But the Company was now on the eve of the most momentous change in its history. Anthony Hendry had reported how the French traders had gone up the Saskatchewan to the tribes of equestrian Indians; and Hendry had been cashiered for his pains. Now a new fact influenced the Company. French power had fallen at Quebec, in 1759. Instead of a few French traders scattered through the West, were thousands of wildwood rovers, half-Indian, half-French, voyageurs and bush-lopers, fled from the new laws of the new English régime to the freedom of the wilderness. Beyond Sault Ste. Marie, the long hand of the law could not reach. Beyond the Sault, was law of neither God nor man. To make matters worse, English merchants, who had flocked to Montreal and Quebec, now outfitted these French rovers and personally led them to the far hunting field of the _Pays d’en Haut_—a term that meant anything from Lake Superior to the Pole. The English Adventurers sent more men up stream—up the Moose toward Quebec as far as Abbittibbi, up the Albany toward what is now Manitoba past Henley House as far as Osnaburg, across what is now Keewatin toward Lake Superior as far as New Brunswick House. The catch of furs showed a decrease every year. Fewer Indians came to the bay, fewer hunters to the outlying fur posts. Dividends dropped from 10 to 8 and from 8 to 6 and from 6 to 5 per cent. Instead of 100,000 beaver a year there came to the London market only 40,000 and 50,000 a year. To stand on the rights of monopoly conferred by an ancient charter while “interlopers and pedlars,” as the Company called them—ran away with the profits of that monopoly, was like standing on your dignity with a thief while he picked your pockets. The “smug ancient gentlemen,” as enemies designated the Company, bestirred themselves mightily. Moses Norton, governor of Churchill, was no more anxious to fight the French Canadians on the hunting field now than he had been in the days of Anthony Hendry, but being half-Indian he knew all the legends of the Indians—knew that even if the French already had possession of the Saskatchewan, north of the Saskatchewan was an unclaimed kingdom, whence no white man had yet set foot, as large again as the bounds of Hudson Bay.