His report was received with utter indifference.
The company had other matters to think about. It was girding itself
for the life-and-death struggle with its rival, the Hudson's Bay
Company. "My expedition was hardly spoken of, but that is what I
expected," he writes to his cousin. But chagrin did not deter purpose.
He asked the directors' permission to explore that other broad
stream--Peace River--rolling down from the mountains. His request was
granted. Winter saw him on furlough in England, studying astronomy and
surveying for the next expedition. Here he heard much of the Western
Sea--the Pacific--that fired his eagerness. The voyages of Cook and
Hanna and Meares were on everybody's lips. Spain and England and
Russia were each pushing for first possession of the northwest coast.
Mackenzie hurried back to his Company's fort on the banks of Peace
River, where he spent a restless winter waiting for navigation to open.
Doubts of his own ambitions began to trouble him. What if Peace River
did not lead to the west coast at all? What if he were behind some
other discoverer sent out by the Spaniards or the Russians? "I have
been so vexed of late that I cannot sit down to anything steadily," he
confesses in a letter to his cousin. Such a tissue-paper wall
separates the aims of the real hero from those of the fool, that almost
every ambitious man must pass through these periods of self-doubt
before reaching the goal of his hopes.
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