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Tous les autres exemplaires originaux sont filmAs en commenpant par la premiere page qui comporte une empreinte d'impression ou d'illustration et en terminant par la derniAre page qui comporte une telle empreinte. Un des symboles suivants apparaitra sur la derniAre image de cheque microfiche, selon le cas: le symbols — »> signifie "A SUIVRE", le symbole V signifie "FIN". Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent dtre filmAs A des taux de reduction diff^rents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour Atre reproduit en un seul cliche, il est filmi A partir de Tangle supArieur gauchtt, de gauche A droite. et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'images n^cessaire. Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la mithode. 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 En/4- THE Canadian Monthly AND national REVIEW. Vol. 5.] APRIL, 1874. [No. 4. rJ- A FRAGMENT OF CANADIAN HISTORY.* BY PROFESSOR BRYCE. THE writer of the History of the Do- minion of Canada has a great work before him. It is as great a task as the explorer of a great river has when entering its embouchure he sails up to diverge and examine one branch, to return and repeat his quest in another, and after all to leave unvisited a hundred rivulets which go to make up the stream. The History of Can- ada must start from such different sources as the discovery of the Prima Vista in 1497 ; the Nouvelle France of Jacques Cartier in ' 535 ; the Acadie of the heroes of " Evange- line" in 1604 ; the Rupert's Land of the Company of Adventurers of England trading into Hudson's Bay in 1670, and extending westward until it embraced — from Hudson's Straits to Vancouver's Island, discovered in 1 762 — all the country not possessed by any * Sir Alexander McKenzie's Travels ; Hargrave's Red River ; Neill's History of Minnesota ; Reports of the British House of Commons ; Ross's Red River Settlement. Other Christian Prince or State; the British Canada of the soldiers of Wolfe of 1 759 ; and the refuge of the United Empire Loyal- ists from 1783 to 181 2. Starting from such different sources, the History of Canada comes down to the present time, when British North America is beginning to rea- lize her unity under the Canadian Confede- ration. This paper is a fragment of such history, torn from the volume that must be written by some patient and earnest investi- gator who can make the whole subject a life- work. It is an imperfect sketch of the history of the Hudson's Bay Company and its opponents, from their adventurous begin- ning to the year 1821, when all united in one great company bearing the name of the oldest, though not most vigorous partner. The embarkation of English gentlemen in foreign trade was the result of the successful voyages of Drake and his contemporaries, when, as a species of freebooters, they sailed the seas with the motto of the brave Robin ^/ 8^^018 874 THE CANADIAN MONTHLY. Hood. Among the Company of Adventurers to whom King Charles granted a charter was the fiery Prince Rupert, who is acknow- ledged as " our dear and entirely beloved cousin, Count Palatine of the Rhine," &c., and to him, already noted for his buccaneer- ing life in the West Indies, and for exploits of a more patriotic kind against the Dutch, was given the honour of naming a territory which only five years ago lost the title of " Rupert's Land." His old friend, the Duke of Albemarle, familiar to the reader of Eng- lish history as the brave and reticent restorer of Charles H., General Monk, died in the year of the granting of the charter; and his son Christopher stands second on the list of those to whom was given the monopoly of the country lying within the "entrance of the Straits commonly known as Hudson's Straits, together with all the lands, countries and territories upon the coasts and confines of the seas, straits, bays, lakes, rivers, creeks, and sounds." I: is not at all strange to read of " old George, the Kingmaker," who had filled almost every office, military and civil, leaving his heir with instructions to prose- cute, even so wild and adventurous an enter- prise as the trade with Hudson's Bay ; nor does it surprise us to see the ruling spirit of King Charles' reign, Dryden's Achitophel, Lord Ashley, the unworthy ancestor of our good Earl of Shaftesbury, taking part in this quest of the " Golden Fleece," bearing, as he did, the character : " A man so various that he seemed to be Not one, but all mankind's epitome." Lord Arlington, another of the members of the celebrated Cabal, is found among the traders, and with fourteen others — knights, baronets, esquires and citizens — completed the corporation organized under Prince Rupert, the first (Jovernor. The pleasure- loving king deserves well of us, when we look at his wise and generous policy of encouraging the trader and the voyageur, giving up to them the fisheries of " whales, sturgeons and all other royal fishes,' and even the "gold, silver, gems and precious stones," requiring only yearly to himself and succes- sors, as often as they should enter the terri- tories, the payment of " two elks and two black beavers." The love of sea-adventure, which was then strengthening in the bosom of the Englishman, was but the revival of the old Norse instinct which the struggles of the barons and the Wars of the Roses had very much deadened. It was this same spirit that led Drake and Raleigh and Frobisher to make their flying visits to almost every part of the unknown world, and the explorers of the inhospitable quarters of Hudson's Bay had to incite them the additional charm of whales and icebergs and fierce wild beasts. For a hundred years the Company sent out its ships to escape, with battered