The health of the Earl, shattered by the anxieties and episodes which have been recorded, rendered it necessary that he should seek repose in the south of France. But his ailment was mortal. He breathed his last at Pau, in the month of April, 1820, surrounded by his wife and children, leaving behind him many friends, and numerous admirers of his intellectual qualities and his courage. The Great North-West of to-day is his monument. The death of its principal Adventurer strengthened, on the part of the Company, the sentiment for peace; and by removing the chief obstacle hastened an amalgamation of interests of the rival traders. None then could nor can now but perceive, if they examine the situation broadly, that the complete annihilation of the North-West Association was a mere matter of time. None recognized this more than their agents in London, who had repeatedly made overtures to Lord Selkirk for amalgamation, but which were by him rejected as often as made. To Edward Ellice, a leading partner, an enterprising merchant, and a rising parliamentarian, belongs the chief credit of bringing about this union. This young man was the son of Alexander Ellice, a wealthy London merchant, and himself directly interested in the Canadian fur-trade. In 1803, when a lad of but fourteen, young Ellice had gone out to Canada, and animated by a love of adventure, had entered into the life of a trader, under the auspices of his father's friends. Ellice was quick to grasp the tendency of affairs. The terrible struggle of recent years made by the Northmen had told severely upon them.[108] [Illustration: SIR GEORGE SIMPSON.] The partners met at Fort William, in July, 1820, and a stormy session served to reflect their vexed plight. Dissensions exhibited themselves; the minority, at least, felt that in their London agents--Ellice and the McGillivrays--coming to terms with the Hudson's Bay Company, lay their only hope of salvation. [Sidenote: Union of the two Companies.] Without, however, consulting the powers at Fort William, these agents in London were acting on their own account. Conferences with the Chartered Adventurers took place daily. By the time the partnership between the Northmen themselves expired, in 1821, the negotiations had attained the form of an agreement. Delegates had been sent from Fort William to confer with their English representatives as to the future of the interests of the North-West Company. Ellice received them cordially in his office in Mark Lane and showed them an instrument which he called the Deed Poll. This document bore the names of the Governor, Berens, and the Committee of the Honourable Hudson's Bay Company, on the one part, and the McGillivrays and Ellice, on the other. The astonished delegates gazed upon the signed and sealed instrument, and recognized that the North-West Company had ceased to exist. "Amalgamation," cried one of them, "this is not amalgamation, but submersion. We are drowned men."