STUDENTS of Canadian history have reason to be grateful to
the Champlain Society for re-editing the early travel books and printing documents hitherto inaccessible. Robertson's correspondence is of the second kind. Taken from the Hudson's Bay Company's archives, it supplements the recently printed Athabaska lourrtal of Simpson, who, with Robertson, was mainly responsible for ending the long and bitter struggle between the old London Company and the younger North- West Company of Montreal for the fur trade of Western Canada. Robertson's querulous letters explain why his London employers and his Canadian colleagues distrusted him, but they show also that he could act with vigour in a crisis. -The editor, Mr. Rich, in his long and valuable account of this fur trade quarrel, concludes that Simpson could hardly have ousted his Montreal competitors from Athabaska and compelled them to come to tetrns with the Hudson's Bay Company had not Robertson defeated their attempt to ruin Selkirk's Red River Colony—the founders of what is now Manitoba. The Montreal merchants wanted to keep the prairies inviolate for their store- keepers and trappers. Until this selfish policy was defeated, settlement west of the Great Lakes could not proceed. Robert- son, with all his failings, had a part in the victory that made modern Canada possible.
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