The strongest financial, social and political interests of Eastern Canada were now centered in the Northwest Company. There were ways of discouraging independent merchants from sending pedlars to the North. Boycott, social or financial, the pulling of political strings that withheld a government passport, a hint that if the merchant wanted a hand in the trade it would be cheaper for him to pool his interests with the Nor’Westers than risk a $3,000 load on his own account—kept the field clear or brought about absorption of all rivals till 1801. Then a Dominique Rousseau essayed an independent venture led by his clerk, Hervieux. Grand Portage on Lake Superior was the halfway post between Montreal and the _Pays d’en Haut_—the metropolis of the Nor’Westers’ domain. Here came Hervieux’s brigade and pitched camp some hundred yards away from the Nor’West palisades. Hardly had Hervieux landed when there marched across to him three officers of the Northwest Company, led by Duncan McGillivray, who ordered the newcomers to be off on pain of death, as all the land here was Northwest property. Hervieux stood his ground stoutly as a British subject and demanded proof that the country belonged to the Northwest Company. To the Nor’Westers, such a demand was high treason. McGillivray retorted he would send proof enough. The partners withdrew, but there sallied out of the fort a party of the famous Northwest bullies—prize fighters kept in trim for the work in hand. Drawing knives, they cut Hervieux’s tents to shreds, scattered his merchandise to the four winds and bedrubbed the little men, who tried to defend it, as if they had been so many school boys. “You demand our title to possession? You want proofs that we hold this country? Eh? Bien! Voila! There’s proof! Take it; but if you dare to go into the interior, there will be more than tents cut! Look out for your throats.” Totally ruined, Hervieux was compelled to go back to Montreal, where his master in vain sued the Nor’Westers. The Nor’Westers were not responsible. It was plain as day: they had not ordered those bullies to come out, and those bullies were a matter of three thousand miles away and could not be called as witnesses.