Meanwhile dissension prevailed in the North-West Company. The smouldering feeling of dislike between "Le Marquis" and Alexander Mackenzie and the other fur-trading magnates broke out into a flame. As ex-Governor Masson says: "These three years were an uninterrupted succession of troubles, differences, and misunderstandings between these two opposing leaders." At the great gathering at the Grand Portage in 1799, Alexander Mackenzie warned the partners that he was about to quit the Company, and though the winterers begged him not to carry out his threat, yet he remained inexorable. The discussion reported to Mr. McTavish was very displeasing to him, and in the following year his usual letter to the gathering written from Montreal was curt and showed much feeling, he saying, "I feel hurt at the distrust and want of confidence that appeared throughout all your deliberations last season." Alexander Mackenzie, immediately after the scene at Grand Portage, crossed over to England, published his "Voyages," and received his title. He then returned in 1801 to Canada. Flushed with the thought of his successes, he threw himself with great energy into the affairs of the opposing Company, the X Y, or, as it was also now called, that of "Sir Alexander Mackenzie and Company." If the competition had been warm before, it now rose to fever heat. The brigandage had scarcely any limit; combats of clerk with clerk, trapper with trapper, voyageur with voyageur, were common. Strong drink became, as never before or since, a chief instrument of the rival companies in dealing with the Indians. A North-West Company trader, writing from Pembina, says: "Indians daily coming in by small parties; nearly 100 men here. I gave them fifteen kegs of mixed liquor, and the X Y gave in proportion; all drinking; I quarrelled with Little Shell, and dragged him out of the fort by the hair. Indians very troublesome, threatening to level my fort to the ground, and their chief making mischief. I had two narrow escapes from being stabbed by him; once in the hall and soon afterwards in the shop." Such were the troubles of competition between the Companies. The new Company made a determined effort to compete also in the far-distant Peace River district. In October of this year two prominent partners of the new Company arrived with their following at the Peace River. One of these, Pierre de Rocheblave, was of a distinguished family, being the nephew of a French officer who had fought on the _Monongahela_ against Braddock. The other was James Leith, who also became a prominent fur-trader in later days.