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T 
 
A SKETCH 
 
 OF THE 
 
 ^• 
 
 .^i 
 
 BRITISH FUR TRADE, &c. 
 
ff ^ 
 
 -M 
 
A SKETCH 
 
 OF THE 
 
 BRITISH FUR TR^DE 
 
 IN 
 
 i^orti^^metrica; 
 
 WITH 
 
 OBSERVATIONS 
 
 RELATIVE TO 
 
 THE NORTH'WEST COMPANY 
 
 OF MONTREAL. 
 
 BY 
 
 THE EARL OF SELKIRK. 
 
 SECOND EDITION, 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED FOR JAMES RIDGWAY, 
 OPPOSITE BOND STREET, PICCADILLY. 
 
 1816. 
 
I '. 
 
 Piiuted by J. BreH^ll, " 
 Kupcrt Street, Hijaarket, Londsu. 
 
 9^+3753 
 
 .\ 
 
 '%,,. 
 
 \ 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 The Author of the following pages has been prevented 
 from paying that degree of attention to the details and 
 arrangement of his subject, which its importance required. 
 But he experienced much interruption in the progress of 
 his work, and could only bestow upon it a divided attention. 
 — He was called away from England to a remote part of the 
 British dominions, for the purpose, not only of defending 
 his own rights of property from threatened infringement, but 
 also to give his personal support to a considerable body of 
 individuals, who, in a great degree, looked up to him for 
 protection, and against whom a train of premeditated and 
 violent aggression has been committed by their fellow- 
 subjects. He has, in consequence, been laboriously and 
 anxiously occupied in obtaining evidence for the purpose 
 of bringing the facts before a court of justice, and in 
 endeavouring personally to effect such measures as might 
 prevent the threatened repetition of the outrage. These 
 circumstances, he is confident, will prove a sufficient 
 excuse with every candid reader for the deficiencies in a 
 Sketch that has been hastened by the wilful misrepresen- 
 tation of others, but which will probably be followed by a 
 work of a more comprehensive description. Incomplete, 
 however, as the present one is, it will be found to con- 
 tain matter well deserving of the earlj' attention of the 
 Public. ♦ 
 
i 
 
 li 
 
CONTENTS, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Remarks on the retpective systems adopted in Canada prior, 
 and subsequent, to the Cession of that Colony to Great 
 Britain.-'-^General View of the Canadian Fur Trade, 
 
 Origin and Constitution of the North-West Com' 
 
 pany of Montreal, - ------- page 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Public claims or pretensions of the North-West Company. 
 ^-—'Conduct of the Company as it relates — to their 
 Servants, — to the native Indians, — to private Traders 
 who have come into competition with them, page £0 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Conduct of the North-West Company towards the Hudson^s 
 
 Bay Company » Remarks upon the latter Company, 
 
 '—-Observations upon their Charter, and rights of ju- 
 risdiction,— -"Operation of the Canada Jurisdiction 
 Act,— —Suggestions with respect to the better settlement 
 of various parts of British North America^ page 65 
 

 ij 
 
 . I 
 
 mmmmmmlmm 
 
% 
 
 SKKTCH 
 
 or TriB 
 
 BRITISH FUR TRADE, &(5. 
 
 ,. CHAPTER I. 
 
 Remarks on the respective si/stems adopted in 
 Canada prior and subsequent to the Cession of 
 that Colony to Great Britain.— General View of 
 the Canadian Fur Trade,-— Origin and ComtitU' 
 tioH of the North- West Company of Montreal. 
 
 The commercial benefits which were ex- 
 pected to accrue from the Fur Trade in 
 Canada, formed the principal object in the 
 original settlement of that colony. For a 
 long period that branch of trade furnished 
 the chief employment of the colonists; but 
 of late years the progress of population, and-* 
 the increase of wealth, have given rise to 
 other and more valuable branches of traffic. 
 The Fur Trade, however, still constitutes an 
 
 B 
 
wm 
 
 I'L 
 It El 
 
 imporunt branch of Canadian commerce* 
 An inquiry into the principles on which this 
 trade has been conducted may be interesting, 
 in many respects, not only to those who are 
 connected with the, colony, but to all who 
 have turned their attention to the commercial 
 resources, and colonial prosperity, of the 
 British Empire: and the inquiry may be the 
 more important, because the mode in which 
 the Fur Trade is conducted does not appear 
 to be generally understood, or justly appre- 
 ciated, even in Canada. 
 
 While that province was in the possession 
 of France, the Fur Trade was carried on 
 under a system of exclusive privileges. In 
 each district of country, or nation of Indians, 
 a licence was granted by the governor of the 
 province, assigning to some favoured indivi' 
 duals the privilege of trading within the pre- 
 scribed limits. The persons who obtained 
 these privileges were generally officers of thft 
 army, or others of respectable family connec* 
 tion. Whatever were the motives in which 
 this system originated, there can be no doubt 
 that it contributed, in a very great degree, to 
 the main object of the French government in 
 their transactions with the Indian nations of 
 America: viz, to establish and extend their 
 
 ''Heal influence. Whoever possessed the 
 
exclusive trade of a district was the only pej^s^ri 
 to whom the Indians could apply for such 
 articles as an intercourse with Europeans had 
 introduced among them ; and^ independient 
 of the ordinary transactions of barter, the 
 natives had frequently occasion to solicit 
 favours which they could only expect front 
 the indulgence of the privileged traders. 
 These, were generally men of liberal education; 
 who knew how to promote the views of 
 government; and they had the greater anxiety 
 on this head, as it was well known that if any 
 of them abused their privileges, or otherwise 
 failed in promoting the general objects ex- 
 pected from them, their exclusive rights would 
 be withdrawn. The conduct of the traders 
 was at the same time closely watched by the 
 Missionaries^ whose anxious attention was 
 directed to prevent the abuses which had 
 been found to arise from the sale of spirituous 
 liquors among the savages; an object ia 
 which they appear to have been in general 
 zealously seconded by the Provincial Govern- 
 ments ■ -.■'::'• , : r: ; 
 
 Thif' system appears to have been wisely 
 adapted to increase the comforts, and improve 
 the character, of the natives; as a proof of" 
 which, we need only compare the present 
 state of the Indians in Canada^ with that in 
 
I 
 
 i; f! 
 
 It ,! 
 
 II 
 
 !: 
 
 i! 
 
 which they stood immediately after the con^ 
 qaest of that province by Great Britain, ait 
 which period populousr villages existed in 
 many districts, where at present we meet only 
 two or three wanderirvg families, and these 
 alddicted to the most brutal excesses, and a 
 prey to want and misery. 
 
 A few years after the conquest of Canada, 
 the former system of traffic with the Indians 
 was laid aside, as inconsistent with the re- 
 ceived principles of freedom of trade ; and, 
 with the exception of one district, no more 
 r^xclusive privileges were granted. Aftef the 
 trade was thrown open to the public, the 
 first adventurers who arrived in the Indian 
 country made very large profits, and this cir- 
 cumstance soon gave rise to a keen com'- 
 ^aercial competition, the result of which, 
 however, was very different from that which 
 would Lave taken place in a civilized country, 
 where the effect of rivalship tends only to 
 core»pel the trader to supply his customers 
 with better goods, and on more reasonable 
 terms. Among the Indians it was found that 
 a profuse supply of spirituous liquors was a 
 shorter and more certain mode of obtaining 
 a preference^ than any difierence in the qua- 
 lity or price of the goods offered for sale. 
 The ungovernable propensity of the Indian* 
 
 ' 111 
 
 ;'g 
 
'•f' 
 
 to intotication is well koown, an<l it is ea«y 
 to imagine the disorders which would arise, 
 when this propensity was fostered by un* 
 bounded temptation. But, to comprehend 
 the full extent of the mischief, it must be 
 recollected, that these rival traders were scat- 
 tered over a country of immense extent, and 
 at such a distance from all civil authority, a€ 
 to lead them to believe that the commission 
 of almost any crime would pass with impu* 
 uity. In such a situation every art which 
 JuvdUce could devise was exerted without 
 restraint, and the intercourse of the traders 
 with each other partook more of the style of 
 the savages by whom they were surrounded, 
 than of the country from which they had 
 sprung. The only diiFerence was, that their 
 ferocity was mixed with a greater portion of 
 canning. Direct personal violence was per- 
 haps seldom resorted to, because it was more 
 easy to succeed when the object was disguised, 
 and ejected through the agency of the Indians. 
 Those of the natives who had formed a con- 
 nection with one trader might be led by him 
 to believe the most atrocious calimanies of 
 another, and to credit the most absurd tales 
 of his hostile and wicked designs ; and, under 
 the influence of continued intoxication, there 
 wa;s no pitch of fury to which an Indian might 
 
6 
 
 I' !i 
 
 ■' 
 
 I 4 
 
 11 
 
 
 <c 
 
 <s 
 
 <( 
 
 pot be roused, nor any act of ferocity which 
 
 he might not be impelled to commit. Mr. 
 
 Henry, one of the first British subjects who 
 
 engaged in the Canadian Fur Trade, in the very 
 
 interesting account which he has published 
 
 of his Travels and Adventures, observes, that 
 
 on his arrival at the Grand Portage on Lake 
 
 Superior, in the year 1775, ** he found the 
 
 ^* traders in a state of extreme reciprocal hosti- 
 
 " lity,each pursuing his own interests in such a 
 
 manner as might most injure his neighbour/' 
 
 The consequences,'* he adds, " were very 
 
 hurtful tothe morals of the Indians." (Page 
 
 2S9.) The same facts are stated more at large by 
 
 Sir Alexander M'Kenzie, who, in his Account 
 
 of the Fur Trade, (prefixed to his Voyage 
 
 through North America,) states, that " this 
 
 •* trade was carried on in a very distant 
 
 " country, out of the reach of legal restraint, 
 
 " and where there was a free scope given to 
 
 any ways or means in attaining advantage. 
 
 The consequence was, not only the loss of 
 
 " commercial benefit to the persons engaged 
 
 ^' in it, but of the good opinion of the natives, 
 
 **and the respect of their men, who were 
 
 ^' inclined to follow their example ; so that 
 
 ** with drinking, carousing, and quarrelling 
 
 • ' with the Indians along their route, and 
 
 f'|imong themselves, they seldom reached 
 
 (( 
 
 « 
 
" their winter quarters; and iftbey did, it \va» 
 •* generally by dragging their property upon 
 " sledges, as the navigation was closed up by 
 " the frost. When, at length, they »vere ar- 
 " rived, the object of each was to injure his 
 ** rival traders in the opinion of the natives 
 " as much as was in their power, by misre* 
 " presentation and presents, for which the 
 ** agents em ployed were peculiarly calculated; 
 " They considered the command of their 
 ** employer as binding on them, and however 
 " wrong or irregular the transaction, the re- 
 " sponsibility rested with the principal who 
 " directed them: — this is Indian law/' (Page 
 X.) The agents here alluded to, were the 
 Coureurs des Bois, whom the Author had 
 previously • described, (page ii.) as French 
 Canadians, who, by accompanying the natives 
 on their hunting and trading excursions, had 
 become so attached to the Indian mode of 
 life, that they, had lost all relish for their 
 former habits, and native homes. Of these 
 p iple the Author remarks, that they often 
 brought home rich cargoes of furs, but that 
 during the short time requisite to settle their 
 accounts with the merchants, and procure 
 fresh credit, they generally contrived to 
 squander away all their gains. He adds, 
 
I 
 
 II 
 
 f ' 
 
 I' I ' 
 
 Ii' 
 
 It 
 
 If . 'I 
 
 I 
 
 9 
 
 that " this indiiference about amassing pro- 
 ?* perty, and the pleasure of living free from 
 ** all restraint, soon brought on a licentious- 
 •* ness of manners, which could not lon^ 
 •* escape the vigilant observation of the mis- 
 ** sionaries, who had much reascMi to complain 
 ** of their being a disgrace to the christian 
 " religion, by not only swerving from its 
 " duties themselves, but by thus bringing it 
 " iofto disrepute with those of the natives 
 " who had become converts to it." Sir 
 Alexander M*Kenzie goes on to state, that 
 from this conduct of the traders and their 
 gert^ants, the winter was passed among them 
 in a continual scene of disagreepnent and 
 quarrels ; that the natives could entertain no 
 respect for persons who conducted themselves 
 with so much irregularity and deceit; that 
 from the consequences pf this licentious 
 conduct, the traders were in continual alarm, 
 and frequently laid under contribution by 
 the Indians;— in short, that matters were 
 daily becoming worse and worse, so that the 
 merchants who furnished the traders with 
 goods, and participated in their adventures, 
 became disgusted with their ill success, and 
 ^ere with difficulty persuaded to continue 
 fheir advances. The same Author specifies ^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 1 
 
 ^ 
 
9 
 
 
 •( 
 
 «( 
 
 u 
 
 few individuals, who, from greater precaution 
 and good sense, were more successful than 
 others, but observes, that these partial advan- 
 tages " could not prevent the people of 
 ^' Canada from seeing the improper conduct 
 ** of some of their associates, which rendered 
 •* it dangerous to remain any longer among 
 ^* the natives. Most of them who passed the 
 ?' winter at the Saskatchawan, got to the 
 ** Eagle Hills, where, in the spring of the year 
 1780, a few days previous to their intended 
 departure, a large band of Indians, being 
 engaged in drinking about their housesj 
 ** one of the traders, to ease himself of the 
 ^* troublesome importunities of a native, gave 
 " him a dose of laudanum in a glass of grog, 
 ^' which effectually prevented him from giving 
 " further trouble to any one, by setting him 
 " asleep for ever. This accident produced a 
 ?' fray, in which one of the traders and several 
 ^* of the men were killed, while the rest had 
 ?* no other means to save themselves but by 
 " a precipitate flight, abandoning a consider- 
 " able quantity of goods, and near half the 
 ?* furs which they had collected during the 
 ** winter and spring. About the same time, 
 ^* two of the establishments on the Assiniboin 
 ?^ River were attacked with less justice, ivhcn 
 
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 ■I 
 
 . 
 
 l! ii 
 
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 10 
 
 •* several white men and a greater number of 
 " Indians were killed. In short, it appeared 
 " that the natives had formed a resolution 
 '* to extirpate the traders; and, without 
 " entering into any ftrther reasonings on the 
 *' subject, it appears u be incontrovertible, 
 •* that the irregularity pursued in carrying on 
 " the trade has brought it into its present 
 " forlorn situation." (Page xiii. xiv.) ** The 
 " traders,*' he adds, " were saved from the in- 
 '* dignation of the natives, only by the ravages 
 ** of the small pox, which at this period spread 
 " among the Indians like a pestilence, and 
 " almost depopulated the country. By this 
 " calamity, the traders were rescued from per- 
 ** sonal danger, but the source of their profits 
 " was cut off, and very few peltries were to be 
 " obtained. Even such of the natives as 
 " escaped the contagion, were so alarmed at 
 " the surrounding destruction, that they were 
 " dispirited from hunting, except for their own 
 " subsistence.'* In this deplorable state of 
 things, it is not wonderful that the traders should 
 have been (as the Author states) very much 
 reduced in number, and that the merchants 
 in Canada, who supported them, having fore- 
 seen that the continuance of such proceedings 
 would be altogether fatal to their interests. 
 
 :* 
 
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 f, 
 
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 11 
 
 should have been inclined to form a junction 
 for carrying on the trade in partnership. 
 Accordingly, during the winter 1783-4, these 
 merchants formed an Association under the 
 name of The North- West Company, in which 
 the leading persons were Messrs. B. and J. 
 Frobisher, and Mr.SimonM*Tavish, by whose 
 influence chiefly the coalition had been 
 brought about. The main principle of the 
 arrangement was that the separate capitals 
 of the several traders were to be thrown into 
 a common stock, in consideration of which, 
 each individual held a proportionable share 
 of the combined adventure. In the arrange- 
 ment of this co-partnership, difficulties were 
 found, from the claims of some individuals 
 (chiefly Messrs. Pangman and Gregory), who 
 were not satisfied with the shares assigned to 
 them, and who, refusing to concur in the 
 coalition, continued to carry on a separate 
 trade. This retarded for some time the for- 
 mation of a general union, and, after that was 
 effected, it was again dissolved by differences 
 of a similar nature. This led, in the year 1798, 
 to a great secession from the North-West 
 Company, and to the formation of a New 
 Company (known in Canada by the name of 
 The X.y. Company), which traded for some 
 
^ 
 
 I 
 
 It 
 
 
 l! '1 ■ 
 
 ! il 
 
 1(1 !l 
 
 13 
 
 years in competition with the former esta* 
 blishment. A coalition, however, was at length 
 effected between these rival bodies in the year 
 J805, at which time the North- West Com- 
 pany took its present shape.— The means by 
 which this Association acquired a preprmde- 
 raace which has enabled the Company to 
 secure to themselves so extensive and lucra* 
 tive a trade, will be found well deserving of 
 public attention. 
 
 « After the junction of the Old and New 
 North- West Companies, the whole concern 
 came to be divided into a hundred shares, of 
 which a considerable proportion is held by 
 the mercantile houses in London Or Mont- 
 real, which had contributed the capital for 
 the companies; and other shares are held by 
 individuals who are termed wintering partners, 
 and who take upon themselves the charge of 
 managing the affairs of the Company in the 
 interior. Of seventy-five shares assigned to 
 the Old Company, thirty are held by one 
 liouse at Montreal, the successors of those 
 who planned the oiiginal coalition in 17S3. 
 Of twenty-five assigned to the New Company, 
 eighteen or nineteen are appropriated to 
 the different houses in Montreal or London, 
 which had contributed a capital for the un- 
 
 
\3 
 
 dertaking. All Uie remaining shares are dis« 
 tributed among the wintering partners, some 
 of whom possess one share, and some two* 
 The partners lioM a general meeting every 
 summer, at the rendezvous at Fort WilUam« 
 at the Grand Portage on Lake Superior, 
 where all matters are decided by a majority 
 of votes, every share giving one vote, and the 
 absentees voting by proxy. At this meeting, 
 the operations to be carried on during the 
 succeeding year are arranged, and the station 
 to be assigned to each individual is deter- 
 mined ; the accounts of the former year are 
 settled; and every partner brings a statement 
 of the transactions of the department which 
 has been under his charge. ' • 
 
 When a wintering partner has served for a 
 certain number of years, he is at liberty to 
 retire from the concern ; and, without doing * 
 any further duty, to receive not only bis share 
 of the capital of the Company, but also, fur 
 seven years, to draw one-half of the profits of 
 the share which he had held. Upon bis re- 
 tiring, the vacancy is filled up by the election 
 of a new partner. The candidates for this 
 situation must have served the Company for 
 a certain number of years as clerks, of whom 
 a great number are employed under the 
 
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 ''■II 
 
 
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 14 
 
 direction of the wintering pariners, and are 
 entrusted with the command and immediate 
 management of one or more trading posts 
 situated in tha interior. The election of a 
 new partner is decided, like the other affairs 
 of the Company, by the majority of votes at 
 the general annual meeting of the partners : 
 and, as the conduct of the new [)artner may 
 affect in a material degree the personal inte« 
 rest of every one who has a right to vote in 
 the election, it is not likely that the choice 
 should fall upon a person destitute of those 
 qualifications which are considered requisite 
 for promoting the common interest. No 
 candidate can have much chance of success, 
 unless he be well acquainted with the nature 
 of the trade, the character and manners of 
 the Indians, and the mode of acquiring in* 
 fluence with them. He must also be of an 
 active disposition, and likely to pursue with 
 perseverance and vigour any object that can 
 tend to promote the interest of the Company* 
 The hope of obtaining the envied station of 
 a partner, being kept alive among all the 
 senior clerks, excites among them an activity 
 and zeal for the general interests of the con- 
 cern, hardly inferior to that of the partners 
 themselves. They act under the immediate 
 
 CM 
 
 m 
 
 
1ft 
 
 inspection of those who have a direct interest 
 in the result of their management, and are 
 sensible that all their ability must be exerted 
 to secure the favour of their superiors. Every 
 wintering partner watches closely the conduct 
 uf the clerks who are under his immediate 
 command ; he is excited to this vigilance, not 
 merely by the common interest in which he 
 participates as a partner, but also by feelings 
 of personal responsibility. He comes to the 
 general meeting to give an account of the 
 transactions of his department ; and the praise 
 or the censure of his associates is dealt out to 
 him, in proportion to the profit or loss which 
 has occurred in the trade under his direction, 
 and to the success, or failure, of the plans 
 entrusted to his management. 
 
