INFLUENCE OF CANADIAN FRENCH IN OREGON 279
perience had already proven that a New York merchant, how- ever able, could not completely conduct the fur business in a humane manner. It is proposed to follow these Canadians to the ruling power of their own organization. We will follow Mr. Franchere's party, using his inimitable narrative, from Fort George, or Astoria, to the place and the tactics that fur- nished permanent food supply. There is one point that I press upon the attention of my readers. It is that the great majority of the ruling class of the North-West Company in the field service were either Scotch by birth or descent, and largely Highlanders. From the time of the break up of clans by the military order against the McDonalds, there was time for resolute men to place themselves in a chosen line of effort, and to that influence I ascribe the large proportion of High- land Scots named in the Canadian North-West Company. After Prince Rupert's Colony was formed, McKenzie, a trader whose cache had been found and looted at the mouth of the stream now called for him, spent May, 1813, collecting salmon, dried on the skin and baled for food, in the journey back to Canada, which the wintering partners, Clarke and David Stuart, said should not be undertaken till 1814. Mr. Hunt, who had gone up the North-West coast on August 4, 1812, returned in May, 1813, from Sandwich Islands. A man of great energy, he had been to Sitka and to East Kamchatka, and had collected 80,000 skins of fur seals. But owing to the loss of the Tonquin and Alexander McKay, his presence at Astoria had been greatly needed. He welcomed them now with salt beef, pork, rice and taro root which he had brought with him. But his order to continue on was not obeyed, and he will be held largely responsible for Astor's, or the Pacific Fur Company's, failure. His neglect to provide for Fort As- toria, when he first arrived there overland, was little short of dishonor on Hunt's part.
It is to the credit of the Canadians that they refused to con- tinue occupants of Fort Astoria, and when Irving's romance is decayed, international good-will will increase. Ninety men left on April 4, 1814, and six days later bought four horses
