With their customary source of supply cut off, the Fort Garry free traders engaged three men to cart goods to them from the Mississippi country. Others carried pemmican from ``the Forks'' to St. Paul and goods from St. Paul to Red River, as in the summer of 1847 when one trader, Wells, transported twenty barrels of whisky to the British settlement. This trade was subject to a tariff of 7.5 per cent after February 1835, but much was smuggled into Assiniboia with the result that the duty was reduced by 1841 to 4 per cent on the initiative of the London committee.

The trade in a few commodities noted above was to grow in volume as a result of changes both north and south of the 49th parallel.