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"qu'eux (les gens de la Baye d'Hudson) avaient eus jusqu'àlors dans leur commerce en Athabasca". i.e. "that he was convinced that the motive and object for their arrest was only to do injury to the North West Company, by depriving them of the services of their engagés; that in a conversation with John Clarke, he had occasion to make known to him his innocence of the crime laid to his charge, and his intention and wish to go to Montreal to justify himself. Clarke told him, they knew all that very well, but that as he was a man highly useful to his employers, they (the Hudson's Bay Company) wanted to have him in their service, and that it was for that reason they had taken him, and not to put him to any trouble, adding that they had been on the look out for him for four years past. That at another time they said, only give us your word that you will engage with us to come up; and seeing that he would not desert from the service of the North West Company, they endeavoured to persuade him that they should sooner or later succeed in gaining him, saying that with money he was to be got as well as another. That it was their design to make themselves masters of the best men belonging to the North West Company, which would do them a great deal of injury, and

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