A native of Stratherick,
Scotland, and one of the partners of the North-West Company of Canada. He
was upwards of twenty-four years employed in the wilds of Upper Canada,
and the interior of the north western regions of America, and was very
successful in promoting the business of the company, and in securing the
good-will and alliance of the Indian nations, by whose chiefs he was
always treated with the greatest respect, and received on the same footing
as one of their own number. His enterprising genius led him to project and
attempt an expedition across the continent of North America, for the
purpose of establishing a connexion with China; and, after having escaped
innumerable perils, he and six of his companions were lost near Cape
Disappointment near the mouth of the river Columbia, in the Northern
Pacific Ocean, on the 22nd May, 1815. |