The fall of Quebec in 1759 had brought with it the destruction of the organized French fur trade, and the traders were scattered through the wilds. But new groups of adventurers, mainly of Scotch descent, swarmed westward from their headquarters at Montreal, and penetrated into the wilderness further than the French had ever gone. By the year 1772, the Montreal traders had crossed from the Saskatchewan to the still more northerly Churchill river, and cut the line of communication ordinarily used by the Indians of Lake Athabaska in their long journey to Hudson Bay. The consolidation of the rival interests into one great firm--the North West Company--was accomplished in 1784 at the very time of Thompson's arrival in the West. This achievement brought vastly increased strength to the Montreal traders by mitigating the evils of their fierce competition. Thus the Hudson's Bay Company was threatened with the loss of its fur supply at the same moment as the French war interrupted its convoys, and La Pérouse swept the Bay, destroying the posts at Churchill, York, and Albany. Energetic measures were necessary if the lost trade was to be recovered. As early as 1774, Samuel Hearne had taken the momentous step of founding the first inland post of the Hudson's Bay Company at Cumberland House. Situated on the Saskatchewan a few miles west of Lake Winnipeg, Cumberland House stood, as it were, in the centre of a vast web of waterways. "A canoe could start from this house, and with no portage of more than a day's length could be launched on the Arctic ocean, Hudson Bay, the Gulf of St. Lawrence or the Gulf of Mexico; and without much greater interruption could be floated on to the Pacific ocean." Despite the disasters of the French war, and the dreadful epidemic of smallpox which in 1781 had swept across the West, decimating and demoralizing the natives, the advance of the Company was continued by the establishment of further posts along the Saskatchewan river. Thompson was thus drawn into the forefront of the battle for furs, when he was included in Longmore's party in the summer of '86.