 Nothing certainly could be devised more 
 admirably calculated than this system, to 
 infuse activity into every department of so ex- 
 tensive a concern, and to direct that activity, 
 iu the most effectual manner, arid with com- 
 plete unity of purpose, towards the commou 
 interest. But however much this community 
 uf interest among all the partners, and the 
 responsibility thus imposed upon each indi- 
 vidual, tend to keep alive an active at- 
 tention to the Company's affairs, it must be 
 
Id 
 
 '^. 
 
 iii 
 
 i-i 
 
 I -.i 
 
 
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 i I 
 
 t 
 
 I ' 
 
 admitted that thej are by no nieans calcula- 
 ted to produce much respect for the rights of 
 others : — On the Contrary, the very nature of 
 the Association, and the extensive range 
 which their operations embrace, cannot fail 
 to produce an esprit de corpi not very consist- 
 ent with tiie feelings of propriety and justice. 
 — This observation will be found particularly 
 applicable to the wintering partners. In the 
 common intercourse of civilized society the 
 necessity of maintaining a fair character in the 
 estimation of the public forms a continued 
 check to that inordinate stimulus of self-in- 
 terest which too often causes individuals to 
 deviate from the principles of honour and ho- 
 nesty. But a wintering partner of the North- 
 West Company is secluded from al I society, ex- 
 cept thatof persons who have the same interests 
 with himself; and if, in the pursuit of these, 
 he should be induced to violate the rules of 
 justice, he must feel that he is not likely to 
 be judged with extreme rigour by the only 
 persons for whose approbation he is solicitous. 
 The civilized world is at so great a distance, 
 that he cannot be very deeply affected by the 
 chance of his conduct meeting with public 
 reprobation ; and he naturally flatters him- 
 self that his proceedings will never be intesw 
 
 1 
 
 i 
 
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^f 
 
 It 
 
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 tigated, or that if they should, there are so 
 many persons to share in the responsibility, 
 that it cannot fall very heavily on himself. 
 In these remote situations, the restraints of 
 law cannot operate as in the midst of a regu- 
 lar society. — When a plaintiff has to travel 
 thousands of miles to find the court from 
 which he is to seek redress, and ^vhen wit- 
 nesses are to be brought from such a distance, 
 at a vast expense, and to the total interrup- 
 tion of their ordinary pursuits, it must be a 
 case of extraordinary importance, which 
 would induce even a wealthy man to encoun- 
 ter the difficulty of obtaining it. Every win- 
 tering partner, therefore, 'must naturally be 
 aware of the extent of his power over indivi- 
 duals who are not rich enough to contend with 
 the whole Association of which he is a member j 
 and if under these circumstances, acts of in- 
 justice and oppression be committed against 
 weaker neighbours, however greatly they are 
 to be regretted, they cannot form a subject of 
 much surprize. -, f ; '■. 
 
 Thus, from the very nature and organization 
 of the Company, a conclusion may reasonably 
 be drav/n as to the line of condixct which they 
 aicj m;ist likely to pursue. That indeed may 
 be varied in a certain degree by the personal 
 
 c 
 
18 
 
 r 
 
 ■ M" 
 
 
 ••I 
 
 
 character of the individuals at the head of the 
 concern; but even supposing that these were 
 men of the most honourable principles, and 
 incapable of countenancing a systematic 
 violation of justice, it would be with the 
 greatest difficulty that they could restrain this 
 tendency in others. If, upon an investiga- 
 tion of factSj we found that these acts were 
 only committed occasionally, and that the 
 individuals guilty of them had been discoun- 
 tenanced, it would be fair to consider the 
 leading partners as inclined to check, rather 
 than to encourage, the irregularities arising 
 from the circumstances in which the winter- 
 ing partners are placed. But, on the other 
 hand, if acts of this description are found to 
 be frequent, and even customary, — if a con- 
 duct of the same nature and tendency be 
 pursued year after year, and in departments 
 situated at a remote distance from each other, 
 — ^if acts of illegal violence are allowed to 
 pass withoi.t any mark of reprobation ; and 
 still more if promotion is given to those who 
 have been guilty of them, can it be doubted 
 that there exists a regular concerted plan of 
 systematic oppression, carried on with the 
 consent and approbation of those who have 
 the chief active direction of the affairs of the 
 
 ■hi 
 
 L 
 
4' 
 
 19 
 
 Company? — and, if so, we may be sure that 
 those who do not concur form a minority 
 who have not the power to oppose any effec- 
 tual check to the unpnncipled conduct of 
 their associate*. 
 
 m 
 
 I 
 
■ > i. 
 
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 CHAPTER II. 
 
 r » 
 
 ,,,.., '■)■■■ ■ '.■ ' : ■ • . ■ ' 
 
 Public claims or pretensions of the North-West 
 Company, Conduct of the Company as it re- 
 lates — to their Servants, — to the native Indians, — 
 to private Traders who have come in comvetition 
 with them. 
 
 A HE activity and enterprize of the North- 
 West Company have been loudly vaunted. — 
 Every method has been adopted to make it 
 be believed that they, and they only, are 
 capable of carrj^ing on the Fur Trade with 
 success ; — that they have been the means of 
 conferring essential benefits upon the native 
 Indians; and that their efforts have materially 
 contributed to promote the commercial pros- 
 perity of G reat Britain. They have extended 
 the Fur Trade, we are told, into regions pre- 
 viously unexplored, and have thereby opened 
 new and extensive markets for the commer- 
 cial enterprize and manufacturing industry of 
 the kingdom. — On this it may be shortly ob- 
 served, that their whole export of British 
 goods for the supply of these extensive re- 
 gions amounts only to about £30,000 a year. 
 They who assert that this is an important 
 
 * 
 
 
4^1 
 
 ^^ 
 
 encouragement to the manufacturing industry 
 of Great Britain must do so with an inten- 
 tion to impose upon the ignorance of others, 
 or must be grossly ignorant themselves of the 
 commercial resources of the empire. Trifling, 
 however, as is the total amount of the trade, 
 when considered in the scale of national ob- 
 jects, it cannot justly be said that even this 
 pittance is wholly owing to the exertions of 
 the North-West Company. With respect to 
 the greater proportion of it, they have only 
 changed the course of the trade, bringing 
 home by the way of Montreal those returns 
 which would otherwise have reached England 
 by a different and more direct channel. Be^- 
 fore the existence of the North-West Com- 
 pany — before the first British trader had 
 penetrated from Canada to the North-West, 
 (as it is technically called) the natives of those 
 regions were supplied with British goods, and 
 their furs came to England, by the way of 
 Hudson's Bay. 
 
 In proof of this assertion we may .jroduce 
 the narratives of the Canadian adventurers 
 themselves. Sir Alexander M' Kenzie, though 
 very far from being inclined to eulogise the 
 Hudson's Bay Company, bears testimor^y to 
 this fact. In speaking of Mr. Frobisher's 
 expedition in the year 1775, into countries 
 
 
vm 
 
 
 i'l 
 
 previously unexplored by the Canadians, he 
 mentions that at Portage de Trait6, on the 
 banks of the Missinipi, or Churchill River, 
 he met the Indians with their canoes full of 
 valuable furs, on ^heir way to Fort Churchill, 
 (in Hudson's Bay,) and that it was with some 
 difficulty he could induce them to trade with 
 him. The Author omits to add that these 
 Indians had received supplies on credit the 
 year before from the Hudson's Bay Company, 
 on the faith cff their assurance that they would 
 bring down the produce of their winter's hunt 
 to pay their debts ; so that the trade from 
 Canada to this quarter commenced by sti- 
 mulating the natives to an act of fraud. Their 
 reluctance to trade with Mr. Frobisher is to 
 be ascribed to the scruple which they felt to 
 break their engagement ; — a feeling which 
 does honour to their character before they 
 had been corrupted. The innocence and in- 
 tegrity of these Indians, at that time, is illus- 
 trated by what the same Author mentions of 
 Mr. Pond, who wintered a few years after- 
 wards among them. Having collected a 
 greater quantity of furs than he had the 
 means of carrying away with him, he left the 
 surplus in one of his winter huts, and found 
 them there the following season, in the same 
 state in which he had left them. 
 
23 
 
 Mr. Pond's expedition to that country is 
 mentioned by Sir Alexander M*Kenzie as 
 the first discovery of Athabasca ; a country, 
 he says, hitherto unknown but from Indian 
 report. Many years, however, before this, a 
 servant of the Hudson's Bay Company had 
 been sent into the interior to invite the Indians 
 of that district to come to trade at Churchill 
 Fort, and Sir Alexander M'Kenzie himself 
 admits that Mr. Pond saw in Athabasca a 
 vast concourse of Knistineaux and Chip- 
 pewayan tribes, who used to carry their furs 
 annually to Churchill. Page xii. xci. 
 
 It has been said, however, that the system 
 of the Hudson's Bay Company was not cal- 
 culated to supply the wants of the natives in 
 an adequate manner, nor to push the trade 
 to the full extent of which it was capable. 
 The practice of the servants of that Company 
 was to remain at their factories on the coast, 
 to which the natives resorted from the interior 
 to trade, coming down the rivers in spring to 
 dispose of the produce of their winter hunt, 
 and returning in autumn with those supplies 
 of English manufactures which they had 
 received in exchange. When the traders 
 from Canada had penetrated into the interior, 
 and established trading houses in the vicinity 
 of the Indians, the latter were of course glad 
 
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11 
 
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 hn 
 
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 to be spared the trouble of a long journey, 
 and preferred making their purchases at home. 
 The Hudson's Bay Company were therefore 
 under the necessity of abandoning their an- 
 cient system, and of establishing trading 
 houses in the interior as well as their rivals. 
 These changes may be more congenial to the 
 natural indolence of the Indians, but that 
 they are upon the whole more eligible is much 
 to be doubted. If the old system of the 
 Hudson's Bay Company has been generally 
 i,X)ndemned, it is owing to the subject not 
 having been clearly understood, nor the effects 
 of that system duly appreciated. It is true 
 that the North-West Company, in assuming 
 merit for their own commercial exertions, 
 have accused the FJudson's Bay Company of 
 great negligence in not having established 
 trading houses in the interior at an earlier 
 period. — But there is no solid foundation 
 for this charge. — It is well known that the 
 best season for hunting all the fur-bearing 
 animals is in winter. In summer the fur is 
 universally of inferior quality, and this too is 
 the season when they rear their young. For 
 both these reasons it is desirable that the 
 hunting should be suspended during the sum- 
 mer months, and this was effectually elecured, 
 when all the best hunters, all the young and 
 
 ii. 
 
%b 
 
 active men of the Indian tribes, were engaged 
 in a distant excursion. There was therefore 
 a material advantage in requiring them to 
 leave their hunting grounds in summer, and 
 come to the factories on the coast for a supply 
 of European goods. While this was the prac- 
 tice, no furs were brought home, but of prime 
 quality : and as the beavers and other valu- 
 able fur-bearing animals were protected from 
 injury during the most critical time of the 
 year, the breed was preserved, and the supply 
 was plentiful. Now that the traders remain 
 constantly in the interior, the Indians are 
 tempted to continue their hunt throughout 
 the year. They are too improvident to ab- 
 stain from killing the breeding animals, or the 
 young brood. The cub is destroyed with 
 the full-grown beaver ; and the natural con- 
 sequence is, that these valuable animals, 
 formerly so numerous, are rapidly approach- 
 ing to the point of complete extermination. 
 Districts in which they once abounded, and 
 from which large supplies were formerly 
 obtained, now produce few or none. 
 
 To aggravate this evil, the North- West 
 Company have adopted the practice of em- 
 ploying a number of young men, from the 
 Indian villages in Canada, to go up to the 
 various districts in the interior, as hunters, 
 
 
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 1 
 
 i 
 
26 
 
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 I 
 
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 paying them at a stipulated rate for the furs 
 they obtain. They say that these men are 
 much superior as hunters ; but as they judge 
 the merit of a hunter entirely by the number 
 of furs which he brings in, it is probable that 
 a great part of this apparent superiority 
 depends on these strangers having their whole 
 time at command for hunting, and not having 
 the burthen of providing subsistence for their 
 families. Part of their success may also be 
 owing to the indiscriminate manner in which 
 they extirpate the animals in a country where 
 they have no permanent interest, destroying 
 all without distinction, whether young or 
 old, in season or out of season. The misera- 
 ble natives, overawed by the warlike reputa- 
 tion and power of the strangers, and dreading 
 the more durable resentment of the North- 
 West Company, witness this destruction with- 
 out daring to resist ; but they complain 
 bitterly that their country is thus wasted, as 
 if it were overrun by fire. While this system 
 of destruction is going on, it cannot be 
 doubted that there must, for a time, be an 
 increase in the annual return of furs obtained; 
 but it is not less evident that the commercial 
 wealth of the empire will be proportionably 
 decreased. 
 The public pretensions of the North- West 
 
 iil 
 
 i^'. 
 
27 
 
 Company to the merit of having extended the 
 Fur Trade are of no recent date ; but to this 
 claim they have lately added others, grounded 
 on their alleged services in the defence of 
 Canada during the late war. — With respect 
 to these claims it is somewhat singular, that 
 the one which appears to be best founded has 
 been least noticed. 
 
 The public service to which I particularly 
 allude, occurred immediately on the breaking 
 out of the war with America, when it was 
 discovered that the stores of the Indian De- 
 partment were almost empty ; that nothing 
 had been provided for the presents which it 
 was thought necessary to make to the Indians, 
 in order to obtain their co-operation, and 
 that if they were to wait for supplies from 
 England, the season would be lost. In this 
 dilemma the only resource that occurred was 
 to apply to the North- West Company, whose 
 warehouses were amply stored with the usual 
 assortment of goods intended for their trade 
 in the interior. In such circumstances, the 
 generality of merchants might have thought 
 themselves justified in making Government 
 pay an extra price for the accommodation 
 which was required. The leaders of the 
 North -West Company, however, did not 
 
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 in 
 fill"! 
 
 t.l 
 
 
 
 take this course. — They threw open their 
 stores, and desired the superintendents of 
 Indian affairs to take what they pleased, 
 under no other stipulation than that of 
 replacing the goods in kind, on the avrival 
 of the supplies to be sent out by Govern- 
 ment from England. It appears singular, 
 however, that although the Provincial Go- 
 vernment seemed, in some measure, to evince 
 its gratitude for this st^rvice by immediately 
 afterwards appointing the principal partner 
 of the North- West Company a member of 
 the Leijislative and Executive Councils of 
 the Province, it did not take the natural 
 method of giving public thanks to the Com- 
 pany, and making known to the Avorld the 
 important service they had rendered to the 
 colony. 
 
 The North-West Company have also 
 claimed merit with the public, on the subject 
 of the capture of Michilimackinack ; — an 
 event certainly of as high importance as any 
 that occurred during the pr?„>gress of the late 
 war. It is well known that on the com- 
 mencement of hostilities with America, the 
 regular troops in both the Canadas amounted 
 to a very trifling number; the militia were 
 hardly organized, and the disposition of a 
 
89 
 
 great part of them was considered as pro- 
 blematical. The Americans had collected a 
 numerous, and apparently well-appointed 
 army, which was advancing against Upper 
 Canada, as to a sure conquest. The un- 
 daunted boldness and admirable conduct by 
 which General Brock stemmed this torrent, 
 has met the deserved meed of his country's 
 warmest approbation. But in the critical 
 circumstances in which he was placed,— 
 circumstances so difficult that it is matter of 
 astonishment how he was able to extricate 
 himself, — it must be evident that success 
 would have been impossible, if he had been 
 deprived of any material part of his small 
 force. Of that force the Indians formed a 
 very important branch, and contni^uted in 
 the most essential manner to the capture of 
 General Hull. It cannot be doubted that 
 the immense apparent superiority of the 
 Americans must have created feelings of 
 apprehension and doubt in the minds of the 
 Indians, as well as of the white inhabitants 
 of Canada; and if these feelings had led 
 them to hesitate and stand aloof, the pro- 
 bability is that General Brock must have 
 been overwhelmed ; and that the success of 
 the Americans at the outset would have de- 
 
 'il 
 
 
 U 
 
r 
 
 111 
 
 30 
 
 terred the inhabitants of Canada from all 
 further resista-^ce. The boldness and decision 
 with which the Indians came forward may 
 therefore be considered as among the primary 
 causes of the preservation of the Province ; 
 and it is certain that the brilliant success of 
 the British forces at Michilimackinack had 
 a most powerful effect in confirming the con- 
 fidenc ,and securing the attachment, of those 
 among the Indians who had felt any disposi- 
 tion to waver. 
 
 The importance of that achievement, there- 
 fore, cannot be doubted. It is no less certain 
 that the regular tioops at St. Joseph would 
 have been quite inadequate to the ati'empt, 
 if they had not had ihe co-operation of the 
 Fur Traders, who were fortunately there at 
 the time, with a considerable number of 
 canoe-men in their service, whom they brought 
 forward, and with whom they most gallantly 
 assisted in the atCack. To their spirited 
 conduct the highest credit is therefore justly 
 due for a stroke which in a great measure 
 secured Canada, but Tor v;hich the North- 
 West Company of MonUeal has received 
 unmerited praise. The fact is, they had no 
 share in that enterprize. That blow was 
 effected by persons en^^^ed in the trade to 
 
 III-: 11 
 
31 
 
 the Mississipi and other districts beyond 
 Michilimackinack, and totally unconnected 
 with the North-West Company. 
 
 Those to whom the honour of this achieve- 
 ment is due have been too much disregarded, 
 and justice requires that the public should be 
 better informed on the subject. Among the 
 individuals who exerted themselves on the 
 occasion with so much spirit and ability, the 
 first place is generally allowed to Mr. Robert 
 Dickson, who, besides his own men. brought 
 forward a strong body of Sioux Indians, whose 
 example had a most important effect in en- 
 couraging the Indians of the neighbourhood. 
 Mr. John Askin took the command of the 
 Ottawa Indians, and Mr. Jacob Franks as- 
 sisted Mr. Dickson with the Sioux. The 
 Canadian voyageurs, or canoe-men, were 
 formed into three companies of volunteers, 
 or militia, of which Mr. Lewis Crawford 
 acted as colonel ; Mr. Toussaint Pothier, as 
 major; Messrs. John Johnson, Charles Erma- 
 tinger, and John Baptist Nolan, as captains ; 
 Joseph Porlier, Paul Lacroix, Joseph Rolette, 
 and Xu"ier Brion, as lieutenants. Mr. Henry 
 Forrest took the command of the Brig Cale- 
 donia, with the assistance of Mr. John Law 
 as his lieutenant : the captain of that vessel 
 being an American, had refused to act ; the 
 
H 
 
 4ii 
 
 4^ 
 
 4\ 
 
 !;l« 
 
 ri 
 
 vessel was the property of the North- West 
 Company, and with five of the common 
 sailors, formed the whole of the contribution 
 of that Company to the success of the expe- 
 dition. Nevertheless it was repeatedly stated 
 in the English newspapers, that a small 
 detachment of the lOth Battalion of Royal 
 Veterans, under Captain Roberts, with the 
 aid of the traders and voyageurs in the service 
 of the North-West Company, had captured 
 Miohilimackinack ! The agents and partners 
 of the Company at London could not fail to 
 observe these statements, yet they never took 
 any steps to undeceive the public, or to dis- 
 claim, for those with whom they were con- 
 nected, prai'jes to which others were justly 
 entitled. 
 
 Another ground on which the North-West 
 Company assumed the n^erit of superior 
 exertion? for the public service in the late 
 war, is to be found in the formation of the 
 Voyageur Corps, by which the public was led 
 to imagine that the Company ht*d, at their 
 own expense, brought forward a body of 
 their servants to be enrolled as volunteers for 
 the defence of the Province ; and it wiis natu- 
 rally supposed, thAt this could not be done 
 without material inconvenience to their own 
 concerns. It may be remarked that in th€ 
 
 ■I! 
 
