BOURGEOIS - Toronto Public Library

LETTERS 133
the North-West Company, promised that he and his party shall
be well received by any of you, gentlemen, whom he may meet
or visit in his progress through the interior of the Country, and
also that you will afford every facility and assistance in your
power for the prosecution of the undertaking in which he is
engaged.
Lieutenant Franldin's object is one of a purely public and
scientific nature and has no connection whatever with any disputes
or territorial claims in discussion between us and the
Hudson's Bay Company. He goes out in one of their ships
because it is the shortest and most direct route for that purpose,
and they have engaged to fUI'nish supplies and means of conveyance
for himself aud his party throughout the whole of the
Interior. His plan will probably be to endeavour to reach Fort
Chipewyan this Fall, and to proceed from thence towards the
Coppermine River early in Spring.
Now, if in the course of the intended route, or any other
which Lieutenant Franklin may find occasion to pursue, he
should find that the servants of the Hudson's Bay Company have
not the means of furnishing him with the requisite supplies, it
is my request and the promise which, on behalf of the North­
West Company, I have made to His Majesty's Government, not
that you should furnish clerks or servants of the Hudson Bay
Company with the means of proceeding to any part of the
country where they may not have previously succeeded in
establishing themselves, but that you will, so far as your means
can possibly permit, furnish canoes, men, provisions and all the
requisite supplies for Lieutenant Frallklin's voyage.
His party is intended to consist of two young Officers of the
Navy, one medical gentleman and two seamen, besides whom
he may probably engage a couple of Orlmey men who have been
accustomed to live amongst the Esquimallx. My idea was that