Note 83 — Chapter XXVII · 1783-1800.

Of David Thompson we get a portrait from Mr. H. H. Bancroft. He was, he says, "of an entirely different order of man from the orthodox fur-trader. Tall and fine looking, with sandy complexion, with large features, deep-set studious eyes, high forehead and broad shoulders, the intellectual was set upon the physical. His deeds have never been trumpeted as have those of some of the others; but in the westward explorations of the North-West Company, no man performed more valuable service or estimated his achievements more modestly. Unhappily his last days were not as pleasant as fell to the lot of some of the worn out members of the Company. He retired, almost blind, to Lachine House, once the headquarters of the Company, where he was met with in 1831 in a very decrepit condition."