33 
 
 commercial business of the, North- West Com- 
 pany, a set of canoe-men (or vo^'ageurs), to 
 the number of three or four hundred, ai'e 
 employed every summer in conveying goods 
 between Montreal and Lake Superior. The 
 articles required for the supply of the Cgm- 
 pany's trading posts are carried by these 
 people as far as the rendezvous at the Grand 
 Portage, where they meet the others who 
 have wintered in the interior, and from whom 
 they receive cargoes of furs, to bring down to 
 Montreal. In this voyage, and the incidental 
 services required . the place of rendezvous, 
 the men are employed for four or five months; 
 they are engaged at stipulated wages for the 
 trip, but after the canoes are brought back to 
 Montreal, their contract is completed, and 
 the North- West Company have no more 
 concern with, or authority over them, than 
 thev iifive over any other natives of Canada. 
 It ::> c^ these men, over whom they repre- 
 sentee o^'ir influence to be unbounded, that 
 the Company offered .to raise a corps; and 
 accordingly the Governor-General issued an 
 order to the following purport. " II a plu 
 ** k son Excellence le Gouverneur-G^n^ral, 
 *' d'ordonner k John M'Donell, Ecuyer, 
 '" H'enroUer lea noms de toutes personnes 
 '•'• Jiisidentes dans les Paroisses de La Pointe 
 
 i 
 
 i 
 
 11 
 
 
 D 
 
 
ft '■ 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 "IS!! 
 
 « 
 
 (« 
 
 34 
 
 " Claire, &c. &c.; ^ Messrs. A. N. M*Leod, 
 *• et Jaraes Hughes, Ecuyers, d'enrolleF les 
 ** noms des Voyageui's dans les Paroisses de 
 ** St. Ours, &d &c.; d M. William M*Kay, 
 Ecuyer, d'enroller des Voyageurs dans les 
 Paroisses de La Norraye, &g. Sic; k M. 
 " Pierre de Rocheblave, Ecuyer, d'enroller 
 ** les noms des '^ p^^eurs dans les Paroisses 
 " de La Prairie, c &c. ; qui sent actuelle- 
 " ment Voyageurs, ou qui Font 6t6 autrefois, 
 ** et les faire passer k Montreal pour le 1" 
 " d'Oetobre, pour en former un Corps, qui 
 ** sera nomm6 le Corps des Voyageurs, sous 
 " lecommandementde William M*Gillivray, 
 " Ecuyer/' The persons pointed out in this 
 arbitrary manner were compelled to serve, 
 though under the Militia Act no compulsory 
 enrollment was authorised, except of those 
 elected by ballot — The measure was evidently 
 of material advantage to the North- West 
 Company. During the period the men were 
 not employed in the Companjr's service, they 
 received pay from Government.' And when 
 the navigation opened in the spring, they were 
 ready at a moment's call to proceed in their 
 usual service as canoe-raeh to the Company, 
 which was thus saved the necessity of looking 
 out at that season for the requisite servants 
 to be engaged for thie summer trip. Even in 
 
 II,:; 
 
 i if:' 
 
3d 
 
 time of peace, this occasioned »ome trouble 
 and expense; but during the war, when so 
 great a proportion of the peasantry of Canada 
 were occupied in military duties^ the difficulty 
 of finding men for ordinary civil employments 
 was greatly increased. All this, however, 
 was to be avoided by the ingenious inven- 
 tion of the Voyageur Corps. The North- 
 
 West Company, therefore, are far from bein^ 
 entitled to that praise of superior patriotism 
 and devotion to the public service in the late 
 war,which has been thus assumed bytliem;and 
 although, if the first of the services above 
 alluded to had stood by itself, considerable 
 merit must certainly have been admitted, yet 
 when it is coupled with the advantages arisiug 
 from the formation of the Voyageur's Corps, 
 and other circumstances, we may certainly b^ 
 allowed to doubt whether the unreserved 
 offer of their stores to the Indian Depart- 
 ment at the commencement of the war ought 
 to be set down as an act of public spirit, or 
 as a well-judged speculation* 
 
 Having thus noticed the claims of that 
 Compaiiy with respect to the public, let us 
 next see what their conduct has been with 
 re^rd to individuals. These may be classed 
 into, — First, their servants in the interior.-w 
 Secondly, the native Indians. — And lastly, 
 
 Si!i^-i 
 
 V ,11 
 
 111 
 
 I 
 
S6 
 
 |j 
 
 other private traders who have been engaged 
 in the Fur Trade in the same country with 
 themselves or in their vicinity. With re- 
 spect to the first class, we may begin with the 
 testimony of an enlightened foreigner, of whose 
 impartiality no doubt can be entertained. 
 
 Count Andreani travelled through America 
 in 1791, and in the course of his tour visited 
 the Grand Portage, where he had an oppor- 
 tunity of learning the mode of conducting af- 
 fairs in the North-West, with more facility than 
 those travellers who receive their information 
 at Montreal. Speaking of the North-West 
 Company at that time, he says, in his Journal, 
 " Comme les employes sont pay^s en mar- 
 " chandises, on comprend par le prodigieux 
 " profit que fait la Compagnie sur leur vente, 
 " combien les salaires lui coCltent peu. Tons 
 " ces employes ach^tent d*elle leurs besoins; 
 " celle-ci tient avec eux un compte ouvert; 
 " et comme tous hivement dans rint6rieur, 
 " etg^n^ralement au-del^ du Lac Winnepeg, 
 " le rum qu'ils boivent, les couvertures et les 
 " draps qu'ils donnent ^ leurs femmes, etc. 
 ** etc. leur reviennent fort cher. Ces employes 
 " sont g6n6ralement libertins, ivrognes, de- 
 " pensiers; et la Compagnie n'en veut que 
 " de cette esp^ce. Telle est la speculation 
 "sur leurs vices, que tout employ6 qui 
 
37 
 
 (( 
 
 ({ 
 
 i( 
 
 (( 
 
 (( 
 
 ** t^moigne dans ses dispositions Economic et 
 ** sobri6t6, est charg6 des travaux les plus 
 fatiguans, jiisqu'^ ce que par une suite de 
 mauvais traitements, on ait pu le convertir 
 h Tivrognerie et k I'amour des femmes, qui 
 font vendre le rum, les couvertures, et les 
 ornemens. En 1791 il y avoit neuf cents 
 " des employ6s de la Compagnie qui lui 
 " devaient plus que le produit de dix k quinze 
 " ann6es de leurs gages k venir." (Voyages 
 dansl'Am^rique, par la Rochefoucould Lian- 
 court, Vol. ii. p. 225, Paris, An 7.) 
 
 In corroboration of this statement, we may 
 refer to the accounts (already noticed) which 
 Sir Alexander M*Kenzie has given of the 
 uncontrolled dissipation and licentiousness 
 of those who were employed in carrying on 
 the Fur Trade in the interior. Indeed it is 
 well known in Canada how very few of the 
 voyageurs in the service of the North-West 
 Company ever realise any property, though 
 employed for a long period of years, at wages 
 nominally double or treble the annual rate of 
 wages in the Province. So far indeed from 
 saving money, or bettering their condition in 
 this service, there are many of them who leave 
 their families in great distress, and never 
 remit any part of tlieir wages, for the sup- 
 port of their wives and children. Strangers 
 
 
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 38 
 
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 travelling through Lower Canada mu8t be 
 struck with the frequent appearance of 
 beggarly hovels, bespeaking a degree of 
 poverty seldom to be met with in other parts 
 of America, and which seems difficult to be 
 accounted for, in a country where labour is 
 highly paid, and fertile land may be had at 
 a very low price. It will be found on inquiry, 
 that these habitations are usually occupied 
 by the families of voyageurs employed in the 
 North- West, and who seldom or ever remit 
 any thing for their support. And yet the 
 North'West Company claim merit for the 
 encouragement they give to the industrious 
 population of Canada, and boast of the number 
 of men employed by them in the Indian 
 trade as a great public advantage ! 
 
 The ** speculation upon the vices" of their 
 Hervants is not to be considered as an abuse 
 which may have crept accidentally into the 
 business of the North- West Company. It is 
 an essential part of their system ; and without 
 which the Company could not exist on its 
 present footing. The number of men whom 
 they employ is greater than the profits of the 
 trade could afford, if their wages were to be 
 paid in hard cash. The trade might no doubt 
 be carried on in an economical manner with 
 a smaller number of servants; but this would 
 
 i!-, 
 
 1- ■ 
 
89 
 
 be fatal to the interests of the Company in 
 another respect. It will appear in the sequel 
 of these pages, that it is chiefly by means 
 of this excessive number of •men, that they 
 are enabled to maintain a monopoly through- 
 out a vast extent of the most valuable beavc 
 countries. Being therefore under the necessity 
 (as they deem it) of employing a greater 
 number of servants than they can adequately 
 pay, their trade would soon cease, unless they 
 could have recourse to such means for pay- 
 ment of their wages as those described by 
 Count Andreani. 
 
 The extent to which this system is carried^ 
 and its importance to the interests of the 
 Company, may be judged by a few facts of 
 public notoriety. The number of voyageurs 
 in the service of the North- West Company 
 cannot be less than 2,000. Their nominal 
 wages are from £30 to £60, some as high as 
 £80, or even £100 — the average cannot be 
 less than £40, and is probably higher; so 
 that the sum total of wages must be 80, or 
 90,000£. The gross return of their trade 
 seldom exceeds £150,000, and when the cost 
 of trading goods, and all the expenses of the 
 concern are taken into consideration, it must 
 be very evident that the Company could 
 never afford, out of this sum, to pay such an 
 
 i' 8l 
 
 ^!ii 
 
n 
 
 m 
 
 11 
 
 I ifMI 
 
 m 
 
 m 
 
 
 40 
 
 amount of wages. To obviate this difficulty 
 their servants receive goods, the real value 
 of which cannot be accurately known with- 
 out a reference to the books of the Company ; 
 but in the opinion of persons of the best 
 general information, the prime cost of the 
 goods so employed cannot exceed .£10,000 
 sterling. From one article a judgment may 
 be formed of the rest. Spirits are sold to 
 the servants of the Company in the interior, 
 at the rate of eight dollars per quart, which 
 cost the Company little more than one dollar 
 per gallon at Montreal ; so that when a 
 servant becomes addicted to drinking spirits 
 (no very uncommon case), it is an easy matter 
 to add £\0, or £20, to his nominal wages. 
 
 It is accordingly considered as an essential 
 point of duty in the master of a trading post, 
 to take care that the men, under his com- 
 mand, shall have as little as possible of their 
 wages to receive in cash at the end of the 
 year. The management of the trade with 
 the Indians is reckoned an easy task, in 
 comparison with the management of the Ca- 
 nadian servants. The methods described by 
 Count Andreani, as used in order to convert 
 the latter to drunkenness and debauchery, 
 are by no means the whole of the resources 
 that are employed for this purpose. When- 
 
41 
 
 ever any of their servants begins to indulge 
 in habits of expense, credit is allowed him 
 with unbounded facility, till he is deeply 
 involved in debt to the Company. When 
 this has been accomplished he is in complete 
 bondage ; and no alternative is left him but 
 absolute submission to his employers, or a 
 gaol. He must therefore submit to every 
 imposition, which his superiors may think fit 
 to practise upon him. — It should also be 
 remarked that the object of involving the 
 men in debt to the Company is greatly pro- 
 moted by the custom of calculating by a 
 peculiar currency, (called North-West Cur- 
 rency,) in which money is reckoned at only 
 half the value it bears in Canada ; one 
 shilling being equal to two of the ordinary 
 money of the Province. The men who are 
 engaged at Montreal, have their wages 
 calculated according to the established legal 
 currency, but every article which they re- 
 ceive from the Company in the interior is 
 charged at the North- West Currency. A 
 man is told the price of some article that he 
 wants, and compares it perhaps with the 
 prices at the store in his native village ; but 
 when his account comes to be stated in the 
 Company's books at Montreal, every pound 
 is converted into two. Those who know how 
 
4)2 
 
 [I'llii-i 
 
 w ■ 
 
 
 l! : 
 
 15 
 
 N ■! 
 
 iittic education falls to the lot of the peasantry 
 in Canada, and how incapable they are in 
 general of any thing like calculation, will not 
 be surprised, that, by this device, they are 
 led on to expenses beyond their means. — It 
 is evident, however, that the North- West 
 Company must act with a considerable de- 
 gree of caution, from the necessity they are 
 under of obtaining continual supplies of new 
 servants from Canada. — It is requisite, there- 
 fore, in order to blind the ignorant and ud- 
 calculating peasantry of that Province, that 
 the system which the Company pursue with 
 respect to their servants in the interior should 
 be in a great measure concealed, and theif 
 conduct accordingly, with regard to that class 
 of individuals, partakes more of cunning than 
 of violent oppression. 
 
 The case is different with respect to the 
 Indian inhabitants of those countries in which 
 the Fur Trade is carried on. Among them a 
 material distinction is to be observed between 
 different tribes. Those who inhabit the 
 plains of the Saskatchewan, Red River, and 
 other fertile districts, can obtain such. abun- 
 dance of buffaloe and game, that they are 
 seldom in want of provisions. They can 
 associate together in numerous bands, and 
 are of a bold, warlike character, which is not 
 
43 
 
 the case with those who inhabit the more 
 sterile parts of the country to the East of 
 Lake Winipic, and also to the North on 
 Churchill River, and in Athabasca. These 
 districts are rocky and full of swamps, well 
 adapted for the habitation of the beaver, but 
 they do not abound in the larger species of 
 game. The subsistence of the Indians there 
 is both scanty and precarious ; their numbers 
 are consequently small, and it is seldom that 
 more than a single family can find means of 
 subsisting at one place. Living in this scat- 
 tered manner, they are timid from a con- 
 sciousness of their own weakness, and dare 
 not resent those insults which could not be 
 safely offered to the Indians of the plains. 
 It is among the natives of these barren dis- 
 tricts that the most valuable furs are collected, 
 and from these stations the North- West 
 Company are most anxious to exclude all 
 competitors. To effect this, the timid cha- 
 racter of the natives affords them a great 
 facility. If any one of these Indians ventures 
 to sell a beaver skin to a trader who is not of 
 the North-West Company, it is a crime for 
 which he is suro to experience the severest 
 vengeance; and the natives are utterly unable 
 either to resist, or to procure redress for any 
 violence which may be thus exercised against 
 
 Hi 
 
 
44 
 
 till, 
 
 iii 
 
 If : 
 
 them. In those districts of which the North- 
 West Company have, for any length of time, 
 had almost exclusive possession, the dread of 
 their resentment is sufficient to deter the 
 Indians from affording the slightest assistance 
 to any stranger ;~even to converse with him 
 is an offence which they dare not commit in 
 the presence of a servant of that Company. 
 
 It is not often that the Company think it 
 necessary to advance any excuse to paihate 
 these outrages ; but if circumstances should 
 require a justification, a pretext is alv.ays at 
 hand. The Indian is aiieged to be indebted 
 to the North-West Company, and the furs in 
 question to be due to them in payment of 
 his debt. It is the established custom of 
 the fur traders to supply the Indians with 
 goods on credit, exacting from them a pro- 
 mise to deliver, in return, a stipulated number 
 of beaver skins, or an equivalent in other 
 fuT^, From the improvident character of the 
 Indians, there are few of them, who, on the 
 approach of winter, are not in want of sup- 
 plies, without which they cannot proceed to 
 their hunting grounds :— and, not having the 
 means of making immediate payment, the 
 produce of their winter hunt is anticipated, 
 and pledged to the traders. It may well be 
 iiiiagined, that thu traders incur a very great 
 
4» 
 
 risk of bad debts ; and this, no doubt, is one 
 cause of the excessive disproportion between 
 the intrinsic value of the goods which are 
 sold to the Indians, and of the furs which p.r45 
 obtained in exchange. The facility, how- 
 ever, with which the Indians obtain this sort 
 of credit is very pernicious, and nothing 
 would contribute more to their improvement 
 and permanent welfare, than the disconti- 
 nuance of this custom, and the substitution 
 of direct barter. If, however, one set of 
 traders are in the habit of giving credit to 
 the Indians, their competitors cannot refuse 
 to do the same ; and those who, like the 
 traders of the North-West Company, have 
 the superiority of direct force, find it for 
 their interest to keep up the practice, as 
 tc-iding to rivet ihe subjection in whinh they 
 hold the Indians. These traders, acknow- 
 ledging no submission to any njagistrate, ask 
 for no other authority than superior strength 
 to take ihe property of their debtor, and 
 think themselves entitled to add personal 
 correction, if the Indian should hesitate to 
 comply with th- demand. The oppression 
 which arises from this summary mode of 
 proceeding is chiefly felt where there is a 
 competition among different traders. If 
 
 ' i': 
 
 ';S <t 
 
 n it 
 
 \\ 
 
 4! 
 
 I' 
 
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 1 
 
 it 
 
 ■r 
 
 
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 46 
 
 there, be no competition, some sort of regu* 
 larity is observed ; the trader being then sure 
 of obtaining all the produce of the country, 
 finds it for his interest to give the hunter 
 some encouragement to be industrious; and 
 though the Indian receives but a small price 
 for his furs, he at least obtains something, 
 to supply his wants. But when a rival trader 
 steps in, the Indian may be tempted, not 
 only to carry his furs to a better market, 
 but to neglect the payment of the debts 
 which he has already incurred ; and the bare 
 suspicion of such an intention is deemed a 
 sufficient excuse for every sort of violence on 
 the part of those who have the power in 
 their hands, and who take upon themselves 
 to be judges in their own cause. Numerous 
 instances might be given of Indians being 
 plundered of their property, and of personal 
 violence being exercised towards them by the 
 Canadian servants and traders, for no other 
 offence than that of having presumed to 
 trade with others, who offered them a better 
 price for their furs. Though this is generally 
 done under me pretence of debt, instances 
 are common of the most brutal and atrocious 
 violence, when no such pretence could possi- 
 bly be alleged. One or two may be mentioned 
 
47 
 
 , ti 
 
 as strikingly illustrative of their general policy 
 in this respect, and of the means they adopt 
 to keep the natives in subjection^ , , 
 • In the year 1796, one of the gentlemen of 
 the North- Weat Company had been killed 
 near Cumberland House, by a particular 
 band of Indians. From the timid character 
 of the Indiaw in that quarter* and tlie insults 
 to which they have been in the habit of 
 comtinually submitting, it is more thaii pro* 
 bable that they mu»t have been driven to 
 this act of desperation by somie extraordinary 
 provocation. However that might be, it was 
 thought of eiisential consequence to the Noith- 
 West Company that the act should not pass 
 unpunished. — One of the Indiana supposed 
 to be guilty, was overtaken by a party of 
 the Company's servants, commandie by Mr, 
 M^Kay, the partner in charge of the depart- 
 ment, who, taking upon himself the office at 
 executioner, as well as of judge and ju<ry, 
 levelled his gun, and shot the offender dead 
 upon the spot. Another Indian of the same 
 band was taken alive ; a soitt of mock tiiali 
 was held, in which three partr»ers of the 
 North- West Company condemned himi to 
 death ; and he was immediateliy hanged on 
 a tree in the neighbourbood of the trading 
 post. 
 
 !H ' 
 
m 
 
 48 
 
 
 m 
 
 i' 
 
 -1'^ 
 
 '■I i, 
 
 :/ 
 
 In the year 1802, the Old North- West 
 Company had a small outpost at Pike 
 River, on the banks of Lake Superior, occu- 
 pied only by three Canadians. In the course 
 of the winter, an Indian from whom the 
 people of this post had received important 
 assistance during the preceding season, being 
 reduced to the last extremity from want of 
 food, sent two of his daughters to petition 
 for assistance. Some lish were given to 
 them, but the supply was so inadequate to 
 the wants of their family, that they were 
 afraid to return. Being unable otherwise to 
 effect their object, they watched the oppor- 
 tunity when one of the Canadians was at a 
 distance from the house, and the other two 
 were off their guard ; killed one of them, and 
 wounded the other, who made his escape. 
 They afterwards killed the third who had 
 been absent, and robbed the house of all the 
 provisions it contained. . . ;- 
 
 In the following year, posts were esta- 
 blished near the same place by the two rival 
 Companies. That of the Old North-West 
 Company was nominally under the command 
 of a clerk, who w^s much too young and 
 inexperienced for such a charge, and ac- 
 cordingly allowed hi. self to be gover ed by, 
 one of their bullies (or battailleurs as they are 
 
49 
 
 technically termed) of the name of Comptois. 
 A person of the like description, named 
 Roussin, was employed at the trading post of 
 the New Company. In the course of the win- 
 ter, an Indian, of the name of Wandegocau, 
 came to trade, and brought with him one of 
 the two women who had committed the 
 murder in the preceding winter, and whom 
 he had since married. In consequence of 
 this, Comptois and Roussin consulted toge- 
 ther, and being resolved to revenge the death 
 of their countrymen, told the Indian and his 
 wife to prepare for death. Wandegocau 
 remonstrated, saying that he had no hand in 
 the murder, and that if his wife had been 
 guilty, they ought lot to punish him. He 
 also reminded Comptois that he had himself 
 saved his (Comptois) life on a former occasion, 
 when in extreme distress for want of pro- 
 visions ; and, that to obtain a supply, he had 
 prevailed upon Wandegocau to conduct him 
 nearly a hundred miles through a mountainous 
 and rugged country to the Grand Portage. 
 The Indian reproached Comptois with his 
 ingratitude, and could hardly be persuaded 
 that he meant really to carry his threats into 
 execution. His remonstrances were in vain. 
 Comptois and Roussin remained inexorable ; 
 and, in presence of six or eight of their coun- 
 
 E 
 
 I 
 
 ;11 
 
 f'.i i\\ 
 
 ■ff f 
 
 'Up 
 
 \m 
 
I 
 
 llfi 
 
 • ; "I 
 
 i; 
 
 1;,|| 
 
 50 
 
 try men, as- well as of the clerk who had the 
 charge of the post, they proceeded to carry 
 theiir resolution into effect, and butchered 
 Wandegocau as well as his wife. 
 
