'[West Indies, 1758] Indeed, great part of the Indian trade centered
at Frontenac, to
which place the Indians annually repaired from all parts of America,
some of them at the distance of a thousand miles, and here exchanged
their furs for European commodities.
So much did the French traders excel the English in the art of
conciliating the affection of those savage tribes, that great part
of them, in their yearly progress to this remote market, actually
passed by the British settlement of Albany, in New York, where they
might have been supplied with what articles they wanted, much
cheaper than they could purchase them at Frontenac or Montreal; nay,
the French traders used to furnish themselves with those very
commodities from the merchants of New York, and found this traffic
much more profitable than that of procuring the same articles from
France, loaded with the expense of a tedious and dangerous
navigation, from the sea to the source of the river St. Laurence.'