N^o 11

Great Slave Lake

Mountain Island May 29^th 1820

Dear Sir,

I have the honor of acknowledging with much respect the reciept of your very obliging Favor of the 1^st June, for which and the Kind remembrance you show me, I beg leave to offer my grateful thanks[.] I had the pleasure of writing to you last year, but the Athabasca light Canoe having been Robbed at the Grand Rapid, by a Sett of desperadoes in the Pay of the Hudson's Bay Company, my letters to Canada was seized with the Budget of Papers going out – and I suppose is now lying on the Table of some magistrate or Sheriff's office[.] This no doubt is also the fate of a Letter I addressed to Captain John MacKenzie and another I had written to Master Alexander[.] I feel a little Sorry on account of the two Latter because they were written in a jocose Style and perhaps rather too free[.] However they contain'd nothing of Treason or obscenity[.] I hope the System of Such lawless deeds will soon meet with its due merit[.] Altho' no fears on that account seem to trouble the Hudson Bay Gentry, Since it is currently reported and I think with reason, as currently credited, that a Guard is again to seize persons &^c at the Same place this year, which will perhaps occasion some Blood Shed again – for I understand our Gentlemen are determined to resist such unjustifiable aggressions, if any attempt is made in the other side to follow up the plan in future[.] Indeed I cannot concieve what is the benefit of Laws to Society, when daring persons may evade, and act in defience of them[.] The Act of Parliament extending the Jurisdiction of the Canada Courts of Justice, to the Trial of Offences committed in these Wild parts, ought also I think to have suggested something to protect

individ

[69]