and obligations. But when an appeal, with attested documents, was addressed to the office in London, the reply was that the company knew nothing of such an obligation, but would give a passage to a minister, if those who wished him would procure and support him. In the mean while these Presbyterians, with what grace they could, attended the services of the English Church at the settlement, greatly disliking its method and ritual. In vain did they appeal to each successive local governor, as he assumed office, to carry out the pledge made to them. Not till after the lapse of nearly forty years from their coming did the Presbyterians receive a minister of their own faith, and he was procured through friendly help from Canada. Three hundred of these colonists sheep following their own shepherd at once left the services of the English Church, thus provoking a new feud.1

The progress of the controversy over the Oregon boundary reveals many traces of the secret agency of the Hudson Bay Company in setting up claims and influencing public opinion. These traces are obvious in many articles in leading reviews and other publications, and in hints acted upon. by British diplomats. Looking shrewdly to developments in the future, — which, however, were hurried in their advance by the vigorous pushing forward of settlers from the United States in still disputed territory, the Bay Company in 1841 sent a party from the Red River to establish a colony on Vancouver's Island. The island was then supposed to be British territory. But when, by the treaty of 1846, Oregon fell to the United States, provision was made that the company should retain its territorial rights there. Dr. McLaughlin, who, as an agent of the North West Company, had been a strong opponent of the Bay Company, after the coalition. in 1821 became a factor of the latter, and was made local governor west of the Rocky Mountains. He was regarded as indifferent to the company's interests, and as favoring settlers from the United States near the Columbia, so as effectually to weaken the claims of Great Britain to Oregon. When the colony from the Red River arrived it received but a cold welcome from him. The British grant to the company for a colony in Vancouver's Island was dated January 13, 1849. The draft of the charter,2 as originally favored by Earl Grey, a strong champion of the company, was greatly modified before it passed the seals, the powers conferred by it on the company being reduced and qualified. Still the provisions of the charter were very objectionable, and were found to be quite unfavorable to those disposed to settle in the territory. Their grievances were plainly spoken when they discovered on the ground the restrictions and limitations attached to residence and trade. An object of the company in securing a footing on the island had in view the expiration in 1859 of its renewed twenty years' license in the Indian territories. The modifications introduced into the

1 Mr. Ross, who was the most efficient agent in this work, gives a full account of it in his Red River Settlement.

2 It is given by Martin. See Critical Essay.

The crown

draft of the charter fortunately provided some safeguards. retained the right to recall the grant at the end of five years; and when the renewed term of the license for the Indian territories should expire in 1859, the crown might purchase the island by remunerating the company for its outlays. It is observable that by these cautious reservations of crown rights, both in the renewal of the license in the Indian Territory and in the Vancouver charter, no such limitless liberality for a monopoly as was indulged in the Bay charter was to be again ventured.

Now as the Hudson Bay Company, having warded off all challengers ⚫ on its original fields, had intrenched itself on a new one, looking forward to security and perpetuity, we are to follow the course of inquiry and negotiation which led it to the release of its grasp.

The whole contents of a substantial folio volume of British documents 1 are devoted to a "Report from the Select Committee on the Hudson's Bay Company; together with the Proceedings of the Committee and Minutes of Evidence." The committee consisted of nineteen members, including Lord John Russell and Mr. Gladstone. Among the members was the Right Hon. Edward Ellice. As previously mentioned, he, as a most active member of the North West Company, had been a vigorous opponent of the Bay Company. After the coalition, he was a most strenuous champion of the latter. In this investigation he appears in two rôles: first, as a questioner, endeavoring to draw out or to suppress testimony agreeable or objectionable to him; second, as a witness, positive in his statements and skilled in reticence and reserve. The committee held some twenty sessions, from February to July inclusive, and examined twenty-five witnesses. The commission was held in view of the near approach of the period when the renewed license for exclusive trade, in 1838, for twenty-one years, granted to the company in the Indian Territory, would expire. This alone would make it necessary that the condition of the whole of those vast regions administered by the company should be carefully considered. But other circumstances made such a course the duty of Parliament. Three reasons are mentioned: the desire of Canadian fellow-subjects of extension and settlement over a portion of the territory; the provision of suitable administration over the affairs of Vancouver's Island; and the condition of the settlement on the Red River. Chief Justice Draper was commissioned by the government of Canada to watch the inquiry, and he offered testimony. There was put in evidence taken before a committee of the legislative assembly. The committee also had the opinion of the law officers of the crown on points connected with the charter of the Bay Company. The inquiry covered three descriptions of territory, the chartered or Rupert's Land, the Indian Territory, and Vancouver's Island. The committee came to the conclusion that, as one object of imperial policy, it was essential to meet the just and reasonable wishes of Canada to annex some portion of the neighbor

