Westers for his Pacific
Fur Company. Duncan MacDougall, a little pepper-box of a Scotchman, with
a bumptious idea of authority which was always making other eyes smart,
was to be Mr. Astor's proxy on the ship to round the Horn and at the
headquarters of the company on the Pacific. Donald MacKenzie was a
relative of Sir Alexander of the Nor' Westers, and must have left the
northern traders from some momentary pique; for he soon went back to the
Canadian companies, became chief factor at Fort Garry,[13] the
headquarters of the Hudson's Bay Company, and was for a time governor of
Red River. Alexander MacKay had accompanied Sir Alexander MacKenzie on
his famous northern trips, and was one Nor' Wester who served Mr. Astor
with fidelity to the death. The elder Stuart was a rollicking winterer
from The Labrador, with the hail-fellow-well-met-air of an equal among
the mercurial French-Canadians. The younger Stuart was of the game,
independent spirit that made Nor' Westers famous.

Of the Tonquin's voyage round the Horn--with its crew of twenty, and
choleric Captain Thorn, and four[14] partners headed by the fussy little
MacDougall in mutiny against the captain's discipline, and twelve clerks
always getting their landlubber clumsiness in the sailors' way, and
thirteen _voyageurs_ ever grumbling at the ocean swell that gave them
qualms unknown on inland waters--little need be said. Washington Irving
has told this story; and what Washington Irving leaves untold, Captain
Chittenden has recently unearthed from the files of the Missouri
archives.

The Tonquin sailed from New York, September 6, 1810. The captain had
been a naval officer, and cursed the partners for their easy familiarity
with the men before the mast, and the note-writing clerks for a lot of
scribbling blockheads, and the sea-sick _voyageurs_ for a set of
fresh-water braggarts. And the captain's amiable feelings were
reciprocated by every Nor' Wester on board.

Cape Horn was doubled on Christmas Day, Hawaii sighted in February, some
thirty Sandwich Islanders engaged for service in the new company, and
the Columbia entered at the end of March, 1811. Eight lives were lost
attempting to run small boats against the turbulent swell of tide and
current. The place to land, the site to build, details of the new fort,
Astoria--all were subjects for the jangling that went on between the
fuming little Scotchman MacDougall and Captain Thorn, till the Tonquin
weighed anchor on