keels and sometimes dismasted vessels, the dangers of a channel open only two months in the year ; but, besides having their love of adventure gratified, they had the conso- lation of securing a very profitable cargo of the peltries of the frozen land. Not long after their establishment, it is true, their rudely built forts on the border of Hudson's Bay were visited and captured by French expe- ditions. The great Massacre of St. Bar- tholomew, 100 years before, had turned on edge the teeth of all the Protestant nations against the foes of the reformed doctrines, and war was being waged at this time between " Le Grand Monarque " and the English, who sympathized with the struggling and devoted inhabitants of the Low Coun- tries. In these struggles the young Company received its share of trials ; its forts were occuuied, its trade interrupted and its ener- gies weakened time after time until the Peace of Ryswick in 1C97 put an end to the difliculties that beset the traders ; yet during all this period, taking full account of losses, the proprietors comforted themselves every few yeais with a dividend of 50 percent. To one who has never experienced the pecu- liar cold of Rupert's Land it seems intoler- ,/ ) A FRAGMRNT OF CANADIAN HISTORY. a75 I able to endure for several weeks together a temperature of so great intensity, and yet the traders gathering furs for their vessel, coming out in the short northern summer, passed with much cheerfulness, and even pleasure, their sojourn year after year. From far and near came the tribes of Indians in- habiting the vast region to the west, which the traders thus found it unnecessary to visit. Without leaving their so-called forts on Hudson's Bay, they could receive for a trifle of goods, or some paltry trinket, the most valuable furs; and Fort Churchill and the shores of the inland sea of the north became the centre of attraction for the many tribes of the great Crees or Algonquins of the South- east, as well as the Chippewan nations of the North-west. To the romance of the trade was added the feeling of superiority which their knowledge and their goods gave the traders over the Indian — astute enough as to honour, but simple as a child in trade. There is a grim humour in the motto of the Hudson's Bay Company: "Propelle cutem," (skin for skin) adopted as embodying the results of a thousand successful transactions. J Yet there was evinced on the whole a saga- ' *' city and tact in dealing with the savage, even in the early days of the Company, that has been seldom equalled. Coming down with his bundle of furs upon his back, from the shores of some of the innumera!)le lakes stretching to Lake Winnipeg over four hun- dred miles, or reciting the strange stories of far-off Athabasca, the Indian hunter did not fail to return with his powder, shot and Queen Bess musket to wake the echoes of his quiet home. Had the North-west been hospitable, no doubt the influx of otlier traders brought by the news of the great profits would soon have made it impossible for the traders to retain their monopoly, and settlements such as those of Manhattan Island and Nouvelle France would have fol- lowed in the wake of the fur hunters. But the rigour of the climate, the sterility of the soil, the difficulties of approach and the threatenings of a monopoly, retained in a most unexampled manner the country for its first masters, who found their mine of wealth not in the soil, but in the animals which civilization banishes. Encroachments, however, came from a most unexpected quarter. New France had, from its very beginning, become the resort of the fur trader. The Saguenay, with its clear waters and its rugged banks, gave good returns to the trader; and Tadoussac, at its mouth, be- came the fur di5pOt for many a year. The Ottawa, loo, in turn yielded its share of northern wealth, and the enterprising French voyageurs continued their North-western course until crossing the watershed they reached the plateau of Red River and the Saskatchewan. Trapping and trading, the hardy descendants of the men from Norman France followed the genius of the race that left its northern fiords to carry vigour to Western Europe, and sent off the captain of St. Malo on his adventurous quest to the new world. M. de la Ver- andrye, a French seigneur, was the first white man who penetrated the solitudes of the North-west, and to him is given the honour of having, in 1731, discovered Lake Winnipeg and its aflluents. His success was the occasion for a score of other adven- turers seeking out the new land, and the Indians of the region west of Winnipeg soon found another set of traders nearer to their native lakes than Fort Churchill, on whom they looked at first with suspicion, but who at length won their confidence. For twenty or thirty years were the strangers from Nou- velle France courting the favour of the Indian hunters, and their persistent efforts were so successful that the English Company of more than a hundred years standing, cut off from inland supplies, were compelled to meet their rivals by leaving the coast and journeying westward. The French trappers had now the co-operation of such stirring spirits of the army of Wolfe as had settled in Canada, after, in 1759, it became British. 