"Having decided to establish a fort, we all set to work; four men to build, one to square boards for the doors, timber for the floors, and shelves for the shops, the two others to attend the rest.... There are now eight Indians here, all drunk and very troublesome to my neighbour, who, I believe, is as drunk as themselves; they are all very civil to me, and so they may, for I am giving them plenty to drink, without getting anything from them as yet." "This man (an Indian from Red Lake) tells me that the English (H. B. Co.), the X Y, and Mr. Adhemar (a free trader) were striving who would squander the most and thereby please the Indians best, but the consequence will be that the Indians will get all they want for half the value and laugh at them all, in the end. He told me that an Indian, who I know very well to have no influence on anyone but himself, got five kegs of mixed high wines to himself alone between the three houses and took 200 skins credit; that all the Indians were fifteen days without getting sober. I leave it to any rational being to judge what that Indian's skins will cost." "Another circumstance which will tend to injure the trade very much, so long as we have the Hudson's Bay Company against us, is the premium they allow every factor or master on whatever number of skins they obtain. Those people do not care at what price they buy or whether their employés gain by them, so long as they have their premium, which sets them in opposition to one another almost as much as they are to us. The honourable Hudson's Bay Company proprietors very little knew their own interest when they first allowed this interest to their 'officers,' as they call them, as it certainly had not the desired effect, for, if it added some to their exertions, it led in a great degree to the squandering of their goods, as they are in general both needy and selfish." PETER GRANT, THE HISTORIOGRAPHER. While many journals and sketches were forwarded to Mr. Roderick McKenzie, none of them were of so high a character in completeness and style as that of Mr. Peter Grant on the Saulteaux Indians. Peter Grant, as quite a young man at the age of twenty, joined the North-West Company in 1784. Seven years afterward he had become a partner, had charge of Rainy Lake district, and afterward that of the Red River department. His sketch of the Indians marks him as a keen observer and a facile writer. Some of his descriptions are excellent:--