of the company, to search for a passage to the South Sea, and also to explore for mineral wealth, had been wholly neglected by the company, which sternly discountenanced and withstood all such enterprises when prompted by others. 4. That a part, at least, of the territories claimed by the company was really exempted from the grant made to it which recognized a possible possession by the subjects of some other "Christian prince." For at least a portion of the region had been patented in 1598, by Henry IV of France, to the Sieur de la Roche.1 It was on the ground of this claim, antedating Prince Rupert's charter, that in 1684 the Chevalier de Troyes had taken and destroyed the posts of the company on Hudson and James bays, on the plea that the territory belonged to his sovereign. In the long and sharp contest which the opponents of the company made to its monopoly and its administration, it was also complained that the company had been utterly neglectful of its duty in having made no efforts. to humanize, civilize, and advance religion and education among the native Indians. It was hastily and erroneously assumed that the charter had imposed this duty upon the company, while in fact no reference whatever is made to it in that instrument. It was abundantly proved, however, that the company had made no efforts of that character such as might have. been reasonably expected of Christian people drawing enormous wealth from savages, who, on the contrary, had greatly deteriorated under the company. Most effective and pointed were the charges against it, that it had so greedily devoted itself to the traffic in furs as to keep the whole country in its wilderness condition as a preserve for peltry, making the natives wholly dependent upon the traffic with the company for their subsistence. This consuming interest made the company jealous of any intrusion upon its domains, and all inquiry into its management, while it resolutely resisted every attempt at exploration, civilized settlement, and even agriculture. The connection of Prince Rupert with this vast enterprise was a very natural one. He was known to be a most earnest and generous patron of all promising adventures. There is evidence that a master mariner from Boston, in New England, had been concerned with a M. Groselliers,2 from Canada, in making a settlement at Port Nelson, at the mouth of the river, where a little stone fortress was erected by this captain, Zachary Gillam, and called Fort Charles. Rupert had given his countenance to this enterprise in connection with the work of discovery, and the "Nonsuch," one of the king's ships, was obtained for the venture.3 We are to trace for the full period of two centuries the fortunes, the mer 1 [See Vol. IV. 56, 61, 136. — Ed.] 2 The name is variously spelled, as Grosseliez, Des Grozeliers, De Grossiliers, De Groselie, etc. 3 A contemporary reference is made to this affair in a letter from Oldenburgh, the first secretary of the Royal Society, to Robert Boyle, Ellis's Hudson's Bay, p. 75. [See also Vol. IV. p. 172, and the Hutchinson Papers, iii. 57, 59, 89, 97, 103, 111. — ED.] As Hudson's and Sir Jo seph Button's journals are not extant [see Vol. III. p. 93. - ED.], the first trustworthy account which we have of any vessel wintering in the bay is that of Captain James, in Charlton Island, in 1632. [See Vol. III. p. 96, for James's map. ED] The next is that of Capt. Gillam, in the "Nonsuch," in 1668, though Jean Bourbon is reputed to have trafficked there in 1656. cantile operations, and the disputed rights and policy of this chartered company on the field of its activity and in the councils of government. One might naturally pause upon the almost grotesque disparity of proportions between the vast spaces of territory over which the privileges of the company extended and the smallness of its own representation. But another and a much more striking suggestion presents itself, which will be before us through the whole historical review of our subject. The territory which finally came under the jurisdiction of the company embraced substantially half of the continent of North America. During the period to be reviewed, we have set before us a contrast of events, uses, and experiences as happening upon the two respective halves of this continent, — that which is under the jurisdiction of the United States and that under the British crown, a contrast which in sum and detail may well astound us. On the lower side of the boundary line the whole scene has been one of advance in enterprise, a steady, vigorous pushing forwards over mountains, plains, and valleys, of tiled fields, of thriving settlements, of sumptuous cities, and of millions of toiling, prosperous peoples. On the upper side a narrow, jealous, obstructive policy had shut out all intrusion upon a wilderness by any but stealthy trappers and the desolate wintering agents of a monopoly in the peltry traffic. It may well be said that in addition to all the questions which might be * [Part of an engraving in La Potherie's Hist. de l'Amérique Septentrionale (1722), i. p. 105. The "Camp de Bourbon" was along the shore to the right. The bomb-shells seen in the air are from its mortars.