Journals, стр. 117
.—The weather was the same as yesterday, and the country increasing in beauty; though as we approached the Fort, the cattle appeared proportionably to diminish. We now landed at two lodges of Indians, who were as astonished to see us, as if we had been the first white men whom they had ever beheld. When we had passed these people, not an animal was to be seen on the borders of the river.
At length, as we rounded a point, and came in view of the Fort, we threw out a flag, and accompanied it with a general discharge of our firearms; while the men were in such spirits, and made such an active use of their paddles, that we arrived before the two men whom we left here in the spring, could recover their senses to answer us. Thus we landed at four in the afternoon, at the place which we left on the ninth of May. —Here my voyages of discovery terminate. Their toils and their dangers, their solicitudes and sufferings, have not been exaggerated in my description. On the contrary, in many instances, language has failed me in the attempt to describe them. I received, however, the reward of my labours, for they were crowned with success.
As I have now resumed the character of a trader I shall not trouble my readers with any subsequent concern, but content myself with the closing infomation, that after an absence of eleven months, I arrived at Fort Chipewyan, where I remained, for the purposes of trade, during the succeeding winter.
The following general, but short, geographical view of the country may not be improper to close this work, as well as some remarks on the probable advantages that may be derived from advancing the trade of it, under proper regulations, and by the spirit of commercial enterprize.
By supposing a line from the Atlantic, east, to the Pacific, west, in the parallel of forty-five degrees of north latitude, it will, I think, nearly describe the British territories in North America. For I am of opinion, that the extent of the country to the south of this line, which we have a right to claim, is equal to that to the north of it, which may be claimed by other powers.
The outline of what I shall call the first division, is along that track of country which runs from the head of James Bay, in about latitude 51° north, along the eastern coast, as far north as to, and through Hudson’s Straits, round by Labrador; continuing on the Atlantic coast, on the outside of the great islands, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, to the River St. Croix, by which it takes its course, to the height of land that divides the waters emptying themselves into the Atlantic, from those discharged into the River St. Lawrence. Then following these heights, as the boundary between the British possessions, and those of the American states, it makes an angle westerly until it strikes the discharge of Lake Champlain, in latitude 45° north, when it keeps a direct west line till it strikes the River St. Lawrence, above Lake St. Francis, where it divides the Indian village St. Rigest; from whence it follows the centre of the waters of the great River St. Lawrence: it then proceeds through Lake Ontario, the connection between it and Lake Erie; through the latter, and its chain of connection, by the river Detroit, as far south as latitude 42° north, and then through the lake and River St. Clair, as also lake Huron, through which it continues to the strait of St. Mary, latitude 46° 30′ north; from which we will suppose the line to strike to the east of north, to the head of James Bay, in the latitude already mentioned.
Of this great tract, more than half is represented as barren and broken, displaying a surface of rock and fresh water lakes, with a very scattered and scanty proportion of soil. Such is the whole coast of Labrador, and the land, called East Main to the west of the heights, which divide the waters running into the river and Gulf of St. Lawrence, from those flowing into Hudson’s Bay. It is consequently inhabited only by a few savages, whose numbers are proportioned to the scantiness of the soil; nor is it probable, from the same cause, that they will increase. The fresh and salt waters, with a small quantity of game, which the few, stinted woods afford, supply the wants of nature; from whence, to that of the line of the American boundary, and the Atlantic Ocean, the soil, wherever cultivation has been attempted, has yielded abundance; particularly on the River St. Lawrence, from Quebec upwards, to the line of boundary already mentioned; but a very inconsiderable proportion of it has been broken by the ploughshare.
The line of the second division may be traced from that of the first at St. Mary’s, from which also the line of American boundary runs, and is said to continue through Lake Superior (and through a lake called the Long Lake which has no existence), to the Lake of the Woods, in latitude 49° 37′ north, from whence it is also said to run west to the Mississippi, which it may do, by giving it a good deal of southing, but not otherwise; as the source of that river does not extend further north than latitude 47° 38′ north, where it is no more than a small brook; consequently, if Great Britain retains the right of entering it along the line of division, it must be in a lower latitude, and wherever that may be, the line must be continued west, till it terminates in the Pacific Ocean, to the south of the Columbia. This division is then bounded by the Pacific Ocean on the west, the Frozen Sea and Hudson’s Bay on the north and east. The Russians, indeed, may claim with justice, the islands and coast from Behring’s Straits to Cook’s Entry.
The whole of this country will long continue in