had again trebled their capital, with a call of only ten per cent. After a
long and fierce rivalry with the Northwest Fur Company, the two companies
were amalgamated in 1821. [Footnote: Encyclopaedia Britannica.]

Radisson commences his narrative of 1652 in a reverent spirit, by
inscribing it "a la plus grande gloire de Dieu." All his manuscripts have
been handed down in perfect preservation. They are written out in a clear
and excellent handwriting, showing the writer to have been a person of good
education, who had also travelled in Turkey and Italy, and who had been in
London, and perhaps learned his English there in his early life. The
narrative of travels between the years 1652 and 1664 was for some time the
property of Samuel Pepys, the well-known diarist, and Secretary of the
Admiralty to Charles II. and James II. He probably received it from Sir
George Cartaret, the Vice-Chamberlain of the King and Treasurer of the
Navy, for whom it was no doubt carefully copied out from his rough notes by
the author, So that it might, through him, be brought under the notice of
Charles II. Some years after the death of Pepys, in 1703, his collection of
manuscripts was dispersed and fell into the hands of various London
tradesmen, who bought parcels of it to use in their shops as waste-paper.
The most valuable portions were carefully reclaimed by the celebrated
collector, Richard Rawlinson, who in writing to his friend T. Rawlins,
from. "London house, January 25th, 1749/50," says: "I have purchased the
best part of the fine collection of Mr Pepys, Secretary to the Admiralty
during the reigns of Charles 2d and James 2d. Some are as old as King Henry
VIII. They were collected with a design for a Lord High Admiral such as he
should approve; but those times are not yet come, and so little care was
taken of them that they were redeemed from _thus et adores vendentibus_."

The manuscript containing Radisson's narrative for the years 1682 and 1683
was "purchased of Rodd, 8th July, 1839," by the British Museum. The