 In the year 1807, Mr, Peter Fidler was 
 sent by the Hudson's Bay Company from 
 Churchill Factory, to explore a part of the 
 country through which it was supposed a 
 more advantageous communication might be 
 opened into Athabasca. He was employed 
 on this occasion merely as a surveyor, and 
 did not attempt to carry on a trade with 
 the natives of those countries through which 
 he passed. — Nevertheless, as his survey ex- 
 tended into a district which the North-West 
 Company wei'e desirous of monopolizing, 
 their jealousy was excited, and one of their 
 servants, named LaRoque, anoted battailleur, 
 was dispatched to follow his route. This 
 ruffian having discovered the Indian who had 
 served as guide to Mr. Fidler through part 
 of his route, attacked him for this breach of 
 his allegiance, beat him severely, and left 
 him with two of his ribs broken*. 
 
 * In the course of his survey, Mr. Fidler had planted 
 a few sets of potatoes, to supply seed for any people 
 whom the Hudson's Bay Company might send to form a 
 permanent establishment. Even this germ of improve- 
 ment rould not pass unnoticed. La Roque and the 
 
51 
 
 ' It would b& a disgusting task to detail tha 
 numerous and continued acts of violeitcfs 
 exercised in the most illegal and tyrannical 
 nianner against the wretched natives of these 
 districts; and, after what has been stated, it 
 must be superfluous to make any remarks on 
 the total inattention of the North-West Com- 
 pany to the moral and religious instruction 
 of the people under their control, whether 
 with reference to their Canadian servants, or 
 the native Indians within those districts of 
 which the Company have so long had the 
 exclusive occupation. It would be well if 
 nothing more than inattention could be laid 
 to their charge on that score. — But it is 
 an indisputable fact, that the native Indians 
 have been growing more deficient in every 
 estimable point of character from the time 
 that Canada fell under the Protestant Govern- 
 ment of Great Britain. The cause of this 
 lamentable and humiliating fact can no 
 longer be a mystery, when it is known that the 
 immediate management of these people has 
 been ieft without control in the hands of men 
 who speculate upon the vices of their servants. 
 
 
 '•ll 
 
 M 
 
 servaots of the North-West Company rooted out and 
 destroyed the plants. 
 
 i 
 
 it' 
 
(il! 
 
 I '/ 
 
 t . ,. 
 
 if 
 
 J 
 
 I 
 
 m 
 
 ■I 
 111 
 
 ll 
 
 m 
 
 mm 
 
 [i ■ 
 
 m' I 
 
 % 
 
 .1 
 
 52 
 
 This matter is not one of those in which the 
 whole blame should be thrown on the winter- 
 ing partners. Those connected with them in 
 London have lent themselves to counteract 
 measures which might have tended to reform 
 the habits, and ameliorate the condition, of 
 the native Indians. It is well known, that 
 the propensity of the natives to intoxication 
 is one of the most serious bars to their civili- 
 zation ; and that if an effectual restraint 
 could be put on the sale of spirituous liquors 
 to the Indians in British America, it would 
 contribute most essentially to their welfare, 
 and progress in the arts of civilized life. It 
 is evident that this can only be effected by a 
 general regulation, to which all the traders 
 should be obliged to conform. Such a regu- 
 lation ba^ been enacted several years ago by 
 the American Government with the happiest 
 effects, having laid the foundation for the 
 benevolent exertions of a society of Quakers 
 in Philadelphia, who have succeeded in ex- 
 citing a spirit of regularity and industry, 
 formerly unknown among the Indian tribes 
 residing on the waters of the Ohio. The very 
 interesting account^ which has been published 
 of their proceedings, induced some of the 
 friends of humanity in England to propose 
 an attempt of the same kind among the 
 
fl ■ 
 
 53 
 
 Indians within the British boundaries. — Asa 
 preliminary, it was suggested that an Act of 
 Parliament should be applied for to restrain 
 the sale of spirituous liquors to the Indians in 
 British America. This proposal was com- 
 municated to the Directors of the Hudson's 
 Bay Company, who not only expressed their 
 hearty concurrence in the proposition, but 
 addressed a set of queries on the subject to 
 their principal officers in Hudson's Bay, 
 calling for information as to the consequences 
 to be expected from it. The answers to those 
 queries expressed a decided opinion, on the 
 part of these officers, that the trade would 
 not suffer by the measure ; that it might at 
 first excite some dissatisfaction among the 
 Indians, which would very soon pass away, 
 and that the ultimate consequences could 
 not fail to be most beneficial to the native 
 inhabitants, and to contribute, in a material 
 degree, to the comfort and security of all who 
 resided among them*. 
 
 * The statements returned by the officers of the Hudson's 
 Bay Company, in consequence of the queries transmitted 
 to them, expressed in the strongest manner the lament- 
 able effects produced among the natives by the use of 
 spirituous liquors. No moderation in that respect is ever 
 to be expected from them, and when an Indian is intox- 
 icated, there are no bounds to his fury. In -that state they 
 
 
 a 
 
 l! 
 
 1 
 
 i I, 
 
54 
 
 \^ 
 
 
 [ I 
 
 11 S 
 
 The proposal was also communicated to 
 the agents and partners of the North-West 
 Company in London, who strongly opposed 
 it. The arguments alleged in support of 
 their opposition were as feeble as could well 
 be imagined, but they were supported by 
 a degree of influence which rendered it ne- 
 cessary at that time to drop the further pro- 
 secution of the measure, and to wait till the 
 public mind should appear to be more alive 
 to so important and desirable an object. 
 
 The evils which had been experienced from 
 excessive competition among the Fur Traders, 
 prepared the way (as we have seen) for the 
 formation of the present North-West Coin- 
 pany, and it now became the main object of 
 that Association to exclude, by every means 
 in their power, all other adventurers from the 
 trade. — The individuals who had associated 
 enjoyed no rights that were not equally open 
 to every British subject, and they well knew 
 that to apply to Parliament for any exclusive 
 privilege of trade would be useless. Their 
 
 ■!■ ■ Hl» — W— ^i"«— ^M^— »J^.Ml^— ^— — ^-^iM^^W^M^^—M^ ■ ■!■■ IM^ ■■■■ »■ ■ —■■ ■■■ 
 
 commit the most horrid murders, often sacrificing their 
 wives and children. The Indian women are also much 
 addicted to the use of spirituous liquors when they can 
 obtain them; the evident consequence of which is, that 
 their children are often left in the greatest Want and 
 taisery. 
 
&5 
 
 great object, therefore, was to maintain their 
 exclusive possession as long as they could, 
 and, having no legal title to prevent others 
 from trading within the same districts, they 
 hoped to exclude them by means of prior 
 possession, and superior numerical force. In 
 fact, the same measures continued to be pur- 
 sued which had prevailed during the earlier 
 periods of the commercial rivalship in Canada. 
 These measures f obstruction are adverted to 
 by Sir Alexander M*Kenzie, who informs us 
 that when Messrs. Pangman and Gregory, 
 dissatisfied with the arrangements entered 
 into at the first coalition of the North- West 
 Company, had engaged several other persons 
 (and among these, Sir Alexander himself) to 
 join in a separate undertaking for a trade to 
 the Indian ^^ountry of Athabasca, they found 
 that in the prosecution of it they had to 
 encounter not only the natural difiiculties 
 that were opposed to them, but every other 
 which their opponents, who were already in 
 possession of the trade of the country, could 
 throw in their wav. " But,*' observes Sir 
 Alexander, " after the severest struggle ever 
 '* known in that part of the world, dnd sufFer- 
 " ing every oppression which a jealous and 
 rival spirit could instigate; after the murder 
 of one of our partners, the laming of ano- 
 
 4r 
 
 ; 'S 
 
 
 n 
 
 t( 
 
 m 
 
56 
 
 V. 
 
 W 
 
 m 
 
 ?. 
 
 *. 
 
 ii-i. 
 
 •* ther, and the narrow escape of one of our 
 " clerks, who leceived a bullet through his 
 " powder-horn in the execution of his duty, 
 " they were. compelled to allow us a share in 
 " the trade. As we had already incurred a loss, 
 " this union was, in every respect, a desirable 
 *' event to us, and was concluded in the month 
 "of July 1787." PagexiK.xx, 
 
 It is evident that the Author is reluctant to 
 enter into minute details of the violence prac- 
 tised by those, who, in consequence of this 
 coalition, had become his partners. He men- 
 tions enough,however,to shew the determined 
 spirit of monopoly which existed among them 
 from the first, and we shall see, in the sequel 
 of these pages, how the same jealousy, which 
 obstructed the enterprize of Mr. Fangman 
 and his associates, has been directed against 
 subsequent attempts of a similar description. 
 
 In the year 1801, Mr. Dominic Rousseau 
 of Montreal, sent a canoe and four or five 
 men, under the charge of Mr. Hervieu, his 
 clerk, to Lake Superior, with an assortment 
 of goods, calculating that he should dispose 
 of them to advantage among the servants of 
 the North- West Company, during their an- 
 nual asseniblage at the Grand Portage on 
 Lake Superior. Small as this adventure was, 
 it excited the jealousy of the North- West 
 
 "* y 
 
M 
 
 Company. Hervieu pitched his tent, and 
 opened his shop, at the distanre of about a 
 gun-shot from their fort, or trading post ; but 
 it was not long before he was accosted by 
 some of the partners, and particularly by 
 Mr. Duncan M*Gillivray, who peremptorily 
 ordered him to quit the place, telling him, 
 that he had no right to come there. Hervieu 
 questioned the right of the North-West Com- 
 pany to the exclusive possession of the 
 country, and said that he would not go away 
 unless they shewed a legal title to the land. 
 After some altercation, to avoid further dis- 
 putes, he agreed to remove his encampment 
 to another spot, which was pointed out to 
 him, but before he had time to effect this, 
 Mr. M*Gillivray returned with Mr. Archibald 
 Norman M'Leod, another of the partners, 
 and ten or a dozen of their inferior clerks and 
 servants, and accosted him in a still more 
 arrogant style than before. M*Gillivray, 
 adverting to Hervieu having questioned the 
 title of the North-West Company to the 
 country, told him that he should see their 
 title, and drawing his dagger, struck it into 
 Hervieu's tent, and tore it from top to bottom. 
 M*Leod then pulled down the tent altogether; 
 overturned a chest containing Hervieu's mer- 
 chandize; with the most violent threats 
 
 't 
 
 m 
 
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m 
 
 I' 
 
 ii.n 
 
 
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 ; 
 
 
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 11 
 
 3 
 
 I 
 
 ,! 
 
 58 
 
 ordered him to be gone ; and naming a place 
 a little father in the interior, told him, that if 
 he were there he would cut his throat. The 
 same gentleman assaulted one Durang, an 
 interpreter in the Compaiiy's service, and 
 took from him a tent which he had purchased 
 for his own use from Hervieu. With all the 
 fiolenmity of a public execution, they cut it 
 in pieces, and after publicly exhibiting it in 
 this stale, made a bonfire of it, as a warning 
 to the servants of the Company of the conse- 
 quence of purchasing from the intruder. 
 
 In consequence of these outrages, Mr. 
 Hervieu was under the necessity of returning 
 to Montreal, a distance of thirteen or fourteen 
 hundred miles, without having disposed of 
 one-fourth part of his goods, for all of which 
 he could have found a ready sale, if he had 
 not been so molested. Indeed, there was a 
 coiisiderable part of what he had sold which 
 tho purchasers refused to pay for after they 
 saw the manner in which he had been treated 
 by their employers. 
 
 Mr. Rousseau brought an action against 
 Mr. M*Gillivray in the court at Montreal, 
 and recovered damages, which were assessed 
 atjg50() ; a sum, which in all probability was 
 barely sufficient (if it wa" sufficient) to com- 
 pensate for the direct pecuniary loss which 
 
59 
 
 he had sustained. It could not possibly 
 indemnify him for the profit which he had 
 reason to expect, and was a mere trifle to the 
 North- West Company, in comparison with the 
 benefit of maintaining their monopoly, and 
 of deterring others from attempting a similar 
 interference. In England a jury would hardly 
 have overlooked that consideration, but in 
 consequence of the French law, which still 
 prevails in civil causes in Lower Canada, no 
 jury was impanelled on this case, and the 
 damages were assessed by the court. 
 
 In the year 1806, Mr. Rousseau again at- 
 tempted a trading adventure to the Indian 
 country. He entered into partnership with 
 a Mr. Delorme, whom he dispatched from 
 Montreal with two canoes loaded with goods 
 for the interior. Mr. Delorme proceeded as 
 far as Lake Superior, and, in order to avoid 
 collision, he there took the old route by the 
 Grand Portage, which the North-West Com- 
 pany had then abandoned. When he had 
 ad anced a few days' journey through the 
 intricate and diflicult country beyond Lake 
 Superior, he was overtaken by Mr. Alexander 
 M*Kay, a partner of the North-West Com- 
 pany, with a number of men, who went for- 
 ward along the route by which Mr. Delorme 
 
 
 
 .J> . 
 
60 
 
 t,I 
 
 ir 
 
 
 !'■ 
 I* 
 
 M 
 
 iiii- 
 
 II 
 
 il 
 
 1^ 
 
 m 
 
 was to advance, and proceeded to fell trees 
 across the road, at the portages, and on all 
 the narrow crcnks by which they were to 
 pass. They soon accomplished such a com- 
 plete obstruction, that Mr. Delorme with his 
 small party, found it impossible to open a 
 passage for his loaded canoes. His adventure 
 being thus entirely frustrated, he left his 
 goods, and made his retreat with his men 
 only. On his arrival at Fort William, the 
 trading post of the North- West Company, he 
 found Mr. M'Gillivray, by whose direction 
 these obstructions had been made. To him 
 Delorme presented the keys of the packages 
 which he had left, and remonstrated on the 
 unjustifiable manner in which he had. been 
 treated ; but his appeal was fruitless. Pinding 
 that no redress could otherwise be obtained, 
 Mr. Rousseau brought an action of damages 
 against the Company; but the case did not 
 come to a trial, a compromise having been 
 offered and accepted. The North-West Com- 
 pany agreed to pay for the goods which 
 Delorme had left beyond the Grand Portage, 
 at the invoice price as valued at Montreal. 
 By this, Mr. Rousseau lost all the wages of 
 the men, and other expenses he had incurred 
 in the outfit, but he thought it advisable to 
 
■^ 
 
 61 
 
 
 accept the compensation, however inade- 
 quate, rather than trust to the chance of 
 obtaining justice in the courts of law. 
 
 These cases deserve particular attention, 
 becalise they afford striking proof how dif- 
 ficult it is for those who have only seen the 
 members of the Company who reside at 
 Montreal or London, to form a judgment 
 as to the conduct of the North- West Com- 
 pany in the interior. The outrages alluded 
 to, it should be observed, were not committed 
 by obscure clerks, or by battailleurs, whose acts 
 might be disavowed. Mr. M*Leod, whose 
 language to Hervieu evinced so little decency 
 or respect for the laws of his country, is not 
 only a leading partner of the Company, but 
 also a Justice of the Peace for the Indian 
 Territory! and Mr. Duncan M'Gillivray 
 (since dead), was nephew of the gentleman 
 then at the head of the North- West Company, 
 and was himself the acknowledged agent of 
 the Company, in which capacity he took the 
 lead in all the proceedings at the general 
 meeting of the wintering partners. 
 
 Mr. Rousseau was the last private merchant 
 who ventured, singly and unsupported, to 
 send goods into the North-West. At an 
 older date, many other respectable individuals 
 of Montreal had been engaged in that trade 
 
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62 
 
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 in the countries most accesaible from Cunad^. 
 to the North of Lake Superior, and other 
 districts, but which they were forced to aban-^ 
 don, in const^quence of a series of outrages of 
 the same character as those practised against 
 Mr. Rousseau. Some of these gentlemen 
 have quitted the Fur Trade altogetlier, and 
 others have directed their attention to Mi- 
 chilimacinack and the South-West, where 
 the trade has always been more open to free 
 competition. 
 
 Of these traders, however, few ever at- 
 tempted to stretch into Athabasca, or the 
 remoter Indian countries towards the North- 
 West, Very soon after the formation of the 
 North- West Conipany, it became evident 
 that no unconnected individual could have 
 any chance of success in these distant coun- 
 tries, and that to carry on trade there, in 
 competition with that body, would require a 
 scale of operations a» extensive as theirs,, and 
 an establishment of men capable of contend- 
 ing with them at their own weapons. It was 
 on these principles that the New North- 
 West, or X. Y. Company was formed in the 
 year 1796* This undertaking was powerfully 
 supported in [xiint of capital; and was con- 
 du<3ted by gentlemen of great experience in 
 theindian trade, and far superior in point of 
 
63 
 
 talents to most of their antagonists. It was 
 not, however, an easy matter for them at once 
 to form an establishment on so large a scale 
 as that of the Old Company. In addition 
 to the natural difficulties of such an under- 
 taking, they had to contend against every 
 obstruction which their rivals could throw in 
 their way. — Among other obstacles the Old 
 North- West Company not only engaged a 
 much larger number of men than they had 
 ever employed before, but also paid pensions 
 to all tiie experienced voyageurs, who had 
 already retired from their service, on con- 
 dition that they should not enter into the 
 employment of their rivals. From this and 
 other causes, the latter Company were always 
 much inferior in point of numbers at their 
 wintering posts in the Indian country, in 
 consequence of which they experienced from 
 their rivals great violence and oppression. 
 From the remote situation, and the difficulty 
 of tracing evidence with legal precision, in a 
 country altogether destitute of police^ it 
 would have been useless to have attempted 
 to procure redress in the Courts of Law, 
 The cases were therefore never brought judi- 
 cially before the public, and, in consequence 
 of the coalition which has since taken place 
 between the two Companies, it is not now an 
 
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 64 
 
 easy matter to trace out particular facts and 
 circumstances. — ^The injured party and the 
 aggressors are equally desirous of throwing 
 a ,i[ over the atrocities which took place 
 during their quarrel. — Since they have been 
 united, it is no longer for the interest of 
 either, that the public at large should under- 
 stand the mode in which business is conductec^ 
 in the Indian country. 
 
 If indeed the state of these remote coun- 
 tries could be expected to attract so much 
 of public attention, as tvO become the subject 
 of Parliamentary inquiry, there can be little 
 doubt but that much evidence might yet be 
 collected, as to the proceedings which oc- 
 curred during these disgraceful contests, and 
 that the result would not only illustrate, in a 
 very striking manner, the principles upon 
 which the monopoly was attempted to be 
 maintained, but would also afford full proof 
 of the necessity of Government adopting 
 some effectual measures to prevent the con- 
 tinuance of those illegal proceedings which 
 have so frequently occurred in that distant 
 quarter of the British empire. 
 
1 
 
 '^ ril 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Conduct of the North- West Compani/ towards the 
 Hudson's Bay Company.— -Remarks upon the 
 latter Company. — Observations upon their Char- 
 ter and rights of Jurisdiction. — Operation of the 
 Canada Jurisdiction Act. — Suggestions with 
 respect to the better Settlement of various parts 
 of British North America. 
 
