Knight, as we know, had disappeared, and the secret of his fate, anticipated by us, was still unknown. Middleton, Moore, and Smith had accomplished nothing. Surely it was time to make a change of tactics, and with some such feeling the heads of the Company resolved to give up the question of a water passage to the West for a time, and see what could be accomplished by land. Not until 1769, however, two years after the discovery of the relics of Knight's expedition, was any thing definite attempted, and by that date the Hudson's Bay Company had been to some degree supplanted by that known as the North-west, which consisted of a number of British merchants who, without charter, privileges, or public support, had been quietly, though energetically, making good their footing in the great North-west.
Our readers will remember all that we have told them of the French coureurs des bois, and of their rapid advance westward, accompanied by the Jesuit missionaries, who did so much to check their abuses. This advance at one time seemed likely to prevent that of any other Europeans; but the cession of Canada to England in 1763, a cession fraught with political consequences of such vital importance to the whole civilized world, shook the power of the French to its foundation.
A royal proclamation was issued, organizing Canada under English laws; and no longer could the lawless proceedings of the coureurs des bois be tolerated. Henceforth the lakes and rivers would miss the skin-laden canoes of the half-savage traders; no more should the remote forests echo with their shouts of joy as they brought down their prey, or the solemn wastes of snow-clad plains be desecrated by their wild revels.
The change—as all great changes generally are—was gradual. The pioneers of the new order of things often surprised some little group of dusky half-caste children, with eager eyes and vivacious ways of their French fathers contrasting strangely with the shrinking timidity inherited from their savage mothers. Now and then, too, bloody struggles took place between the hunters of the rival nations; and the natives, delighted to see the white men devouring each other, began those treacherous assaults, in which they have ever proved themselves adepts, which culminated in the massacres of Detroit and Michilimackinac.
This terrible transition stage, where such numerous rivals were contending for the monopoly of the fur-trade of the great North-west, produced, as transition stages so often do, many a bold spirit eager to win honor by facing