1 Reports from Committees, vol. xv. 1857.

ing land best suited for communication and settlement, for which she would provide the means of local administration. The districts best suited for this are those on the Red River and the Saskatchewan. It is hoped that arrangements may be made between the government and the Bay Company for ceding to Canada on equitable principles these districts, the authority of the company in them then to cease. The details of the arrangement would be maturely considered by Parliament. If Canada is not at once ready to undertake the government of the Red River district, some temporary provision may be made. It will be well, as soon as convenient, to terminate the connection between the company and Vancouver's Island, and to extend the colony on the latter. As to the extensive regions both of Rupert's Land and of the Indian Territory, of which there is no present prospect of their settlement by any of the European race, view must be had to three possible dangers: the risks of lawlessness and disorder; the fatal effects on the natives of competition in the fur trade, and the greater freedom for introducing spirits; and the danger of the indiscriminate destruction of the fur-bearing animals. For these reasons the committee judge that, whatever may be the validity, or otherwise, of the rights claimed by the company under its charter, it is desirable that it should continue to hold its privilege of exclusive trade, though limited by the foregoing considerations. The committee cannot say how far the claims of the company, based on its chartered rights, may obstruct, but hope for an amicable adjustment of the matter, through conciliation and justice. A bill in the next session of Parliament may provide an equitable and satisfactory arrangement.

Before making a cursory review of the points of inquiry and evidence in this elaborate parliamentary investigation, an incidental topic presents itself in the appearance, as both a member of the committee and as a witness before it, of a gentleman already referred to, the Right Honorable Edward Ellice. His associates must have found some amusement in his skill and fence. In questioning witnesses he showed that skill in seeking to guard the credit and interest of the company: he would draw out vouchers of the necessity, the justice, and the practical wisdom of its policy; that it treated the natives humanely, providing for their own improvement, medical service, and civilization; that it was compelled to forbid competition in trade; and that its territory was wholly unsuited for agricultural settlements. Mr. Ellice showed his fence as a witness by holding the committee strictly to its official authority within a certain range of inquiry. He dodged all questions of a personal or private nature. He stoutly refused to make revelations about the profits or to give the names of the shareholders of the company, intimating that that was not the committee's business. He was confronted with an extract from a book of his old partner, McGillivray.' This asserted that "Selkirk, having acquired the majority of votes, held the Bay Company under his thumb, and thus secured his immense tract of country, and that the attorney-general ought to look into it." Mr. Ellice 1 A Narrative of Occurrences in the Indian Countries of North America, 1815.

naively replied that perhaps he himself was the author of that "libel" on the company. He had written and uttered as bad ones at the time of violent contests. He himself wrote a book in 1816.

The principal points of inquiry by the committee concerned the company's relations to the natives and influence upon them in trade and intercourse; the use of spirituous liquors; efforts of civilization and education; the profits of the company; the consequences of competition and free trade; the quality of the soil and its adaptation for flourishing agricultural settlements.