 X ROM the period when the Fur Traders 
 of Montreal came into contact with the 
 servants of the Hudson's Bay Company in the 
 interior, they evinced towards them the utmost 
 hostility. In addition to the advantages they 
 possessed from their general superiority of 
 numbers, they usually employed, for their pur- 
 poses, men of the most abandoned characters, 
 who, as Sir Alexander M*Kenzie expresses 
 it, •' considered the command of their em- 
 ** ployer as binding on them, and however 
 " wrong or irregular the transaction, the 
 " responsibility rested with the principal who 
 ** directed them." — An instance occurred in 
 the year 1800, which may afford a specimen 
 of their atrocity. 
 
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 Mr. Frederick Schultz, a clerk of the Old 
 North- West Company liad, in the year 1800, 
 the command of a post established near Lake 
 St. Ann, or Nipigon. AniWg his men, was 
 one of the name of Labau, a fine young lad, 
 about nineteen years of age, who understood 
 English, find had iq the j^oursje of the pre- 
 ceding wjptpr becarpe intimate with the ser- 
 vants of the Hudson's Bay Company, who 
 occupied a post near the same place. In the 
 spring, when the traders on both sides were 
 preparing to leave their wintering ground, 
 Labau resolved to join the Hudson's B^y 
 people, and go down with them to their 
 Factory on the coast. Schultz, having re- 
 ceived intelligence of this, sent his interpreter 
 to qyder Labau to return to his duty, and to 
 remind him that he was in debt to the North- 
 West Company. In answer to this message, 
 Labau promised to remit the money that he 
 cjwed to the Company, but declared that hq 
 would not remain any longer in their service. 
 This answer being reported to Schultz, he 
 ^'d^id with vehemence, that if the scoundrel 
 would not come back willingly, he would 
 (iOimpel him., He then took Ijiis dagger and 
 ^arefv^lly whetted it, and having dressed him- 
 ^^If in his best attire, went over to the Hud- 
 son's Bay post, where he found Labau, and 
 
67 
 
 asked hinfi, in a furious tone, \vhether he 
 wotild.come ^vith him; Labau was intimi- 
 dated, and hesitatingly answered Yes ; but, 
 watching his opportunity, endeavoured to 
 escape out of the room. Upon this, Schultz 
 drew his dagger, and aimed a blow, which 
 Labau in vain tried to avoid. He was 
 stabbed in the loin, and died the sameevening. 
 
 Labau was much beloved by his feUow-sefr- 
 vants, and the conduct of Schultz occasioned 
 such murmur among the servants of the North- 
 West Company, asstembled at the rendezvous 
 at the Grand Portage, that it was not thought 
 advisable to employ him any longer in that 
 quarter. This, however, was the only notic6 
 taken of this savage murder. Schultz cattie 
 down in the canoes of the North-West Com- 
 pany to Montreal, where he remained at large, 
 and unnoticed fot some months. He was 
 afterwards agaitt taken into the service bf 
 that Company ; btit employed in a different 
 paH of theit establishmehls, where his con- 
 duct was not so Svell knowti. He continued 
 in the employmetit of the Company for Several 
 years, and is how living undisturbed in Lower 
 Canada. 
 
 After the coalition of the Old and New 
 North- West Companies, and the expulsion 
 of all private adventurers from Cahidd, th6 
 
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 68 
 
 Hudson's Bay Company became their only 
 rival to the North and West of Lake Superior. 
 From that time, the ferocious spirit which 
 had been fostt red among the clerks and ser- 
 vants of the two Companies by six years of 
 continual violence, was all turned against the 
 Hudson's Bay Company: and there is reason 
 to believe not only that a systematic plan 
 was formed for driving their traders out of all 
 the valuable beaver countries, but that hopes 
 were entertained of reducing that Company 
 to so low an ebb, as in time t( iduce them 
 to make over iheir chartered ri^ihts to their 
 commercial rivals*. Accordingly fur several 
 years a train of the most unprovoked aggres- 
 sion has been carried on against the servants 
 of this Company. / few instances may be 
 mentioned which will give the reader some 
 idea of the North-West Company's mode of 
 conducting a commercial competition. 
 
 In May 1806, Mr. William Corrigal, a 
 trader in the service of the Hudson's Bay 
 Company, was stationed with a few men at a 
 place called Bad Lake, within the limits of 
 Albany Factory, (in the Hudson's Bay terri- 
 tory,) and near a post occupied by a much 
 
 * The Charter of the Hudson's Bay Company was 
 granted by King Charles II. in the year 1670. 
 

 69 
 
 larger number of men, commanded by Mr. 
 Haldane, a partner in the North- West Com- 
 pany. Five of the Canadians in his service, 
 watching their opportunity, broke into Mr. 
 Corrigal's house about midnight, when he and 
 his men were in bed. The villains immedi- 
 ately secured all the loaded guns and pistols 
 they could find. One of them seized Mr. 
 Corrigal, and, presenting a pistol to his 
 breast, threatened to shoot him if he made 
 any resistance. The others in the mean time 
 rifled the store-house, and took away furs to 
 the amount of four hundred and eighty beaver. 
 Mr. Corrigal went immediately to Mr. Hal- 
 dane (whom he found up and dressed), and 
 complaining of the conduct of his servants, 
 demanded that the stolen property should be 
 restored. Haldane answered that ** he had 
 come to that country for furs, and that furs 
 he was determined to have." His men were 
 allowed to carry these furs as their own pro- 
 perty, to the Grand Portage, where they were 
 sold to the North-West Company, and formed 
 a part of their returns for that year. A 
 similar robbery took place at Red Lake in 
 the same spring, at another trading house, 
 also under the charge of Mr. Corrigal, and 
 which was forcibly entered by eight of the 
 Canadians, armed with pistols and knives, 
 
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 who threatened to murder the servants of the 
 Hudson's Bay, Company who were there, and 
 carried off furs to the amount of fifty beaver. 
 Not long after this, they again forcibly broke 
 open the same warehouse, and robbed it of a 
 considerable quantity of cloth, brandy, to- 
 bacco, ammunition, &c. &c. 
 
 In autumn 1806, John Crear, a, trader in 
 the service of the Hudson's Bay Company, 
 (also on the establishment of Albany Factory,) 
 occupied a post with five men at a place 
 called Big Fall, near Lake Winipic. One 
 evening a party of Canadians in two canoes, 
 commanded by Mr. Alexander Mac Donell, 
 then a clerk of the North-West Company, 
 arrived and encamped at a short distance. 
 In the following morning four of Crear*s men. 
 set out for their fishing grounds, about a mile 
 off; i'.iimediately after which Mr. Mac Donell 
 came to the house with his men, and charging 
 Crear with having traded furs from an Indian, 
 who was indebted to the North-West Com- 
 pany, insisted on these furs being given up 
 to him. On Crear's refusal Mr. Mac Donell's 
 men broke open the warehouse door. William 
 Plowman, the only servant that remained with 
 Crear, attempted to prevent them from enter- 
 ing ; but one of the Canadians knocked him 
 down, while another presented a gun at Crear 
 
it 
 
 hitmellf. Mac Dondl hatv'^ttg pfeVetit^d With 
 ffdrtl fh-ing, h6 (the Cahadian) struck Cr6^r 
 ifr the ey6 ^^ith th6 butt end of his gun,\^hich 
 cohered his face with blood, dnd fellled him 
 to the j^round. Mr. MtfC Donell himself 
 stabbed Plow^man irt t!h^ arrtt ^Vith a dagger, 
 and gave him a da'rtgerou's' wound. The 
 CanBfdilafn'S then rifled the' Warehouse : the 
 fCirs" being taken in summer were of little 
 value; but they carried 6'^ U^o bags of flour, 
 a quantity of salt pork and' beef, arid* soine 
 dried' venison, aild afso took away a new- 
 canoe belonging to the Hudson"*s Bay Com- 
 paTiy. In the foll'owing February Mac DonelV 
 sent one of hisi junior clbrk's With a party of 
 itten, who agaiti attacked' Creafs house, over- 
 powered hirti, beat hi'iti and hiis men in the 
 itiost brutal* nianner, and carried away a great 
 number of valuable furs. They also obliged' 
 Grfearto sign a puper, acknowl'edging tliat he 
 hat! given up the fur^ vblilnt'arily, which tliey 
 ejCtorted with' threats Of irtstarit rfeath if He 
 should refuse. Mr. Alexander M'ac Dbriell 
 has lat'ely bee^ti promoted to tlie station of^ a 
 partner in the Nortli^West Company. 
 
 fn the year 1808, Mr. John Spence of the 
 H^idkon's B^ay Company, comnianded a post 
 fitted out frorrt Ghurchili Factory, at Rein 
 Ibh&r Lake, in t!ie nfeiglibourliood of which 
 
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 73. 
 
 there was a station of the North-West Com- 
 pany, commanded by Mr. John Duncan 
 Campbell, one of the partners. In the course 
 of the spring, William Linklater, in the service 
 of the Hudson's Bay Company, was sent out 
 to meet some Indians, from whom he traded 
 a parcel of valuable furs. He was bringing 
 them home on a hanxl sledge, and was at no 
 great distance from the house, when Campbell 
 came out with a number of his men, stopped 
 him, demanded the furs, and on being refused, 
 drew a dagger, with which he cut the traces 
 of the sledge, while at the same time one of 
 his men took hold of Linklater's snow-shoes, 
 tripped him up, and made him fall on the 
 ice. The sledge of furs was then nauled 
 away to the North-West Company's house. — 
 Campbell offered to Mr. Spence to send other 
 furs, in exchange for those which he had thus 
 robbed him of: but they were of very inferior 
 value, and the latter refused the compromise. 
 The fuis were carried away, and no coiiipen- 
 sation ever made. 
 
 On another occasion at Isle a la Crosse 
 Lake, (in the year 1805,) the same Campbell 
 attacked two of the servants of the HudsonV 
 Bay Company, and took a parceVof fursfrcm 
 them in the same way : some of tlie men from 
 the Hudson's Bay House came out to assist 
 
IS 
 
 their fellow-servants, but were attacked bv 
 superior numbers of the Canadians, and beat 
 off with violence and bloodshed. 
 
 In the year 1809, Mr. Fidlerwas sent with 
 a party of eighteen men, from Churchill 
 Factory, to establish a trading post at Isle ^ 
 la Crosse, near the bort'jfs of the Athabasca 
 country, but within the territories of the 
 Hudson's Bay Comp.iny. He remained there 
 for two years, sending a detachment of his 
 people to Green Lake and Bc'aver River. 
 Dunng the firs^t winter he had some success, 
 but afterwards im was effectually obstructed. 
 On many forrr^er occasions, the officers of the 
 Hudson's Bay Company had attempted to 
 establish a trade in this place, which is in the 
 centre of a country abounding m beaver; 
 but they had always been obliged to renounce 
 the attempt. The methods used with Mr. 
 Fidler may explain the causes of this failure. 
 
 Mr. John M'Donald had been Mr. Fidler's 
 compe'-tor during the earlier part of the 
 winter, but (not being inclined to set all prin- 
 ciples of law and justice at defiance,) was 
 removed, and relieved, rirst by Mr. Robert 
 Henry, and then by Mr. John Duncan 
 Campbell. The North-West Company having 
 been established for many years at Isle a !a 
 Crosse without any competition, had obtained 
 
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 what they call the attathm^nt of the Ittdians, 
 that is to say^ they had reduced them to sach 
 abject submisBioDy that the very sight of u 
 Canadian' was siitflicient to* itvsfoiire them mth 
 terror. Imi order tliat tliis salutany awe might 
 suffer no diminution, the post at Isle k lat 
 Cpos«e was reinforced with an extra number 
 of Canadians, so that the natives might be 
 eflfeetually prevented from holding any intev- 
 course with the traders of the Hudson's Ba»y 
 Conspanyy and that the appearance of so very 
 superior a force, ready to overwhelm aind- 
 destroy him^ might deter Mr. Fidler from* any 
 attempt to protect his customers; A watch- 
 house was built close to his* door, so that no 
 Indians could enter uiiobstrved;; a party of 
 professed battailleurs were stationed' herie, 
 a«d employed, not only to watc!h the natives^, 
 but to give every possifile annoyatice, nigh<! 
 and day, bo the servants of the Budfe*on''s'Btfy 
 Company. Their fire-wood was stolen' — they 
 were perpetually obstruoted' irt' huHDing for 
 provisions — the produce of their gai^den wae* 
 destroyed — their fishing lines taken a^vay itt 
 the night time, and their nets^ on which t^hey 
 chiefly relied for subsisttence, cut to piecesi 
 The ruffians who' were posted to watclv Mr. 
 Fidler, proceeded' from one act of v^iolence to^ 
 anotiier, aiid m proportion as* they found 
 
d 
 
 75 
 
 thciiiselves feebly reaisted, they grew boldec, 
 and at length issued a formal mandate, that 
 not one of the servants of the Hudson's Bay 
 Company should stir out of their house ; and 
 followed up this with such examples' of seve- 
 rity, that Mr. Fidier's men refused to nemaiu 
 at the post. They were comf>eiled to lea-ve 
 it, and the Canadians immediately burnt his 
 house to the ground. . 
 
 From the few. specimens above submitted, 
 the reader may form a tolerable judgment of 
 the methods by which the North- West Com- 
 pany may be expected to counteract any 
 person who shall interfere with their interest; 
 and it can no longer be a mystery, how, with- 
 out any legal rights, except those which are 
 open alike to all British subjects, they have 
 contrived to maintain the exclusive posses- 
 sion of so lucrative a. branch of trade. 
 
 They have endeavoured to palliate their 
 aggressions against the servants of the Hud- 
 son's Bay Company by recriminating upon 
 their competitors. — ^This was tofbe expected. 
 Where facts oould not be denied, no other 
 resource seemed so convenient asr recrimina- 
 tion. Indeed they have attempted, by this 
 mode, to justify acts of still greater atrocity 
 than most of those above adverted to ; but 
 as these are now in a regularr train of judicial 
 
 
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 ittc|uiryi (in consequence of which the facts 
 will be brought before the public at a more 
 proper time, and in a more regular form,) it 
 would not be advisable at present to detail 
 them. If it be true, however, as the North- 
 West Company, in their spirit of recrimina- 
 tion, allege, that the Hudson's Bay Company 
 are as bad as themselves, there is surely the 
 more reason for a serious inquiry on the 
 part of Government. The charge, however, 
 appears to be without the slightest shadow of 
 probability. The servants of the Hudson's 
 Bay Company have always been too inferior 
 in point of numbers to their antagonists in 
 the interior, to have made it at all prudent for 
 them to commit acts nf aggression. Besides, 
 their object has always been indubitably 
 lawful, while the aim of their antagonists has 
 bcrn to t?xcludo them ^Vom their ligul rights. 
 An ndditional circumstanct' may also be 
 notnl, which makes it extremely improbable 
 that the Hudson's Bay Company should 
 havr at any time been so prone to aggression 
 as their opponents. Till within these few years 
 the officers of that Company have always 
 been paid by fixed salaries, and had no 
 direct interest in the extension of the trade, 
 or increase of its returns. This circumstance 
 alone is perhaps sufficient to account for 
 
77 
 
 i 
 
 much of that comparative remissness (with 
 respect to the prosecution of the Fur Trade) 
 which the Company has been accused of. 
 Their officers in the interior had never that 
 spur to activity which stimulated the wintering 
 partners of the North- West Company, all of 
 whom had a direct personal interest in the 
 advancement of the Canadian Fur Trade, 
 and had under them numerous clerks and 
 servants eagerly watching opportunities to 
 obtain the approbation of their superiors, 
 and rather courting, than avoiding, oc». asions 
 of personal danger. The allegations, there- 
 fore, of the North-West Compafly are rather 
 curious when they charge the servants of 
 the Hudson's Bay Company, at one and 
 the same moment, with apathy, and with 
 aggression ! If it be admitted that the latter 
 Company did not hold out a sufficient slinw^'ii* 
 of self-interest to prompt their servants in 
 the interior to exertion in the cunse of thi^ii' 
 employers, it is surely not very probubhs that, 
 without any such inducement, the snme ser- 
 vants vvould be disposed, by aggression, to 
 incur the risk, if not the certainty, of personal 
 danger from their more numerous and more 
 powerful opponents*. 
 
 * Within these few years a change has taken place in 
 the management of the Hudson's Bay Company's affairs, 
 
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 78 
 
 When we consider also the constittftronof 
 the Hudson's Bay Company at home, (t 
 appears stil'l more unlikely thai any aggression 
 should originate from those employed in their 
 service. The management of the Com pany^s 
 affairs (as in other chartered bodies of a similar 
 description) is entrusted to a Board of Direc- 
 tors in I<oiwlon, who attend to the concerns 
 of the Company more from a principle of 
 duty to their constituents, than from ttits lex- 
 pectation of any great personal benefit likely 
 to arise from their exertions. Each of them 
 individually has avocations of higlier interest, 
 than what arises from his connection with the 
 Hudson's Bay Company. He can only there* 
 fore occasionally bestow his attention on their 
 affairs. The partners of the North-West Com- 
 pany, on the contrary, have generally t!?eir 
 whole property embarked in that conicern. — 
 
 on the principle of allowing to their chief officers a consi- 
 derable participation in the profits of their tr^e It was 
 found absolutely necessary to adopt souiestep of this sort, 
 as nothing short of such a measure could be sufficient to 
 stem the torrent of aggression, with which they had been 
 assailed by the North-West Company; and their absolute 
 rum must have ensued, if some effectual means had not 
 been taken, not only to rectify some of the abuses which 
 had cicpt ia under tUe former sy»tem, but also to rouse 
 their officers uo a more etfectual resittaace 2*' the lawless 
 violence practised against them. 
 
 .V.,, 
 
70 
 
 ■m 
 
 At l^pt this is the case with the wintering 
 partnerB, and with all those who, in Canada, 
 take an active management of their affairs. It 
 is natural, therefore, that their undivided at- 
 tentioj) should be directed to the interest of 
 the body with which they are connected, and 
 that they should pursue such interest with a 
 degree of keenness and avidity, which cannot 
 be supposed to actuate the Directors of the 
 Hudson's Bay Company, who, from the cir- 
 cumstances of their situation, must have 
 too much regard for their own character, to 
 sanction their servants in acts of violence. 
 Besides, in the service of the latter Company, 
 every thing of importance is transacted by 
 written instructions from the Directors, and 
 it is not likely that they would commit 
 themselves by any instructions, even of a 
 doubtful nature. On the other hand, their 
 officers dare not act in any essential point 
 without written instructions, which, if they 
 disobey, would be held by the Directors a 
 sufficient ground of dismissal from their ser- 
 vice. Thus, by the constitution of the Hud- 
 son's Bay Company, there exist very import- 
 ant checks, which cannot fail to restrain their 
 officers from acts of aggression ; while at tlie 
 same time they have not the same temptation 
 as the partners and clerks of the North- West 
 
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 Company to commit them. The truth of 
 these remarks may be illustrated by a few- 
 facts which cannot be contradicted. 
 
 At a very early period after the establish- 
 ment of the Hudson's Bay Company, they 
 fixed a standard by which their officers were 
 instructed to trade with the Indians; pointing 
 out the quantity of every kind of trading 
 goods, that were to be given in exchange for 
 a beaver skin, or any other fur. Notwith- 
 standing the variations which have taken 
 place in the circumstances of the country, 
 and in the comparative value of different 
 species of furs and of European goods, the 
 Company adhered to this standard with 
 scarcely any variation, till within a few years 
 of the present time. Although this cannot be 
 quoted as a proof of judicious attention to 
 their own interests, it certainly evinces the 
 moderation of their views ; for the standard 
 thus laid down by the Hudson's Bay Com- 
 pany was more favourable to the Indians, 
 than any which has been adopted by other 
 traders. Even in those parts of the Indian 
 country, where thereis the freest com petition*, 
 the traders do not supply the Indians on the 
 same moderate terms, as the Company pre- 
 
 * la the South- West, and towards the Mississipi. 
 
81 
 
 8cribed*to their officers, at a period when they 
 had an uncontested monopoly, and when the 
 Indians of all the countries round Hudson's 
 Bay had no other market. With such scru- 
 pulous attention was this rule adhered to, 
 that in one of the publications brought out 
 against the Company, at the period of Mr. 
 Dobbs's attack upon them, it is enumerated 
 among the instances of misconduct, that some 
 of their factors had deviated from this stan- 
 dard, and traded on terms less favourable to 
 the Indians ; and this is spoken of as a practice 
 " big with iniquity,'* though it does not 
 appear that any one ever went so far as to 
 charge the Company's goods at one tenth 
 part of the price at which similar articles 
 are now bartered with the Indians by the 
 North-West Company in Athabasca. 
 
