminent German furrier. That he
might cover their employment, he sent an agent from Montreal into
Vermont to engage enterprising young men, in whose names the licenses
could be taken out. He furnished the entire capital for the trade, and
sent agents, in the persons of two enterprising young Scotch gentlemen,
from Montreal and New York to Michilimackinack, to manage the business.
This new arrangement took the popular name of the American Fur Company.
In other respects, except those related, the mode of transacting the
trade, and the real actors therein, remained very much as they were.
American lads, whose names were inscribed in the licenses at
Michilimackinack, as principals, went inland in reality to learn the
business and the language; the _engagees_, or boatmen, who were chiefly
Canadians or metifs, were bonded for, in five hundred dollars each. In
this condition, I found things on my arrival here. The very thin
diffusion of American feeling or principle in both the traders and the
Indians, so far as I have seen them, renders it a matter of no little
difficulty to supervise this business, and it has required perpetual
activity in examining the boats and outfits of the traders who have
received their licenses at Mackinack, to search their packages, to
detect contraband goods, _i.e._ ardent spirits, and grant licenses,
passports, and permits to those who have applied to me. To me it seems
that the whole old resident popula