In all the official inquiries and hearings before the colonial board and parliamentary committees, when the affairs of the chartered company were brought under investigation in consequence of the frequent petitions and complaints coming from mercantile and other parties interested in opposition, these petitions and complaints becoming steadily more earnest and severe till the object of them was effective, the representatives of the company, as well as its assailants, were very sharply questioned as to the influence wrought by the policy of the company on the condition and experience of the aborigines. It seems to have been generally assumed that the company was under some obligation, expressed or implied, to have in view the welfare of the natives, to help and raise them as human beings, to add to their means and comforts of living, and to seek their moral and religious advancement. It has been already admitted that the charter imposed no obligation of this sort; that in fact it made no reference whatever to the subject. This fact, however, was not accepted as discharging the company from the manifest obligations of civilized humanity. The fact was notorious that the natives had been serviceable to the company in insuring it a scale of pecuniary profits unparalleled in any other mercantile business, and the interest was one of something better than curiosity to know how the other parties to the trade, who, by perilous and severe toil through a desolate wilderness, were subtracting from it its precious wealth, were benefited, or, it might be, injured in the results.

Many large and searching questions covering this subject were put in general terms. The answers to them, when not reluctantly made, were evasive and vague. As the questions became sharper, more specific, or pointed, the disclosures drawn forth were certainly unsatisfactory in the light of humanity, even if they exposed a course of proceeding and dealing more or less compelled by circumstances or required by policy. The questions were such as these: Had the number of the Indians increased or decreased during the long period of the company's intercourse with them? Were their wild habits softened and their physical comforts multiplied? Had they been persuaded and aided to take the first steps toward civilization by forming fixed abodes, subduing parcels of ground, devoting themselves to tillage in its simplest processes, and making provision in times of plenty for the seasons of famine, during which it was known that starvation had frequently driven many of them to cannibalism?

Did the company provide at its posts surgeons and physicians, medical and hospital stores, for the aged and infirm Indians who had been in its service? Had any efforts been made and any expense been incurred by the company in providing schools and moral and religious instruction for the natives?

It is interesting to scan the information drawn out from the friends as well as from the opponents of the company in answer to these searching questions. The information has a very important bearing upon a subject on which much has been said and written without a proper regard for the facts involved in it. There has been very much boasting and complacency on the part of Englishmen, and very much of censorious criticism uttered by them, on the plea that the American aborigines have always received far more just and humane treatment from all the various classes of Englishmen, traders, colonists, and soldiers, than from the citizens of the United States; that Englishmen have almost uniformly been at peace with them, while American citizens have been in a continuous state of warfare; that they have multiplied under British dealing with them, and wasted away from the contact of the United States. Leaving out of view much else that might be said on this subject, especially the prime consideration of the steady pushing on the frontiers of civilization in the interests of the actual settlement and improvement of territory by American citizens, an enterprise never entered upon by Englishmen till within quite recent years, enough information was drawn out, in the inquiries just referred to, to reduce all grounds of boasting or complacency on the side of Englishmen.

It was shown, as a matter of course, that the relations of the company and its servants with the Indians had been uniformly peaceful and friendly. Any acts of trespass, or insolence, or violence on the part of the intruding Englishmen, who had come, not to settle, but to traffic, and that, too, in articles which they themselves could not directly obtain, would have been worse than folly. The first stations of the company were close to the shores of the bay, and it was very long before it ventured to penetrate farther in towards the interior at positions on lake and river connecting outposts with their base. And when it did so, it was only tentatively, feeling the way carefully, and after having assured the interest of the nearest Indians by traffic. Peace was a prime essential. True, some of the posts of the company from the first, and those afterwards advanced. farthest inland, were called "forts" as well as "factories." But the term "fort" could not in seriousness be attached to more than some half dozen of the posts from first to last occupied by the company, especially two upon the bay and two upon the Red River territory. A simple stockade surrounding a blockhouse was generally the most that was offered in the way of protection and defence. And some of the most exposed trading posts, the farthest inland, were wholly defenceless. Their security against violence lay entirely in the recognition that each one of them represented a powerful company, with which Indians were concerned to be in amity.

The company was understood to admit that its influence over and its