 In like manner the Hudson's Bay Comp'iny 
 long ago laid down a tariff of prices at which 
 their servants were to be supplied out of their 
 stores, with any articles which they required 
 for their own use. To this rule they adhered 
 without deviation, till, from the change of 
 times, and depreciation in the vakieof money, 
 the prices in the tariff came to be in many 
 instances lower than the manufacturer's prime 
 cost. This error was rectified by varying the 
 prices so as to bear a proportion to the origi- 
 
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 nal cost of the goods, but the rates at which 
 they are charged to the Hudson's Bay Com- 
 pany's servants are still so moderate, that they 
 do not exceed the ordinary retail prices in 
 England, and do not amount to one*half of 
 those charged in the country stores of almost 
 any part of Canada. Their officers, therefore, 
 can have no temptation to encourage dissipa- 
 tion and expense among the men. On the 
 contrary, much attention is requisite to prevent 
 the men from abusing the indulf *nce which 
 is allowed to them. Some of them have been 
 known to receive goods under pretence of 
 requiring them for their own use, and to make 
 a profit by selling them again to the servants 
 of the North- West Company, if not to the 
 North- West Company themselves. The ne- 
 cessity of guarding against this species of 
 fraud is indeed a small evil, in the eves of 
 any man of a liberal mind, in comparison 
 with those which would arise from the preva- 
 lence of irregular habits among their servants. 
 So far from " speculating upon their vices," 
 the Hudson's Bay Company have uniformly 
 expressed the strongest desire to preserve 
 moral and religious habits among their people; 
 nor have their efforts for this purpose been 
 without effect. Every impartial person ac- 
 quainted with the Indian trade is ready to 
 
 
k;'-; 
 
 ly to 
 
 83 
 
 acknowledge that, with respect to sobriety, 
 orderly behaviour, and steady adherence to 
 their moral duties, the servants of the Hud- 
 son's Bay Company are much superior to any 
 other class employed in the same business. 
 
 The peasantry of Lower Canada, from 
 (Imong whom the servants of the North- West 
 Company are drawn, are for the most part 
 well disposed, so long as they remain in their 
 native country. — Though not remarkable for 
 persevering industry, they are far from being 
 deficient in attention to their moral and reli- 
 gious duties. A few years, however, of service 
 under tlip North-West Company in the interior, 
 is in general sufficient to undermine the 
 innocence of their habits, and it is seldom 
 that they return home » ithout being much 
 corrupted. No such etiu, t can be observed 
 among those wh J return to their native country 
 (chiefly Orkney and the North of Scotland) 
 after a period of ser\ ice under the Hud- 
 son's Bay Company. Without undervaluing 
 the effects which arise from their native 
 character and edrly education, it can hardly 
 be denied, tha*^ -ome credit is due to the 
 Company and thi a' officers, for preserving 
 thatcharacter ur-'} paired. If Mey also had 
 made their arrangements in the manner de- 
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 profit from the vices of their servants, and 
 had given a constant preference to drunkards 
 and spendthrifts, rather than to sober and 
 steady men, there can be little doubt, that 
 they would soon have brought about a corres- 
 ponding change in the habits of their people. 
 Another proof of the moderation of the 
 Hudson's Bay Company, and of the honour- 
 able views by which they are governed, may 
 be derived from their ready and cordial con- 
 currence in the plan, already adverted to, for 
 imposing a legislative restriction on the sale 
 of spirituous liquors to the Indians. 
 
 Unon the whole, it must be sufficiently 
 evident, that the extensive countries occu- 
 pied by the North-West Company are in 
 a state which calls aloud for the attention of 
 the British Legislature ; and that the honour 
 of the nation cannot fail to be tarnished, if 
 the outrages now practised be allowed to go 
 on without effectual check or interference. 
 Before entering, however, into the considera- 
 tion of what measures should be adopted to 
 remedy these evils, it may be necessary to 
 inquire what has already been done by the 
 Legislature in the view of amelioraling the 
 condition of these remote countries. 
 
 The only Act of the British Legislature 
 
85 
 
 which appears to relate to them, is that of 
 4€ Geo. III. cap. 138, comiriOnly, called the 
 " Canada Jurisdiction Act," and, in that Pro- 
 vince, known by the name of the " Act of 1803." 
 This was passed after the formation of the 
 New North- West Company, in consequence 
 of some violent proceedings that had taken; 
 place between their servants and those of the 
 Old Company, and which had ended in blood- 
 shed. The professed object of this Act is to re- 
 medy a defect of the law arising from the cir-i 
 cumstance that some parts of British America^ 
 were not within the limits of any British 
 colony, so that offences committed there could 
 not be tried by any jurisdiction whatever. In 
 order to remedy this evil, tho courts of law in 
 Canada are allowed to take cognizance of any 
 offences which may be committed within 
 certain districts, termed in the Act the "Indian 
 Territories." This vague term has been used 
 without any definition to point out the par- 
 ticular territories to which the Act is mearxt 
 to apply. From the preamble it would 
 appear, that the persons who drew it up 
 were ignorant of the existence of any British 
 colony in North America, except Upper and 
 Lower Canada; and an argument has been 
 maintained, which, under the denomination 
 of Indian Territories, would include not only 
 
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 86 
 
 those of the' Hudson's Bay Company, but 
 New Brunswi<!rfc, Newfoundland, and Nova 
 Scotia. There are,*"' however, extensive tracts 
 of c<M»ntry to which the provisions of the Act 
 unquestionably do apply ; viz, those which 
 lie to the North and West of the Hudson's 
 Bay territories, and which are known in 
 Canada by the general name of Athabasca. 
 It was here that the violences which gave 
 occasion to the Act were committed, and 
 these are the only districts in. which that total 
 defect of jurisdiction, described in the pre- 
 amble of the Act, was to be found. The 
 necessity of an enactment for bringing these 
 territories under the cognizance of some esta- 
 blished British Judicature cannot be denied ; 
 but the propriety of giving it to the courts 
 of Canada is not so evident. 
 
 It seems to have been supposed that these 
 districts had a natural connection with Canada, 
 and were inaccessible to British subjects by 
 any other route than that of Montreal. But 
 this is very far from being the case. The 
 route by way of Hudson's Bay is much shorter 
 and easier than that by way of Canada, and 
 there is no reason to suppose that the trade 
 of these countries must always centre in 
 Montreal. The Hudson's Bay Company have 
 certainlyasgooda title to trade into Athabasca 
 
87' 
 
 as the merchants of Canada, and even if they 
 should not choose to avail themselves of this 
 right, a trade might be carried on by others 
 from England through that channel. Though 
 at present the road is within the exclusive 
 territory of the Hudson's Bay Company, it 
 might be thrown open to the public by Act 
 of Parliament, or the right might be commu- 
 nicated by the Company to other British 
 merchants by private agreement. In any 
 one of these cases the fur traders from 
 Canada might come into contact in Athabasca 
 with others trading directly from England. 
 If differences should arise between them, and 
 lead to actsof violence or oppression, the cases, 
 as the law now stands, must be tried in Mont- 
 real, a distance of three or four thousand 
 miles ; and thither the parties must repair 
 by an inland navigation far more tedious and 
 di^cult than a voyage to England. By this 
 route, however, the canoes of the Canadian 
 traders necessarily pass up and down every 
 season. To them there can be no difficulty 
 in conveying their witnesses to Montreal, and 
 (in the case of a criminal prosecution) should 
 it be a Canadian who ^s urought down to 
 that place for trial, he is there in the midst 
 of his friends and connections, with his 
 employers at hand, anxious to defend his 
 
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 cause, and to see that no advantage is lost in 
 the prosecution of it. — But how is it with the 
 English trader, who is dragged down by this 
 route to take his trial in a place where he is an 
 utter stranger; — in the midst of his enemies; — 
 where his employer may probably not have 
 a correspondent to pay the smallest pttention 
 to his interest ; — and where he cannot bring 
 down a single witness for his defence, except 
 at an enormous expense and inconvenience ? 
 In fact the disparity is so extreme that it may 
 almost be considered as amounting to a total 
 denial of justice towards any person not con- 
 nected with Canada. 
 
 It has been before observed, that the Act 
 of 1803 was passed in consequence of some 
 violent proceedings which had occurred be- 
 tween the Old and New North-West Com- 
 panies. The immediate case which gave 
 rise to it, is not unworthy of attention. 
 
 In the winter 1801-2, Mr. John M'Donald 
 managed the affairs of the Old North-West 
 Company in the Athabasca country. Mr. 
 Rocheblanc those of the New Company, in 
 the same district. Mr. M* Donald had under 
 his command a clerk of the name of King, 
 an experienced trader, of a bold and active 
 character, and of a Flerculean figure. Mr. 
 Rochblanc's assistant was Mr. Lamotte, a 
 
in 
 :he 
 his 
 an 
 
 ive 
 ion 
 
 young roan of a respectable Canadian family, 
 of a spirited and active disposition, but much 
 younger, and of less experience among the 
 Indians, and not to be compared to King 
 in point of personal strength. In the course 
 of the winter, two Indians arrived as deputies 
 from a band, with which both parties had had 
 transactions, to inform the traders that they 
 had furs ready at an encampment, at the 
 distance of four or five days* march. King 
 was sent with four men, to collect those due 
 to the Old North- West Company ; Lamotte, 
 with two men, for those due to the New 
 Company. Both of them were charged to 
 use the utmost diligence, and to defend 
 the rights of their employers with courage. 
 They set out accordingly on their mis- 
 sion, and great activity and address were 
 used by each to get the start of the other, 
 but without success on either side. When 
 they reached the Indian ericampment both 
 parties proceeded to collect the furs due 
 to them ; but King, by means of the superior 
 number of his assistants, got possession of all 
 the furs, except one bundle, which was deli- 
 vered to Lamotte by the same Indian who 
 had come as delegate to the New Company. 
 King then came to Lamotte's tent, accom- 
 panied by all his men armed, and perempto- 
 
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 rily demanded that bundle also, tkreateuing 
 violence, and declaring bis iDtention to take 
 the furs by forge, if they were not given up to 
 him. Lamotte was determined to defend the 
 property of bis employers to the last extre- 
 mity, and yarned King, that if he ventured 
 to touch the furs, he should do it at his peril. 
 King, nevertheless, was proceeding to put his 
 threats in execution and to sei2;e the bundle, 
 when Lamotte puUed ou,t his pistol and shot 
 the robber dead on the spot. King's men 
 would have revenged his death, but the 
 Indians interfered, and ej( pressed their opinion 
 that he had merited hj^ fate. . 1^5 , , .,, »> 
 ' Though it would b^ difficult to quote an 
 instance of homicide more decidedly justi^- 
 able, all Canada rung with the clamours of 
 the Old Noith-West Coipp^ny against this 
 murder, as they chose to term it. It was 
 upon this occasion that the Act of 1803 was 
 obtained, under the idea that the case could 
 .not be brought to trial, though it might 
 undoubtedly have been tried at Westminster 
 under the Act of Henry VIII. Every effort 
 was subsequently used by the North- West 
 Company to take Lamotte, but it was not 
 till the spring of 1805 that he fell into their 
 hands. He was brought to a trading- post, 
 commanded by Mr. Archibald Norman 
 
 (• 
 
91 
 
 M*Leod, where he was kept for a considerable 
 time in the most rigorous confinement, sub- 
 jected to every insult, and experiencing every 
 species of severity and privation. But, before 
 he was brought dowa to Montreal for trial, 
 the coalition between the two companies had 
 taken place : he was liberated, and no legal 
 proceedings instituted against him. 
 
 Only one case has been brought to trial 
 under the Act of 1803 ; and the circumstances 
 relating to it deserve particular notice. In- 
 deed the whole transaction which gave rise 
 to that trial, and the singular proceedings 
 connected with it, are of a description scarcel^y 
 to be equalled in the judicial annals of any 
 age or country. 
 
 In the autumn of 1809, Mr. William Gor- 
 rigal acted as a trader in the service of the 
 Hudson's Bay Company, at a post which he 
 occupied near Eagle Lake to the North of 
 Lake Superior. On the 15th of September, 
 a party of the North-West Company esta- 
 blished an encampment about forty yards 
 from his house, under the command of one 
 ^neas Mac Donnel, a clerk of the latter 
 Company. The same evening an Indian 
 arrived in his canoe to trade with Corrigal, 
 and to pay a debt which he owed him. He 
 was not able, however, to defray the whole 
 
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 amount, and Corrigal told liim he would take 
 the canoe in part payment. This the Indian 
 consented to, but requested that it might be 
 lent to him for a few days, when he would 
 return with it. This was agreed to, and the 
 canoe was brought up to Corrigal's house, 
 where the Indian remained all night. Next 
 morning he received some more articles in 
 advance, such as clothing for his family, 
 ammunition for his winter hunt, &c. ; and 
 when he was going away, three of Corrigal's 
 men were sent down to the wharf, with the 
 canoe and the. goods. This being observed 
 from the North-West Company's encamp- 
 ment, Mac Donnel immediately went down 
 to the lake, armed with a sword, and accom- 
 panied by a Canadian, named Adhemar, 
 armed with a brace of pistols. — Upon pretence 
 that the Indian was indebted to the North- 
 West Company, they proceeded to seize and 
 drag away the canoe with the goods, to their 
 own wharf, when Mr. Corrigal observing 
 them, ordered two of his men, James Tate 
 and John Corrigal, to go into the water, and 
 secure the canoe and the property. They 
 proceeded to obey his orders, when Mac 
 Donnel drew his sword and struck two blows 
 at Tate's head. The latter was unarmed, and, 
 in order to guard his head, raised his arm, 
 
93 
 
 which was in consequence severely cut across 
 the wrist. He then received another deep 
 wound in his neck, immediately below his 
 ear, which felled him to the ground. Adhemar 
 at this time had seized John Corrigal, (who 
 was also unarmed) and presenting a cocked 
 pistol to him, swore that if he went near the 
 canoe, he would blow his brains out. Several 
 of the Hudson's Bay Company's servants who 
 were near the spot; observing what was going 
 on, and perceiving that the rest of Mac 
 Donnel's men were collecting with arms, ran 
 up to their own house, which was only about 
 forty or fifty yards from the Lake, to get 
 weapons for the defence of themselves and 
 their fellow-servants. Mac Donnel next at- 
 tacked John Corrigal, who, to escape from 
 him, ran into the Lake ; but finding the 
 water too deep, he was soon obliged to make 
 a turo towards the shore, when his pursuer 
 made a blow at him with his sword, cut his 
 •arm above the elbow, and laid the bone bare. 
 He followed this up with a tremendous blow 
 at his head, which Robert Leask, one of 
 Corrigal's men, fortunately warded off with 
 the paddle of the canoe, which was cut in two 
 by the blow, as stated upon oath by Leask in 
 his affidavit. Mac Donnel then .attacked 
 another servant of the name of Essen, making 
 
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04 
 
 a blot^ at him with his sword, which, hbw- 
 :;ever, only struck his hat off: but in making 
 liis escape, Essen fell in the wat6r,and before 
 he cdu]d recover himself, another Canadian 
 of the name of Joseph Parisien^ aimed a blow 
 at his head with a heavy axe, which missed his 
 head, but dislocated his shoulder, so that he 
 could make no use of his arm for two months 
 afterwards. Mac Donnel and Adhemar, the 
 one with his drawn sword, the other with his 
 pistol, continued to pursue several other of 
 Corrigal's servants towards their house, when 
 one of them, named John Mowat, whom 
 Mac Dotinel had previously struck with his 
 sword, and was preparing to strike again, shot 
 Mac Donnel on the spot."- ''-^ • . \ 
 
 Mr. Corrigal immediately got his party up 
 to the house, had every care taken of those who 
 were wounded, and consulted With his men 
 about the best mode of securing themselves 
 frodfi further attack. In a few hours Adhemar 
 the Canadian, sent off a light canoe to Lake 
 Sal, wh^re Mr. Haldane of the North-West 
 Company (under whom Mac Donnel had 
 been! placed) was stationed. Another canoe 
 was also dispatched to Lac La Pluie, to a 
 Ml. M^Lellan, under whom Adhemar himself 
 had aicted. On the 24th Haldane Arrived ib 
 a canoe wi h ten m^n, and on the foHoHving 
 
95 
 
 day M^Lellan also made his appearance in a 
 canoe witli about tlie same number, all armed. 
 They shortly afterwards came to the gate of 
 the stbckades with which Corrigal and his 
 party had barricaded themselves, and de- 
 manded the person who had shot Mac Donnel. 
 Corrigal told them that he had not seen Mac 
 Donnel shot, and could not say who the 
 person was who killed him. They answered 
 him by declaring that if the person was not 
 immediately delivered up, they would either 
 shoot every one of them, or get the Indians 
 to kill them, were it even to cost them a keg 
 of brandy for each of their heads. In order 
 to prevent further bloodshed^ Corrigal then 
 told them, that three of them might enter 
 within the stockades, and fix upon the person 
 if they could, and that he would ca.' out all 
 his men for that purpose. This was accord- 
 ingly done, and they fixed upon Edward 
 Mowat. Corrigal told them it could not be 
 him, as he was in the house at the time Mac 
 Donnel was shot. John Mowat then stepped 
 forward, saying, he was the man, and that hb 
 would do so again in his own defence^ He 
 then voluntarily agreed to surrender himself, 
 and it was settled that two of Corrigal's men 
 should be taken down with him to Montreal 
 as witnesses in his behalf. Jamefs Tate and 
 
 
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 Robert Leask volunteered for that purpose, 
 and it wa3 stipulated that if Mowat was 
 taken down straight to Montreal, the two 
 witnesses should be carried alpng with him> 
 but if he was detained till the spring, one of 
 them should be sent back to Eagle Lake, 
 and that Mr. Corrigal himself should go to 
 Montreal as a witness in his room. ■, ;j,i]'>U. 
 These precautionary measures having been 
 thus tak*en, Mowat and his two witnesses 
 proceeded to the North- West Company's en^ 
 camproent, where the former was put in 
 irons; Next day, Adhemar, with six men, 
 together with the prisoner, and his witnesses, 
 set off for Lac La Pluie, where they arrived 
 on the 2nd of October. From that day till 
 the 19th, Mowat was kept generally in irons 
 from six in the morning till eight in the 
 evening. On the 19th they were taken off, 
 but were replaced on the 26th, and although 
 he had neither the means nor the inclination 
 to.make his escape, they were kept on during 
 the night. This treatment continued till the 
 14th of Deceuiber. During the whole winter 
 he was kept in close confinement, and his 
 witnesses themselves were subjected to much 
 insult and indignity, and were obliged to 
 submit to every species^ of drudgery and 
 labour, in order to obtain a bare subsistence. 
 
97 
 
 On the 26th of February, 1810, Leask was 
 sent back to E«g]e Lake from Lac La Pluie, 
 as had been agreed upon. On the 25th of 
 May, Mr. Corrigal arrived at the latter place ' 
 from Eagle Lake; on the 29tli Mowat and ■ 
 Tate were sent off witli Adlicniar for the 
 North-West Company's rendezvous at Fort 
 William, on Lake Superior; and two days 
 afterwards Corrigal was dispatched for the 
 same place. They all arrived there on the 
 9th of June, when Mowat was immediately 
 imprisoned in a close and miserable dungeon, 
 about six or eight feet square, without any 
 window or light of any description whatever. 
 
 On the 21st of June Mr. Angus Shaw, a 
 partner of the North-West Company, and a 
 magistrate for the Indian territory (under the 
 Act of 1803) arFived at Fort William from 
 Montreal. Next dav Mowat was ordered to 
 be brought before him, guarded by three men 
 with muskets and fixed bayonets. The prisoner 
 became a little restive at this summons, and 
 refused to go, saying, that he did not want 
 to be taken before any magistrate till b. 
 arrived at Montreal. He was, however, 
 dragged out of his dungeon, and brought 
 before the magistrate, who, being unable to 
 extract any thing from his mute and stubborn 
 prisoner, ordered him to be taken back to his 
 prison and put in irons. 
 
