to such measures only as he was confident would subject him to no
inconvenience when the day of reckoning arrived. Meantime the business
of this department sustained a serious check; the old hands of the
post, having been tampered with by the opposition in the course
of last winter, quitted the service to a man, and I now found the
establishment to consist of a clerk, interpreter, and one man only.
I was given to understand that three men additional would join me as
soon as they could, and that I must not expect any more; thus our
number would be seven against twenty-two.

A disparity so vast precluded all hopes of maintaining the contest
with advantage to the Company or credit to myself. Fortune, however,
declared in our favour; dissensions arose in the ranks of our
opponents, clerks and men deserted, supplies for trade ran short, and
from being the weaker party we were now the stronger.

Governor Simpson having taken up his residence at La Chine in autumn,
men and goods were furnished in abundance, and the petty traders were
made to see, ere the winter passed, the futility of entering the lists
in competition with a Company possessing so vast resources.

Mr. MacD----l having wintered two years at this post, and being
consequently well acquainted with the natives, I entrusted the
direction of affairs against the opposition entirely to him, and
remained quietly at home, having only the few Indians that wintered in
the neighbourhood of the post to attend to; my situation, however, was
often far from agreeable, being frequently reduced to the company of
my pigs and poultry for weeks together, and obliged to act as trader,
cook, hewer of wood, and drawer of water.