He was only sixteen when he started for Canada to take up a position as clerk in the partnership concern of Gregory & M'Leod at Montreal.
It may be said here briefly that this "New North-west Company" went at first by the nickname of "The Little Company" or "The Potties", this last being an Amerindian corruption of the French _Les Petits_.

Later it developed into the "X.Y.

Company", or "Sir Alexander Mackenzie & Co.".

Although much in rivalry with the original "Nor'-westers", the rivalry never degenerated into the actual warfare, the indefensible deeds of violence and treachery, which later on were perpetrated by the Hudson's Bay Company on the agents of the North-west, and returned with interest by the latter.

Often the New North-west agents and the original Nor'-westers would camp or build side by side, and share equably in the fur trade with the natives; their canoemen and French-Canadian _voyageurs_ would sing their boating songs in chorus as they paddled side by side across the lakes and down the rivers, or marched with their heavy loads over the portages and along the trails.
Eventually, in 1804, the X.Y.Company and the North-west fused into the North-west Trading Company, which until 1821 fought a hard fight against the encroachments and jealousy of the Hudson's Bay Company.
During the period, however, from 1785 to 1812 the men of the north-west, of Montreal, and Grand Portage (as contrasted with those of Hudson Bay) effected a revolution in Canadian geography.