The quantity of furs collected at Niagara is considerable, and the neighbourhood being populous, it is a place of no small trade; but the town, in which this trade is carried on, being on the British side of the line, the few merchants that lived within the limits of the fort immediately crossed over to the other side, as soon as it was rumoured that the fort was to be given up. By the possession of a solitary fort, therefore, the people of the States have not gained the smallest portion of this part of the lake trade; nor is it probable that any of them will find it their interest to settle as merchants near the fort; for the British merchants, on the opposite side, as has already been shewn, can afford to sell their goods, brought up the St. Lawrence, on much lower terms than what goods brought from New York can be sold at; and as for the collecting of furs, it is not to be imagined that the Indians, who bear such a rooted hatred to the people of the States, who are attached to the British, and who are not a people ready to forsake their old friends, will carry their furs over to their enemies, and give up their connexions with the men with whom they have been in the habit of dealing, and who can afford to pay them so much better than the traders on the opposite side of the water. Detroit, of all the places which have been given up, is the most important; for it is a town, containing at least twelve hundred inhabitants. Since its surrender, however, a new town has been laid out on the opposite bank of the river, eighteen miles lower down, and hither many of the traders have removed. The majority of them stay at Detroit; but few or none have become citizens of the States in consequence, nor is it likely that they will, at least for some time. In the late treaty, a particular provision for them was made; they were to be allowed to remain there for one year, without being called on to declare their sentiments, and if at the end of that period they chose to remain British subjects, they were not to be molested[12] in any manner, but suffered to carry on their trade as formerly in the fullest extent; the portion of the fur trade, which we shall lose by the surrender of this place, will therefore be very inconsiderable. Footnote 12: