expedition should be set on foot in the following spring.

It was in the course of that winter that one of my friends made me
acquainted in confidence with the plan of these gentlemen, under the
injunction of strictest secrecy. The desire of seeing strange countries,
joined to that of acquiring a fortune, determined me to solicit
employment of the new association; on the 20th of May I had an interview
with Mr. A. M'Kay, with whom the preliminaries were arranged; and on the
24th of the same month I signed an agreement as an apprenticed clerk for
the term of five years.

When the associates had engaged a sufficient number of Canadian boatmen,
they equipped a bark canoe under charge of Messrs. Hunt and M'Kenzie,
with a Mr. Perrault as clerk, and a crew of fourteen men. These
gentlemen were to proceed to Mackinaw, and thence to St. Louis, hiring
on the way as many men as they could to man the canoes, in which, from
the last-mentioned port, they were to ascend the Missouri to its source,
and there diverging from the route followed by Lewis and Clark, reach
the mouth of the Columbia to form a junction with another party, who
were to go round by way of Cape Horn. In the course of my narrative I
shall have occasion to speak of the success of both these expeditions.




NARRATIVE OF A VOYAGE TO THE NORTHWEST COAST OF AMERICA



CHAPTER I.