With the routine of his
nautical duties put him in a passion.
The partners, on the other hand, had been brought up in the
service of the Northwest Company, and in a profound idea of the
importance, dignity, and authority of a partner. They already
began to consider themselves on a par with the M'Tavishes, the
M'Gillivrays, the Frobishers, and the other magnates of the
Northwest, whom they had been accustomed to look up to as the
great ones of the earth; and they were a little disposed,
perhaps, to wear their suddenly-acquired honors with some air of
pretension. Mr. Astor, too, had put them on their mettle with
respect to the captain, describing him as a gunpowder fellow who
would command his ship in fine style, and, if there was any
fighting to do, would "blow all out of the water."
Thus prepared to regard each other with no very cordial eye, it
is not to be wondered at that the parties soon came into
collision. On the very first night Captain Thorn began his man-
of-war discipline by ordering the lights in the cabin to be
extinguished at eight o'clock.
The pride of the partners was immediately in arms. This was an
invasion of their rights and dignities not to be borne.