- ED.] raised as to the validity of the charter and the administration of affairs under it, there was a most serious and perplexing vagueness and uncertainty as to the limits of the territory which it covered. There were at the time French half-breed voyageurs who had some faint conception of the interior of the northern parts of our continent, and of the general disposition of land and water in it. But when the king made over to this company all the inland reaches whose waters drained into Hudson's Bay, no Englishman had the slightest knowledge of the interior of the territory. It certainly proved to be, under its claimants, a wellnigh unbounded expanse. We shall see further on that in the sharpest and most bitter contest which the company had to meet, it asked successfully of Parliament a grant, limited for a term of years, and renewed for another term, of an exclusive right of trade in and over the so-called "Indian Territory." This included the whole unknown and unexplored region of the Northwest; and when, in 1848, the company secured a right to plant a colony in Vancouver's Island, its privileges and range extended over a space of territory one third larger than the whole area of Europe, embracing more than four millions of square miles, and hiding in its unknown depths, as afterwards revealed, fifty wild native tribes of men, who, as before intimated, substantially were made over for mastery with the territory, because the company always stoutly maintained that the Indians should trade only with its agents. The charter of the company, with such validity as it had, retained its vitality for full two centuries, and became the sanction of a giant monopoly, dividing enormous profits to a favored few who did their utmost to shroud their own affairs in secrecy, and to ward off all attempts at interference with its claimed rights and privileges. We shall have to note, however, a continued series of assaults upon the validity of the charter, of grievous complaints against proceedings and practices under it, and of efforts to ensure its abrogation. Each of these grievances and efforts was pressed with increased zeal and determination. We shall have also to recognize the agencies and influences which kept the charter in force. It should be mentioned here that in one of the warmly contested issues of this sort, in 1847, there first appeared in print a document, of which it is said, very strangely, that its "existence had been not even suspected by the British government," but yet it was found in the Rolls of Chancery. This document was a confirmation by Act of Parliament, given to the charter in 1690, under William and Mary. The ground on which this Act was applied for by the company was, that it needed the authority of Parliament beyond that of the Royal Grant, in order to ensure the full benefit of the latter, and to enable the company to keep off French and English interlopers. By seeking and accepting this act, the company certainly indicated a misgiving as to the fullness and assurance of its supposed rights under the charter. Parliament strictly limited its confirmation to a 1 British Documents, Accounts and Papers, vol. xxxv. p. 95. period of seven years. The company shrewdly refrained from seeking a renewal of it. Let us pause for a moment to bring before us those then wild regions. Once hid in vastness and gloom, they are now disclosing all their secrets, so that we can read them as they were. The whole territory, whatever its length or breadth, had but one worth or use for the small mercantile company, whose office then, as now, was in Fenchurch Street, London. It was simply as a preserve for fur-bearing animals, and for red Indians who might hunt and trap them. Marvellously well adapted and occupied was the region for that purpose. Its conditions and surroundings could not have been better disposed for just such a use as was made of it; or rather we should say, that under the selfish aims and the mean policy pursued in it no region could have been more rich and facile for the ends to which it was put. We must first view it through the means and methods for entering, penetrating, traversing, and carrying into and bringing out from it supplies. and products. We may imagine that we have before us for study and thought two very large skeleton maps of our northern continent, giving simply the undivided stretches of territory, without boundaries or names. Let one of those maps represent the surface of the country just as it was waiting to be entered upon by Europeans. It will present the general features of the land, plain, hilly, or mountainous, barren or fertile; and it will show the deposits and courses of water in