reserved my thanks for a future occasion; for I could not but feel,
that being an officer of the Company, it was robbing me of a part of
my pay under the pretext of an indulgence. Availing myself, however,
of this ungenerous grant of freedom, I spent some halcyon days in the
company of relatives most dear to me, and expected no interruption to
my enjoyment until the time appointed for the embarkation: but a few
days after I had joined my relatives in the vicinity of Montreal, I
received a letter, commanding me, in the most peremptory manner, to
repair to Lachine,--"circumstances not foreseen at my arrival from the
interior required my departure without further delay." I accompanied
the bearer of Mr. K----'s letter, and found, on arriving at Lachine,
that I had been appointed to conduct some of Captain Back's party, who
proved rather troublesome to him at Montreal, to the Chats, and there
to await my passage to the north by the Brigade.

I had now served the Hudson's Bay Company faithfully and zealously
for a period of twelve years, leading a life of hardship and toil,
of which no idea can be formed except by those whose hard lot it may
be to know it by experience. How enthusiastically I had laboured for
them, may be better gathered from the foregoing narrative than from
any statement I could here make. And what was my reward? I had no
sooner succeeded in freeing my district from opposition, than I was
ordered to resign my situation to another, who would enjoy the fruits
of my labour:--when I arrived at the Company's head-quarters to take
my departure for a remote district, I was ordered to provide for
myself until I embarked; and when enjoying myself in the bosom of my
family, to suit the convenience of one of their correspondents, I was
torn away from them prematurely, and without warning,--treatment,
which caused one of them so severe a shock as nearly to prove fatal!