The dissensions between the two companies so far do not appear to have had a prejudicial effect on the traffic, for on the 30th October, 1802, Lieutenant Governor Milnes, in a dispatch to Lord Hobart,[86] gives an account of the flourishing state of the fur-trade which so far, he says, from diminishing, appears to increase. New tracts of country had been visited by the merchants employed in this traffic, which had furnished new sources of supply, a large proportion of the furs taken in the North-West being brought to Quebec for shipment.[87] But, perhaps, a policy the most daring was pursued with regard to the Hudson's Bay Company. It was not expected that either McTavish and his allies, or the X. Y. concern would long be content to forego the glory and profit attendant upon warfare at close quarters with the Chartered Company. "What is there in their charter," they asked themselves, "which gives them benefits we cannot enjoy? We shall see." [Sidenote: The Northmen at Hudson's Bay.] They provided for a most effectual demonstration. In the spring of 1803, they sent the _Beaver_, a vessel of one hundred and fifty tons, to Hudson's Bay, with instructions to exploit commerce under the very guns of the Company's forts. Hardly had the _Beaver_ got under way than an overland expedition was sent by the old French trading route of Lakes St. Jean and Mistassini, to the same quarter. The result was the construction of two posts, one on Charlton Island, and the other at the mouth of Moose River. The astonishment of the Company's servants can be imagined, when upon looking out one fine morning, they beheld a band of swarthy half-breeds, captained by Orkneymen, rearing premises adjacent to their own, and bidding defiance to the ancient charter of the Honourable Hudson's Bay Company. They were told by their superiors not to be alarmed; the scheme of their rivals would not succeed any more than had those of the Quebec companies who a century before had sought to penetrate overland to the Bay. The company could always undersell them then; and it could now, and did. The confidence of the factors was justified, and the Indians merely smiled at the Northmen and their goods, bidding them return to their country, or betake themselves to the west, where the tribes were ignorant and knew not the value of things. So, after a season or two, the North-West concern abandoned Moose River and Charlton Island, and sought other and more fruitful fields in the west. [Sidenote: The Fishery and Fur Company.]