lakes, in confluent or single streams, of every breadth, of river or rill, their sources and outlets. Let the other map represent the same territory with the same delineation, but with the added feature of the lines of our railways at the present stage of the system, supplemented by the projected and probable lines of trunk and branch required and expected to perfect it. Looking upon those two maps and comparing them in sum and detail, the observer will hardly fail to be impressed with the thought that the country, with its facilities for transit, intercourse, and commerce, was as well adapted by nature for the inhabitants first occupying and using it for their necessities and profit as it is at this day by art, for quite another class of occupants, for quite other uses and advantages. The highways which nature had opened in the wilderness, in the diversified and abounding watercourses, made a perfect reticulation of artery and vein over the whole territory; and there were junctions and branches for divergence in every direction. True, there were obstructions to a continuous passage by these watercourses in heights of land, divides, cataracts, cascades, and rapids. But the Indian could lift his canoe and its burden and carry it over land from water to water, when he could not venture to run the ascending or descending rush; or he could trail his vessel while he walked on the shore. These obstructions or carrying-places of the Indians answer to and were no more annoying to him than are the high grades of our railroads to us. We can see now, as we look upon the land and water map, that any one com There are twenty ing in a ship from Europe, by changing his freight to boats of different size, and occasionally to canoes, may pass through the continent to the Pacific, in spite of breaks or obstructions varying from the length of a few yards to the extreme of ten or twelve miles. The means and facilities for this water transit were especially available and convenient through the regions which were turned to the profit of the Hudson's Bay Company, and it could find junctions and partings of streams and radiations of head-water for dispersing or gathering its supplies or returns. The course from the sea by the St. Lawrence to Lake Superior offered an alternative of routes, either by the Ottawa with its cascades, or by the chain of lakes with its cataract at Niagara and the Falls of St. Mary between Superior and Huron. The Hudson's Bay Company found by experience that, though it kept a firmer hold on its charter, it worked to great disadvantage in conducting its business from the icy coast. Its rivals in the fierce contests for the Indian trade, as we shall have to notice, did better in their choice of routes. From the company's post, York Factory, at the mouth of Hay's River, on the Bay, up the rivers and through Lake Winnipeg to Red River, the distance was about 800 miles, with thirty-six carrying-places. Winnipeg River is full of rapids, as it passes through a rocky country. seven portages in its course, for it descends 360 feet in 160 miles. The rival companies took as their point of departure Fort William, on the southern end of Lake Superior, the route to the Red River being 772 miles, and to Lake Winnipeg 500 miles, through much good territory and hard navigation by canoes, with sixty-six portages varying from a hundred yards to three and a half miles. Crossing Lake Winnipeg, and entering the mouth of the Saskatchewan, with but one formidable rapid in the falls near Cumberland House, one may float on its waters for 1,400 miles up to its source in the Rocky Mountains. There at a few yards' distance he will find a source of the Columbia starting for its discharge into the Pacific. The Columbia and its tributaries drain a region of 400,000 square miles, and the river is navigable, with interruptions, for 725 miles. Its sources on this side are within 450 miles of the deep waters of the Missouri; and lakes, rivers, and brooks will bear canoes through the whole space between. The swamps and marshes and sedges created by all these waters were the chosen and populous homes of the beaver, which had colonized. and hibernated here for ages. Unluckily for them, their skins, as most highly prized till the invention of silk hats, set the standard for the money value of all the peltries. Otters, martens, musk-rats, and all the other species of amphibious creatures, with countless herds of buffaloes, moose, bears, deer, foxes, wolves, etc., found here their natural home. As naturally, too, they had multiplied, the aborigines killing only enough of them for their clothing and subsistence till the greed of traffic threatened their 1 From Lake Superior to the height of land separating the waters which flow into it from those which flow into Hudson's Bay, the rise is 830 feet. The descent to Lake Winnipeg is 853 feet. The further descent from the lake to York Fort on the bay is 830 feet. |