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 From the 22nd of June, to the lOth of 
 July, canoes went off almost daily to Mont^ 
 real.. The witnesses, repeatedly requested 
 that they should be sent down there, but in 
 vain. During that period they were not 
 allowed to hold any communication with the 
 prisoner, being only permitted to look into 
 his cell, at the time his allowance of victuals 
 was handed to him. On the 10th, Tate got 
 an opportunity of speaking to him. Upon 
 inquiring how he was treated, Mowat said he 
 \Yas well off for food, but that he was kept in 
 hand-cuffs from seven o'clock every evening 
 till nine in the morning. After this the 
 prisoner fell sick, and when Corrigal and 
 Tate were informed of it, they went to see 
 him, but were refused admittance. He grew 
 worse on the l6th, and sent for Tate, who 
 found him lu a most lamentable state, his 
 arms cut with his fetters^ and his body covered 
 with boils« He had asked for medicine, but 
 got none, though there was a doctor in 
 the place* From this time Tate continued 
 to visit the prisoner as often ajs he could, 
 dressed his sores, washed his linen, 8^c, &c. 
 and on one occasion procured for him some 
 medicine. On the 26th M'LeUan, and the 
 pierson who had the custody of Mowat, told 
 T9(te that the prisoner wished to see him. 
 They all went together, when Mowsit advistid 
 
9d 
 
 Tate to try and make bi» escape with Cc^rrigal, 
 for, as to himself, lie believed they meanrt to 
 keep him there to murcrer him. M*Lellnn 
 assured him that thut was not the case ; that 
 there was a niagislrate on the spot, and that' 
 justice would be done him. The prisoner 
 remonstrated on their keeping him there in 
 irons, and not sending him down at once to 
 a place where he could be tried. On the 5th 
 of August, they brought Mowat's knife and 
 razors to Tate> saying, they could not trtwt 
 them with him any longer, as they thought 
 he was growing deranged. Tate, however, 
 continued occasionally to visit and assist him 
 till the 17th of August, when he was brought 
 out of his dungeon to be sent off to Montreal. 
 In taking him out he fell down on the ground 
 from weakness ; and, when they were assisting 
 him into the canoe, he again fell head-long in 
 the bottom of it among the luggage, and cut 
 Jiis face with his hand-cuffs. — This was the 
 twentieth canoe belongingto the North- Weftt 
 Comfmny which had left Fort William for 
 Montreal during their stay at that place. 
 
 On the 2()th of August, Corfigal and Tate 
 were also sent off from Fort William in dif- 
 ferent conveyances, and on the ISth of Sep- 
 tember, Tate arrived at MontWal. 
 
 The day after his arrival, a servant of the 
 
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 North-AVest Company, whom he had known 
 during the lime he was at Lake Superior, 
 came in search of him, and told him that Mr. 
 M*Gil]ivray of that Company wished much 
 to see hiin. He accordingly wont with him to 
 one of the Compan^y's warehouses—but find- 
 ing that gentleman was not there, he requested 
 to be conducted to him. He was told to 
 wait, as Mr. M'Gillivray was immediately 
 expected. In a few minutes he heard some 
 of the people who were at work in the ware- 
 house, say, " here he comes, here he comes." 
 Tate turned round on the landing place of the 
 staircase where he stood, in order to make 
 way, as he thought, for Mr. M'Gillivray, but, 
 to his astonishment, found it was a constable, 
 "who laid hold of him, and told him he was 
 his prisoner! He was immediately taken 
 before a magistrate, and committed to the 
 common goal, " for aiding and abetting one 
 John Mowat in the murder of jEneas Mac 
 Donnel*," &c. &c. &:c. 
 
 * The charge of aiding and abetting (in the murder) as 
 it was irregularly specified in the commitment, \yas laid 
 upon the oath of Joseph Parisien ! — The reader ma}' 
 recollect that this miscreant had been amongst the most 
 ferocious of the party who made the attack at Eagle Lake, 
 ^nd l>y a blow with his felling axe, had almost killed 
 Jo|m Essen, who was unarmed, and had fallen in the \yater. 
 
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101 
 
 i 
 
 ' Mr. Corrigal, the. other witness, arrived at 
 Montreal on the 27th of September, and, 
 about a quarter of an hour after his arrival, 
 was also committed to prison on a similai? 
 charge. . ■• 
 
 Thus were these two men ehtrapped, who 
 had volunteered to be taken down .to Mont- 
 real (a distance of at least fifteen hundred 
 miles) as witnesses in behalf of Mowat, who 
 had, on that condition, peaceably delivered 
 himself up at Eagle Lake. Mowat and his 
 two witnresses were utter strangers in Mont- 
 real, and it was evident^that jf the former was 
 to be deprived of the testimony of Corrigal 
 and Tate, no other witness could be expected 
 to appear in his favour. In order, therefore, 
 entirely lo preclude the accused from obtain- 
 ing their testimony to clear him of the crime 
 which had been laid to his charge, .the inge- 
 nious device was resorted to of indicting his 
 witnesses as being themselves concerned in his 
 guilt! ^ :r i 
 
 Corrigal and Tate, (the former of whom 
 had been four .months, and the latter a year, 
 in the detention of the North- West Company,), 
 remained jn prison in Montreal about six 
 n?onthsVand during most of that time, they, 
 as well as Mowat, experienced great distress 
 and want. During part of that period, how-. 
 
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f 
 
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 Hi'. 
 
 
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 16S 
 
 ever, they excited the commiseration, and 
 received the charitable aid of some benevolent 
 rndividuals of that place. 
 
 The Hudson's Bay Company, it should be 
 observed, had, at that time, no agent or cor- 
 respondent at Montreal, cr at any place in 
 Canada. It was not till the end of November 
 that the Directors heard of the prosecutioa 
 thus carried on against their servants, when 
 immediate steps were taken for their protec- 
 tioti, and able Counsel engaged for their 
 defence. Mowat and his witnesses were 
 indicted for murder. The Grand Jury found 
 a true bill against Mowat, but none against 
 the others. These were, in consequence, 
 discharged, and were thereby rendered com- 
 petent witnesses at Mowat's trial which for- 
 tunately had not taken place before their 
 liberation. Had the attempt to preclude 
 them from giving evidence succeeded, it is 
 not unlikely that a moie fatal sentence would 
 have been pronounced against the prisoner 
 than that which awaited him. In England it 
 has been generally supposed that it is almost 
 impossible, ait Jeast extremely imprw>bable, 
 that an innocent man should be convicted ; 
 but the guards which are placed by tlie- 
 law of England for the protection of the 
 innocent, are strengthened and secured by 
 
103 
 
 id 
 
 Int 
 
 circumstances wlvichj unfortunately > are not 
 alway:; to be found in a different and more 
 contracted scale of sr ?iety. When, in a town 
 of such limited population as Montreal, there 
 exists an extensive commercial establishment* 
 giving employment to a large proportion 6f 
 the tradesmen of the place, and including a 
 great number of partners, who form a prin- 
 cipal part of the society, and who are con- 
 nected by marriage or consanguinity with 
 almost all the principal resident families, it is 
 not unreasonable to suppose that it may be 
 difficult to find either a grand or a petty 
 jury totally uneonnected with that Association; 
 and that even the bench itself may not be 
 altogether free from bias in cases wherein the 
 interests of that Company might be eventually 
 concerned. In the case of Mowat, it is well 
 known that several partners of the North- 
 West Company were upon the grand jury 
 which found the bill of indictment ; and out 
 of four judges, who sat upon the bench, two 
 were nearly related to individuals of that 
 Association. In the course of the trial cir- 
 cumstances occurred, which could not have 
 taken place in a court of justice in England, 
 without exciting indignation from one end of 
 the k\t\gdom~i^ the other. The counsel fot 
 the prisoner was lepeatedly interrupted in his 
 
 11 
 
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 ^;i 
 
H 
 
 1^ 
 
 
 ffefv 
 
 104 
 
 cross-examination of the witnesses for the 
 prosecution, by the judges prompting the 
 witness, and helping him to preserve his 
 consistency. One of these witnesses, however, 
 did, on his cross-examination, acknowledge 
 facts totally inconsistent th the evidence 
 which he had given upon his examination in 
 chief, and upon this, one of the judges inter- 
 rupted the counsel in an angry tone, and 
 reproached him for having made the witness 
 contradict himself. It was with great diffi- 
 culty that the advocate for the prisoner could 
 obtain leave to address the jury on the point 
 Qf law, and to explain the distinction between 
 murder and justifiable homicide. His argu- 
 ment was repeatedly interrupted from the 
 bench; and, notwithstanding the clearest 
 evidence that Mac Donnel began the fray in 
 the most unprovoked and unprincipled man- 
 ner, — that he was engaged in an act of direct 
 robbery, and that he was threatening the lives 
 of Mow at and his fellow-servants at the time 
 he was shot ; it was the opinion of the bench, 
 that the man who killed him was guilty of 
 murder, and such was their charge to the jury. 
 After a consultation of fifteen or sixteen hours, 
 the jury brought in a verdict o^ manslaughter^ 
 Among the minor irregularities in the pro- 
 ceedings, it may be observed, that no suffi-, 
 
»'■! 
 
 105 
 
 cient evidence was produced as to the place, 
 where the act was committed, being within 
 the jurisdiction of the court. The spot must 
 ill fact have been, either within the limits of 
 Upper Canada, or of the territory of the 
 Hudson's Bay Company; but in consequence 
 of the very short time which the counsel had 
 to prepare themselves, they were not suffici- 
 ently instructed to take the objection, which 
 they might have done, to the jurisdiction, 
 and no notice was taken of it from the bench. 
 Movvat was sentenced to be imprisoned six 
 months, and branded on the hand with a hot 
 iron. Immediately before the expiration of 
 this imprisonment, viz. in September 1811, 
 (two years from the date of his first being 
 put in irons at Eagle Lake), those persons at 
 Montreal, who had interested themselves about 
 him, and who had strenuously exerted them- 
 selves in his behalf, did every thing in their 
 power to prevail upon him to present a petition 
 to the President of the province, in order to 
 have the remaining part of his Sentence (the 
 burning on the hand) remitted. A petition 
 was drawn up for that purpose, and the jury 
 were induced to join in the object of the 
 application. But. notwithstanding every at- 
 tempt to persuade him to sign it, Mowat 
 remained stubborn and inflexible. No pcr- 
 
 1; 
 
 ii. 
 
 r»t. 
 
 !Tt;i 
 
106 
 
 ill 
 
 ! 1 
 
 If 
 
 ■ ^ 
 
 suasion could bend him. He declared that 
 he would ask no favour in a country wher6 
 he had been so unjustly condemned, and he 
 was accordingly burnt in the hand in pursu^ 
 ance of his sentence*. ' . . ■ , . *. 
 
 The circumstances of the whole of this case 
 evince such an abuse and perversion of the 
 intentions of the British Legislature, that one 
 cannot but hope, that as Mowat's trial was 
 the first which occurred under the Act of 1803, 
 so it may be the last. By its operation, that 
 Statute only tends to confirm and augment 
 the despotism of. a trading company, the 
 partners of which, till recently, have been 
 exclusively nominated Magistrates for those 
 countries which have been so vaguely de* 
 scribed in the Act. It places in the hands of 
 a commercial association a dangerous weapon, 
 by which they are enabled to crush almost 
 every one who comes in competition with 
 them : because, nothing can be more easy 
 than to invent a plausible subject of accusa- 
 tion, which may serve as a pretext for sending 
 off a rival trader, hundreds, even thousands 
 
 — ■ ' ' ■ - '■ ' • .I ' -.i I ..i..^ I . m - .■.-■.■■ — • -■«■- -■■.■- - m, -.^ M .1. ■■ 
 
 • After his discharge, Mowat proceeded from Canada 
 to the United States, in order to return to England, bnt 
 has never since been heard of. He is supposed to have 
 been drowned by the breaking of the ice, in ooe of^ the 
 rivers he had to cross in his tvay. 
 
107 
 
 of miles to Montreal. The person aggrieved 
 may indeed have his remedy by an action for 
 false imprisonment, and after two or three 
 years have passed in law proceedings, he may 
 be ready to resume his trade ; but in the mean 
 time the North- West Company have got rid 
 of a competitor; and if the damages be 
 assessed on the same principle as those ad* 
 judged to Mr. Rousseau, they will form but a 
 very small drawback to the advantage of 
 preserving their monopoly unimpaired duriug 
 the interval*. 
 
 When we consider how little is known in 
 England of the local circumstances of our 
 colonies in North America, it will not appear 
 surprising that so injudicious an Act of Par^. 
 liament should have passed the Legislature. 
 The only persons consulted on the subject of 
 the introduction of the Bill, were the partners 
 and agents of the two Fur Trading Companies 
 of Montreal, whose interests upon this point 
 were completely united, and who were not very 
 likely to suggest that other parties might also 
 have an interest in the question. The Hud- 
 son's Bay Company in particular, as I have 
 been informed, never received any intima- 
 tion of such a measure being in contempla- 
 tion. According to established usage, and 
 
 m 
 
 ^ 
 
 See Rousaeau'i Case, page 5^. 
 
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 1 
 
 it; 
 
 ^1 
 
 I: 
 
 If 
 
 108 
 
 to those principles of justice and faird(!;nlin^ 
 which are held sacred by the British Legis- 
 lature, an opportunity should undoubtedly 
 have been allowed t^ that Company to 
 state their claims, and point out where the 
 provisions of the Bill might have militated 
 against the rights of their Charter, if such 
 indeed could at all be affected by its enact- 
 ments. Yet the advocates of the North- 
 AVest Company have gone so far as to main- 
 tain that the Act not only extends to the 
 Hudson's Bay territories, but that it has the 
 effect of taking away the rights of jurisdiction 
 conferred by the Charter. That those who 
 suggested this Act might have entertained a 
 secret view to this object, is by no means 
 unlikely, but they will probably find the 
 attempt to make it bear that interpretation 
 fruitless. It is unnecessary, however, to enter 
 upon that point. But before quitting this 
 subject, it may be proper to offer some obser- 
 vations upon the general policy of those 
 clauses in the Hudson's Bay Charter, by 
 which the jurisdiction of their territory is 
 vested in the Company. 
 
 Those rights of jurisdiction which in the 
 feudal times were so frequently annexed to 
 private property, are now generally abolished, 
 or if, in any instances, they still exist in 
 Great Britain, they are justly considered 
 
100 
 
 as the remains of a rude and barbarous 
 system. Against any new establishment of 
 the same description a strong prejudice must 
 naturally be felt; and the objection is per- 
 fectly just wherever such jurisdiction would 
 interfere with the ordinary administration of 
 justice in the King's Courts. But among 
 the colonial possessions of Great Britain, there 
 are situations where it would have no such 
 effect, and where, in fact, there is no alterna- 
 tive between having a private jurisdiction, or 
 no jurisdiction at all. Generally speaking, 
 this must be the case wherever a colonial 
 establishment is formed by individuals with- 
 out any assistance from the public purse. 
 Such establishments are now very rare ; but 
 they were not so at the period when the 
 Charter of the Hudson's Bay Company was 
 granted. Nearly about the same date (16*70) 
 other large provinces in America were granted 
 by the Crown toindividuals, or to companies, 
 who undertook to colonize them at their own 
 expense; and it was then no uncommon 
 circumstance, that individuals of the highest 
 rank should be concerned in speculations of 
 this nature*. All the most flourishing colonies 
 
 * The following were the original Grantees named in 
 the Hudson's Bay Company's Charier, viz. Prince Rupert, 
 (Ilount Palatine of the Khine, Duke of Bavaiia and Cum> 
 
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 in British America were established on this 
 principle. Maryland and Pensylvania are 
 well-known instances ; Carolina, New Jersey, 
 Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Maine, 
 %yere settled on the same plan ; not to speak 
 of the original colonies of Virginia and New 
 England, which were first established by pri- 
 vate speculators, though the Crown afterwards 
 assisted in their support. In some of these 
 cases the territory was granted to individuals, 
 and the jurisdiction reserved to the Crown ; 
 Id othero, the right of jurisdiction wasgnnted 
 along with the territory. Where the juris- 
 diction was reserved, the Crown was to be at 
 the charge of providing for the administration 
 of justice ; but where it M^as thought not 
 advisable that this expense should be borne 
 by the public, the right of jurisdiction was 
 delegated to the proprietors of the soil. This 
 arrangement was a matter of necessity ; for if 
 
 berland,&c,— Christo^jher^Dukie of Albermarle. — William, 
 Earl of Craven. — Henry, Lord Arlington. — Anthony , Lord 
 Ashley.— Sir Joha Robinson, and Sir Robert Vyner* 
 Knights and Baronets.— Sir Peter Colleton, Baronet.— 
 Sir Edward Hungerford, Knight of the Bath. — Sir Paul 
 Neele, Knight.— Sir John Griffith, and Sir Philip Carteret 
 Kmght*.— James Hayes, John Kirk, Francis Mitfingion, 
 William Prettymen, John Fenn, Esquires— and J«hn 
 Por^man, Citizen and Goldsmilb* of Loudon. 
 
 * 
 
Ill 
 
 the Government had neither provided for the 
 administration of justice, nor enabled the 
 grantees of the Province to do so, it would 
 have been utterly impossible to have formed 
 colonies on any just principle of policy or 
 civilization. Where justice could not be ad- 
 ministered by the immediate officers of the 
 Crown, the natural course was to delegate the 
 task to those who, from their rights of pro 
 perty, had a superior degree of interest both 
 in the maintenance of good arder>aftd in the 
 general prosperity of the province. Tb« 
 persons who were subjected to this delegated 
 jurisdiction had in all cases aright to appeal 
 to the King in Council — a check which was 
 sufficient to prevent any gross injustice or 
 oppression towards the colonists ; and if the 
 institution was not theoretically perfect, it 
 seems at least to have been the best that the 
 circumstances of the case could admit of. 
 Though in some instances the rights of juris- 
 diction thus conferred by the Crown, were 
 afterwards taken away by Act of Parliament, 
 that measure was never resorted to> but upon 
 proof of misconduct and mal-adnantstration. 
 Ik some provinces (Pensylvania and Connec- 
 ticut for instance) the jurisdiction estahlifthed 
 by their respective charters, continued tp be 
 
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 112 
 
 exercised m a satisfactory manner, till they 
 ceased to be colonies of Great Britain. 
 From these observations, it will besufficiently 
 evident, that the jurisdiction vested in the 
 Hudson's Bay Company was, under the cir- 
 cumstances of their case, a necessary accom- 
 paniment to the grant of territory which the 
 Charter conferred on them. If that jurisdic- 
 tion should be abused, it may be taken away, 
 as others have been; but it would by no 
 means be analogous to the usual mode of 
 proceeding in the British Legislature, if such 
 a step were to be taken without inquiry, and 
 without giving the Company an opportunity 
 of being heard in their own defence; still, 
 more were it to be effected without the. 
 slightest proof of mal-administration in the 
 Company, or abuse of their Charter, but 
 merely by the oblique operation of an Act of 
 Parliament passed for a totally different pur-, 
 pose. If the ofFu ers of the Hudson's Bay 
 Company had been guilty of misconduct in. 
 the exercise of their jurisdiction, we may be 
 sure that the North-West Company would 
 not have allowed iZ to remain unobserved. 
 They have never, however, ventured to bring 
 forward any charge of this kind before thc; 
 tribunal to which the cognizance of such. 
 
 Ill 
 
113 
 
 matters properly belongs ; and, till they take 
 this step in a manly and distinct manner, no 
 attention can be paid either to anonymous 
 charges, or to the avowed accusations of inte- 
 rested parties, brought forward extra-judi- 
 cially, and vaguely asseiied without daring to 
 come to issue on the proof. There is, there- 
 fore, no reason to admit that the Hudson's 
 Bay Company have hitherto done any thing 
 to warrant a forfeiture of their privileges. 
 If, however, any paramount consideration of 
 public interest should ever require the aboli- 
 tion of the rights of jurisdiction conferred 
 by the Charter, it cannot be done without 
 substituting in its room some less objection- 
 able system of judicature ; and much reason- 
 ing cannot be required to shew that such 
 system must not be looked for in enact- 
 ments similar to those of the Act of 1803. 
 
