BOURGEOIS - Toronto Public Library

Lord
Selkirk.
52 RODERIC MCKENZIE
. " I must, however, take the liberty of reminding you, that
the difficulties you have already experienced are trivial in comparison
to those you have still to encounter before you get
through your undertaking. Your object must be to relate mat.
ters as they occurred, which may make more enemies than
friends. Besides you will have to advance at least two thousand
pounds before yon receive a shilling for the work (1).
" I wish you would give instruction to collect from the English
Chief and other Chipeweans the fullest account they possibly
can give of Hearne's journey with them to the North Sea, where,
according to what I learn, he never went."
" London, 13th April, 1812.
In which after referring to the Earl of Selkirk's conduct to
himself, Sir Alexander MacKenzie says:
" I have finally settled with that Lord. After having prepared
a bill to carry him before the Lord Chancellor, it was proposed
to my solicitor by the solicitor of His Lordship that one-third of
(1) The Han. R. McKenzie was a man of considerable literary attainments and
very extensive reading. He appears to have at one time entertained the idea. of
publishing a History of the Aboriginal trib.es of the North-West, as well as a History
of the North-West Company. In order to procure the necessary materials for that
work, he sent printed circulars to many of the wintering partners, and clerks of
the North-West Company, requesting them to collect, and send to him in the form of
letters or journals, such information as they could obtain relating to the country in
which they were respectively stationed; the natives, their origin, religion, mora.ls
and customs; their most eminent chiefs, their government; the origin of their trade
with the White, &c.
He received, in response, several reports, "accounts," and journa.ls from the North­
West,-some of which are published in this collection-but he does not appear to have
carried out his original plan, but seems to have been content with collecting n. vast
number of most interesting extracts from the books of different travellers and writers,
and arranging them so as to prove, and establish a perfect anology of race between the
Aborigines, of the North-West and other nations, ancient and modern, throughout the
wo.rId, by the simila.rity of their ideas, customs and modes of living.