The principle of allowing to their chief officers a considerable participation in the profits of their trade was admitted. It was found absolutely necessary to adopt some step of this sort, as nothing of such a measure could be sufficient to stem the torrent of aggression with which they had been assailed by the North-West company; and their absolute ruin must have ensued if some effectual means had not been taken, not only to rectify some of the abuses which had crept in under the former system, but also to rouse their officers to a more effectual resistance of the lawless violence practised against them. The total lack of jurisdiction in the Indian country, as the territory which was the scene of the operations of the fur-traders was called, permitted crime to go unpunished, and numerous representations were made in respect to the evils of this practical immunity from punishment. In Sir Alexander Mackenzie's letter of the 25th of October, 1802, he says that, in view of the improbability of the two companies amalgamating, a jurisdiction should be established as speedily as possible, to prevent the contending fur companies from abusing the power either might possess, so as to secure to each the fruits of fair, honest and industrious exertion; it would also, he believed, tend to put a stop to the increasing animosity between the two companies. Mr. Richardson, of the other company, also pressed for the establishment of a competent jurisdiction and instanced the case of one of the clerks in his company who had killed a clerk of the other in defending the property in his care. The young man had come to Montreal to be tried, but there being no jurisdiction there for such trial, "he remains in the deplorable predicament that neither his innocence nor his guilt can be legally ascertained." He also proposed that a military post should be established at Thunder Bay, on Lake Superior, as an additional means of securing peace. Repeatedly had the Grand Juries of Quebec and Montreal called attention to this want of jurisdiction. In one report the number of people from the Canadas, chiefly from Lower Canada, was urged as one reason for establishing in the Indian country a court of competent jurisdiction for the trial of offences committed in these territories, including Hudson's Bay. [Sidenote: Plea for establishment of jurisdiction.]