 We have already noticed the extreme hard- 
 ship and injustice of having criminal offences 
 tried at Montreal, when the cases occur in 
 remote pans of the Indian country. If this 
 be the case with the fur traders, how much 
 greater must the hardship be on the settlers, 
 who now hold, or may hereafter possess 
 lands, by grant or permission from the Hud- 
 son's Bay Company. To men of this descrip* 
 tioD it will, io most cases, be an absolute 
 
 !| 
 
 I'i 
 
 j:^: 
 
114 
 
 impossibility to undertake a journey to Mont- 
 real at their own expense ; and if that is 
 to be the nearest place where redress for 
 injuries can be legally obtained, they can 
 have no alternative but to submit to every 
 outrage, or, like the savagea^ to take redress in 
 their own hands. Everv man who has acted 
 as a magistrate must be aware of the multi- 
 tude of petty offences which can only be 
 judged of on the spot where they occur, 
 and which no one would think of carrying 
 to a distant tribunal ; yet, if petty injuries 
 cannot be speedily redressed, the probability 
 is, that, by retaliation and a succession of 
 mutual violence, provocation may be aggra- 
 vated, till the deepest crimes, and murder 
 itself be the result. The necessity of a local 
 jurisdiction is no less evident, in respect to 
 matters of civil right. Can it be supposed 
 that such questions as a disputed boundary 
 between ttvo farms ; — the recovery of a debt 
 of eight or ten pounds ;--or the damages 
 occasioned by the trespass of a horse or a 
 cow into a neighbour's corn-field, are to be 
 referred to a tribunal at the distance of two 
 or three thousand miles ? If, therefore, the 
 powers of jurisdiction vested in the officers 
 of the Hudson's Bay Company are to be 
 taken away, a ocal judicature must be esta- 
 
 
115 
 
 Wished and supported at the public expense. 
 If the public are satisfied to incur this charge, 
 the Company are not likely to feel any great 
 reluctance in giving up the administration of 
 justice into better hands. That privilege can 
 be to them nothing but a burthen which the 
 necessity of the case obliges them to under- 
 take, but which they cannot be anxious to 
 retain, if other and sufficient means be found 
 of enforcing a due regard to the laws of 
 England. It may be doubted, however, whe- 
 ther a new establishment, calculated effec- 
 tually to accomplish this object, would be at 
 all acceptable to the North- West Company. 
 It has evidently been their aim to have no 
 administration of justice that would at all 
 interfere with their immediate trading inte* 
 rests. Superiority of numbers and of physical 
 strength has proved to be their only rule of 
 right. But as they cannot expect a formal 
 recognition of that code, or hope to obtain a 
 sweeping repeal of the Law of England in 
 their favour, they will probably attempt to 
 continue their monopoly by means similar to 
 those they have hitherto exerted to maintain 
 it. If a choice were to be made between two 
 plans of judicature, their interest, if we may 
 judge of the future from the past, must lead 
 
116 
 
 :( 
 
 them to prefer that which is most likely to 
 be inefficient ; and to no new measure can 
 we hope for their cordial approbation, unless it 
 would admit of being perverted into an engine 
 of oppression, like their favourite Act of 1803, 
 or would tend to confirm thaf system of juris- 
 prudence which Sir Alexander M*Kenzie so 
 emphatically describes — "this is Indian law." 
 In as far as this question affects the interest 
 of the agricultural settlers, who hold lands by 
 grant from the Hudson's Bay Company, it may 
 perhaps be advanced, that no attention what- 
 ever ought to be paid to them ; for it appears 
 that the advocates of the North West Com- 
 pany have made the singular discovery, that 
 it is highly impolitic, and injurious to the in- 
 terest of the public, that these territories should 
 be colonized at all ! Indeed they have not only 
 advanced this paradox theoretically, but have, 
 by means of their servants, clerks, and part- 
 ners, stepped forward in a very energetic 
 manner, to give practical effect to th6ir doctrine. 
 The methods used for this purpose we shall 
 not now detail, as the facts will come soon 
 under the cognizance of a court of justice, and 
 the proofs be submitted to the public. — Suffice 
 it to say, that, from the first moment when the 
 Hudson's Bay Company made a grant of land 
 for the purpose of forming an agricultural settle- 
 
 • i' 
 
117 
 
 ment upon an extended scale within their ter- 
 ritories, the North- West Company avowed the 
 most determined hostility to the undertaking. 
 The settlement in question having been formed 
 in a district, which had been exhausted of 
 valuable furs by the extirpation of the beaver, 
 aud the settlers, by the very tenure of their 
 lands, being also debarred from interfering in 
 the Fur Trade, it may appear extraordinary 
 that any set of traders should have enter- 
 tained such a determined animosity against 
 its establishment*. Nothing surely can be 
 imagined more harmless in itself than the 
 occupation of a farmer; nor does it at first 
 appear very obvious how his peaceable indus- 
 try should interfere with the Fur Trade, par- 
 ticularly as the settlement alluded to is at a 
 great distance from any valuable hunting 
 grounds. But, to those who have considered 
 the system of the North- West Company in 
 all its bearings, the mystery will soon be 
 solved. The key to this, as well as to all the 
 rest of their conduct, is to be found in the 
 leading object of their association,— the main-. 
 tenanceofexclusivepo55C5s/o» where they have 
 
 * The settlement alluded to was established a few years 
 ago oa the banks of the Red River (near its junction with 
 the Ossiniboyn River) to the South of Lake Winnipic. 
 
 d>i 
 
I 
 
 iV 
 
 118 
 
 no exclusive tight. In this view they are jealous 
 of every establishment which cati be formed 
 within the range of their grasping monopoly. 
 Whatever may be the nature or object of 
 that establishment, if it be independent of 
 the North-West Company^s control, it will 
 shew to the miserable natives, that those 
 who compose this Association are not the sole 
 and absolute masters of the country; and a 
 permanent agricultural settlement would tend 
 more effectually than any other to destroy 
 the notion of their irresistible power. A rival 
 trading post may be overawed by superiority 
 of numbers ; the native Indians may also be 
 kept in miserable subjection by superior 
 force ; — but when a body of industrious 
 farmers have once been firmly established, the 
 natural growth of population in a favourable 
 and fertile situation, must so^ i put it out of 
 the power of any lawless combination df 
 traders to overawe and insult them. It must 
 also be evident, that a ftourishing settlement 
 of that description will necessarily bring 
 along with it, in due time, an effective police, 
 and a regular administration of justice; than 
 which, nothing can be a greater object of 
 dread to men who maintain a commercial 
 monopoly by the habitual exercise of illegal 
 violence; — men to whom no code is accept- 
 
 ii 
 
119 
 
 able but the law of the ttroiigest— and who 
 never will be fully satisBed unless the extenBive 
 regions in the North-West of America con- 
 tinue in the exclusive occupation of the savage 
 Indians, the wild beasts of the forest, and 
 themselves. 
 
 The prospect of seeing the law of England 
 introduced into the heart of the Indian 
 country has proved to be tbe principal motive 
 for all the rancour of which the settlement on 
 Red River has been the object ; but it has 
 been aggravated by the consideration of th« 
 effect which this establishment is calculated 
 to produce on the interests of the Hudson's 
 Bay Company. It seems, therefore, to have 
 been a ^xed detennination in the conclave 
 held by the North- West Cooapany's partners 
 at their rendeisvous at Lake Superior, to effect 
 the destruction of the settlement by on^ 
 method or another, before it should arrive at 
 maturity. 
 
 Many of tbo<ie connected with tlie North*. 
 West Company wer^e extremely unguarded in 
 tbeirexpressions of inveterate hostility against 
 tj»i$ infant cojony at its cofiimencement^ but 
 as their real motives could not b^e acknow- 
 ledge* it was «ecesaary to assign aja ostensibk 
 pretexLtj wd they did not scruple to avow 
 tha^ they okjected to the colonization of the 
 
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 country, because it would interfere with the 
 Fur Trade. Indeed, they not only asserted 
 that it would ultimately prove the destruction 
 of their own commercial concern, but that of 
 the Fur Trade generally, including that of the 
 Hudson's Bay Company itself. With a sur- 
 prising degree of disinterested benevolence 
 they expressed their pity for their commercial 
 rivals, who, they said, were so totally ignorant 
 of their own interests as to allow a regular 
 settlement to be formed on their lands, and 
 determined to save them from the ruinous 
 consequences of such folly ! They forgot, 
 however, that the Hudson's Bay Company 
 are not only merchants engaged in the Fur 
 Trade, but also proprietors of a very extensive 
 tract of land ; and that they are entitled to 
 judge for themselves how far their interest as 
 proprietors may be allowed to modify, or 
 even to guide their conduct as fur traders. 
 
 It is a little extraordinary that at the 
 present day it should be brought forward as 
 a charge against the Hudson's Bay Company, 
 that they are attempting to colonize their ter-* 
 ritory, when, seventy years ago, it was made 
 a charge against them, that they had not 
 then colonized it; and when on that ground 
 an attempt was made to annul their Charter, 
 by persons who had petitioned the crown to 
 
1 
 
 121 
 
 have part of the Hudson's Bay territory granted 
 to themselves. At that time, the Attorney 
 and Solicitor-General, (Sir Dudley Ryder 
 and Mr. Murray,) reported their opinion that 
 " considering how long the Hudson's Bay 
 " Company had enjoyed and acted under 
 " their Charter without interruption, they did 
 ** not think it adviseable for his Majesty to 
 ** make any express or implied declaration 
 ** against the validity of it, till there was 
 " some judgement of a court of justice to 
 " warrant it ; and the rather because if the 
 " Charter was void in either respect, there 
 ** was nothing to hinder the petitioners from 
 " exercising the same trade which the Com- 
 " pany then carried on." They also reported 
 their opinion " that as to the supposed for- 
 " feiture of the Company's Charter by non- 
 " user or abuser, they thought the charges, 
 " on a consideration of the evidence laid 
 " before them, either not sufficiently sup- 
 '* ported in poiat of fact,, or in a great 
 '* measure accounted for by the nature and 
 " circumstances of the case." The crown 
 lawyers at that time seem not to have doubted 
 that it was the duty of the Company to im- 
 prove their territories as far as circumstances 
 would admit : — and it certainly is a very 
 curious doctrine which is now inculcated, 
 
12^ 
 
 ! \ 
 
 \, 
 
 |'1 
 
 namely « that those to whom the Hudson's Bay 
 territory was granted should be precluded 
 from even attempting to improve it, because 
 others conceive or pretend that such impiove- 
 ment would be against the interest of the 
 grantees themselves 1 
 
 If there were any sol id ground forthinking 
 it inconsistent with the public interest, that 
 the territories of the Hudson's Bay Company 
 should be colonized, it might become a ques- 
 tion with Parliament, whether the rights of 
 property vested in the Company ought to be 
 purchased from them ; but where is the motive 
 that could be alleged to justify such an inter- 
 ference? The preservation of the Fur Trade ? 
 And what is this Fur Trade, for which this 
 sacrifice is to be maxle ? A trade of which 
 the gross returns never exceeded dS300,000*, 
 and often not £200,000. A branch of com- 
 merce which gives occasion to Jbbe exportation 
 of 40, or 50.000 jC. of British maotufactures! 
 A trade, in wliich three ships are employed'! 
 This is the mighty object, for which, not oijjy 
 the rights of private property aje to t>e m- 
 vaded, but a territory of immense extent. 
 
 •^*- 
 
 * This esiiaiate does not indude the value of fiirs 
 obxabed by the merchmite df Canada fiora diBKnicts lymg 
 within the territory of the United States. 
 
123 
 
 p()S8C9sing the greatest natural advantages, is . 
 to be cortdemned to perpetual sterility I 
 
 It has been the policy of the North- West 
 Company, in pursuance of their object of 
 excluding all other British subjects from 
 these territories to represent the extensive 
 tract of land, stretching from Lake Superior 
 to the Pacific Ocean, and to the Northern ex 
 tremity of the Continent, as altogether a wild 
 and uninhabitable region bound up in per- 
 petual snows. — Nothing can be more wide of 
 the truth.— Not only in the territories of the 
 Hudson's Bay Company, but even in Atha- 
 basca, and ^ill more in New Caledonia, 
 beyond the Rocky Mountains, there are 
 most extensive tracts of fertile soil, which, 
 from ihe temperature of the climate, are 
 perfectly capable of advantageous cultiva- 
 tion. In so vast an ^extent of c<^Hintry, tliere 
 must, of course, be great varieties of climate ; 
 but there is a breadth of at least twelve 
 or fiffteen degrees of latitude, as fit to be 
 inhabited as many of the well cultivated 
 countries of the North of Europe ; and 
 within this range, extensive districts may be 
 found that are preferable both in soil and 
 climate, to any of the remaining British Colo- 
 nies on the continent of North America. It 
 is a very moderate calculation to say, that if 
 these regions were occupied by an indus- 
 
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 •11 
 
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 ii- 
 
 1S4 
 
 trious population, they might afford ample 
 means of subsi *ence to more than thirty 
 millions of British subjects; and these im- 
 mense res(»urces of national wealth are to be 
 lost sight of for ever, for the sake of a trade to 
 the gross amount of 200, or SOO.OOOjg. per 
 annum I 
 
 Even if we should look no further than to 
 the Fur T ade ulone, it is evident that the 
 national interest will not be promoted by an 
 adherence to the system of the North-West 
 Company. It has been observed above, that 
 tiieir object is to obtain a great immediate 
 return of furs, without any regard to its per^ 
 manent 'continuance. Their tenure of the 
 country is too precarious to encourage them 
 to make any present sacrifice for the main- 
 tenance of an undiminished produce in future. 
 A war of extermination is therefore carried 
 on again?it all the valuable fur- bearing ani- 
 mals. The diminution of their numbers is 
 already very sensible, and in no long period 
 of time, the beaver may be nearly extirpated, 
 unless some means be tp.ken for their preser- 
 vation ; and it is evident that this can never 
 be effected, except on the principle of ex- 
 clusive landed property, by which the Indians 
 may be encouraged to a it js destructive 
 method of followmg the chase. On this 
 
125 
 
 
 point the interest of the Hudson's Bay Com- 
 pany, and that of the Indians within tlieir 
 territories, is completely united with that of 
 the public, while the gigantic system of 
 poaching, carried on by the North-West Com- 
 pany, is no less injurious to the public, than 
 it is to the Indians who are the occupiers, 
 and the Company who are the proprietors, 
 of the land. It has been observed that the 
 North-West Company bring bands of Indian 
 hraiters from Canada, who destroy aii before 
 them, and will soon leave the country in- 
 capable of affording either a subsistence to 
 the wretched natives, (who never cultivate the 
 ground,) or a valuable trade to the Hudson's 
 ^ay Comfiany. If the rights of landed 
 property vested in the Company « ere effec- 
 tually protected,' it would be their interest 
 to prevent this cruel encroachment on the 
 native Indians, and to assign to each of 
 them separate hunting grounds on a permc 
 nent tenure ; so that if they would take pains 
 to preserve the breed of beaver, and other 
 valuable animak, they mi^ it be sure of de- 
 riving benefit from their own moderation and 
 foresight. Upon this principle there can be 
 I'Ule doubt that many districts now ex- 
 i:austed o5 furs might be restored. The 
 be!?ver would be preserved with nearly the 
 
126 
 
 ' 
 
 I: 
 
 ti 
 
 
 1 5 
 
 
 same care as a domestic animal^ and it i& 
 easy to imagioe how much they might then 
 be expected to multiply. After appropri-- 
 ating to agricultural improvement all those 
 parts of the Hudson's Bay territory which are 
 well adapted to it, the refuse, or remainder 
 of the lands might, certainly, under a system 
 of exclusive property, be made to produce 
 more furs than are noT^ obtained from the 
 whole extent of their country. 
 
 These observations may be applied not only 
 to the territories of the Hudson's Bay Com- 
 pany, but to all the unappropriated Indian 
 countries within the British dominions in 
 x^orth America, in every part of which it 
 seems of essential consequence to the welfare 
 of the Indians to give them a permanent 
 tenure of their hunting grounds, as nearly as 
 practicable on the footing of private property. 
 
 The evils which now press so severely on 
 the miserable natives of Athabasca and the 
 remote Indian countries, as well as those 
 within the Provinces of Upper and Lower 
 Canada, are radically owing to the premature 
 attempt to establish a system of free trade. 
 We have seen the manner in which this 
 attempt led, first, to all the evils of anarchy, 
 and then, as a natural consequence, to the 
 establishment of a ferocious despotism in the 
 
127 
 
 hands of a Trading Company. It would be 
 an insult to the understanding, as well as to 
 the heart of* the reader, to suppose that any 
 doubt can remain, as to the propriety of put- 
 ting down the power of such an Association. 
 — The question is, how to prevent the renewal 
 of the same tyranny in other hands. 
 
 It appears that the British Government 
 acted on mistaken views when the old system, 
 of the French was abolished. — It would be 
 advisable that we should retrace our steps, 
 and re-establish that system, with such modi- 
 fications as may adapt it to the principles of 
 our own govern..-^nt. For this purpose, let 
 the whole extent of Indian territory, (from 
 the boundaries of the townships which are 
 laid out for settlements in Upper and Lower 
 Canada, to the extremity of the British 
 dominions) be divided into districts of a con- 
 venient extent. Let the Hudson's Bay 
 C nupany be confined within the bounds of 
 t! - property legally vested in them. Let 
 the r 'St of the Indian districts be leased 
 for a period of years nearly in the manner 
 which is now practised as to the district of 
 Lower Canada called the " King's Posts," 
 — assigning to the lessees the exclusive trade 
 of their respective districts, together with 
 ' «y other emoluments that can be derived 
 
I 
 
 r' 
 
 !< 
 
 ii 
 
 a 
 
 Ii 
 
 
 
 M 
 
 ii 
 
 128 
 
 from the paramount rights of landed pro« 
 perty during the period of their lease^ but 
 under such regulations as may protect the 
 Indian natives from oppression, and preclude 
 them from the use of spirituous liquors which 
 has proved the greatest bane to their improve- 
 ment. ... 
 
 The rents of the districts within Lower and 
 Upper Cr.nada ou^ht to be added to the rest 
 of the revenue oi ' jj two provinces. The 
 revenue derived froii the remote districts of 
 Athabasca, and other parts which have no 
 immediate or natural connection with Ca- 
 nada, may form a separate fund, applicable 
 to the protection and improvement of these 
 respective districts. Two-thirds of the rent 
 might perhaps be appropriated to defray the 
 expense of a small corps of fencibles, or 
 militia, to be raised for the special purpose 
 of mamtaining the police of these remote pos- 
 sessions, supporting the rights of the lessees, 
 and defending the country from any maraud- 
 ing attack to which it may be exposed. The 
 remainder of the fund might be applied to 
 defray the expense of missionaries, to be sta- 
 tioned among the Indians, not only for their 
 religious and moral improvement, but to com- 
 bine this object with their instruction in agri- 
 culture and the domestic arts, and to watch 
 
ro- 
 
 ]ut 
 he 
 de 
 Ich 
 re- 
 
 eypry ppjpprtunity of exciting amopg tl^^m.a 
 |spii]it of industry. These missionaries w^uld 
 ^orin a check againstjany attejmpt, on the part 
 of the lessees, to, tyrannize over, or to deprive 
 the Indians of the rights reseryed to tjheni. 
 
 In the mode of letting the leases, it niisht 
 be advisable tp depart ifroin the example of 
 the King's Ppsts, and, instead ^of public auc- 
 tion, to adopt the method of sealed offers, 
 ^eqviiqng that ey^ry tender shall specify the 
 wjiejle of, ^he partpei^concerned,in making it, 
 so that the persons ,to whom the .different 
 offers are referred, may have an opportunity 
 of rejecting any that come from traders of 
 a notoriously bad character. The lessees 
 may be made to understand, that any marked 
 instance of misconduct would be a ground 
 of exclusion on any future occasion. This 
 would have an important effect in putting a 
 restraint on their behaviour, more particularly 
 as they wo\ild naturally expect rival traders 
 to be on the watch, to note every instance of 
 misconduct, and take advantage of it at the 
 expiration of the leases. 
 
 With these measures it would be necessary 
 to combine a complete revision of the Act of 
 1803, and the establishment of a system better 
 adapted for the fair and effectual administra- 
 tion of justice. The basis ought to be laid 
 
w 
 
 'iC 
 
 150 
 
 ^N- 
 
 \u 
 
 Xv 
 
 in the establishment of a resident local ma- 
 gistracy in the hands of the lessees, and the 
 missionaries, who may be authorised to deter- 
 mine immediately, and on the spot, all ques- 
 tions of small consequence, combining this 
 system with an arrangement for bringing the 
 more important causes (such as may arise 
 between the lessees of different districts), as 
 speedily and directly as possible, to the great 
 and pure fountain of English Law at West- 
 minster, without passing through the muddy 
 channel of colonial judicature. 
 
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