97* THE CANADIAN MONTHLY. To meet the increasing force of this power- ful combination, the Hudson's Bay Company penetrated inland more than four hundred miles, in the year 1774, to a point some- where in the vicinity of Cumberland House. Now began the great struggle for supremacy between the old British combination and the Franco-British traders of Canada ; the one possessed of the strength and confidence which large dividends and established trans- actions had produced, the other having all the energy and determination characterizing the Canadian, born amongst, and thoroughly accustomed to, the hardships of Colonial life. As being firmly established inland, the Canadian traders more than held their own, and with them five thousand employ<5s. Crossing even to the Pacific Ocean, they in- creased in strength and drew wealthy men to them till, in 178,3 — nine years after the meeting of the two rivals — when freed from the threatenings and assaults of the new-fledged Republic on the South, which V' in that year, by the great Peace of Paris, secured its independence, the Canadian traders combined into the celebrated "North- west Company of Montreal." From this time the trading with the North-west loses much of its romance, and settles down into the routine work of a Company. The trade was now beginning to have its effect. Many of the wild and daring men scat- tered throughout the country among the ignorant and degraded Indian tribes, formed alliances with them. From these unions sprang the large class of " Boisbrfllds, " " Mdtis," or Half-breeds, which has formed such an important element in all the events of North-western history. The traders and hunters of the North-west Company were a promiscuous collection of these Half-breeds, Frenchmen, Highlanders and Indians. They consisted of interpreters, clerks, canoemen f and guides, and made up the two classes — those who did the inland trade and those who carried from the meeting-place to Montreal. The former brought their booty to the neighbourhood of Fort William, on I-ake Superior, which was long the chief station of the North-west Company. They lived on the fresh meat of the buffalo on the plains, on the prepared meat called " pemmican " on their " trips," or upon the fish and game found in such profusion in the country they traversed. The voyagcurs who brought the goods from Montreal by the toilsome route of the Ottawa, I^ikes Nipis- sing, Huron and Superior were called " cour- eurs des bois." These, on account of their route failing to supply them with the requi.site food, lived on the dried provisions they carried with them, and were regarded as less favoured than their North-western com- rades ; this class, consequently, comprised most of the "raw hands" of the Com- pany. The winterers who, on account of their coming into contact with the Indians, were of a wild and roving disposition, gave the name to their associates, which still pre- vails for novices in the North-west, " man- geurs de lard " (pork-eaters). The departur** of the voyageurs from Montreal on their long and perilous journey was a scene of great interest and beauty. Leaving Lachine, the d6p6t of the North-west Company, in < their slender canoes, they skirt the Island of Montreal, until they reach Ste. Anne's, within two miles of its western extremity. Laden so heavily that they sank to the gunwale, their canoes would rise on the crest of a wave and, guided by the ex- pert Canadian, few accidents ever occur- red. Their cargo was very general. For trade they carried " packages of coarse woollens, blankets, arms, ammunition, to- bacco, threads, lines, cutlery, kettles, hand- kerchiefs, hats and hose, calico and printed cottons," and it is to be feared, a supply of the curse of the Indians — spirituous liquors. To this they added biscuit, pork and peas, for their own subsistence, and the utensils necessary for their voyage, but not a pound of useless freight. Early in May they prepared to leave Ste. Anne's. Probably few are aware A FRAGMENT OF CANADIAN HISTORY. til lliam, on he chief They ifililo on It called ipon the 9n in the ?iirs who by the s Nipi»- i "cour- of their requisite ns they irded as :rn com- mprised e Com- :oiint of Indians, an, gave still pre- " man- epartur*" leirlong )f great ine, the ] iny, in 4 Island Anne's, tremity. to the on the the ex- occur- al. For coarse ion, to- , hand- printed ij)ply of liquors, d peas, utensils pound repared e aware that it is the scene of these brave and hardy voyageurs leaving, that Moore has described in the well-known " Canadian Boat Song." At Ste. Anne's rapid they were compelled to take out a part of their lading, and once past this, they bade good-bye to the associa- tions of home, for at Ste. Anne's was the last Christian church, and this church dedicated to the tutelary saint of the voyageurs. The great combination working from far-off Montreal, to a point west of the Rocky Mountains, carried on their operations so vigorously that they were rewarded by the highest dividends ever mside by a similar Company in America. But, as is so frequent, success and ambition brought dissension; and a small section, among whom were the Right Hon. Edward Ellice, M. P., since so famous in connection with the Hudson's Bay Com- pany, and Sir Alexander Macke 'e, the traveller, broke off dissatisfied, and formed the X. Y. Company, x hree rival companies made the country a scene of constant war- fare, sometimes of bloodshed ; and Indians and whites were frequently brought into col- lision at the imminent risk of the total exter- \ mination, should the animosity of the savage tribes become general, of the whole three companies. In i8i i, matters had reached a very unsatisfactory condition, when a new element entered into the circumstances and completely changed the aspect of affairs. In this year Lord Selkirk, who is described by an American writer as a " wealthy, kind- hearted, and visionary nobleman of Scot- land," joined the Hudson's Bay Company and obtained a controlling power in it. Whether he was not more shrewd than visionary is a question on which very much might be said ; that his plans did not all succeed is but the experience of many a speculator. The waning influence of the Hudson's Bay Company and decreasing dividends rendered a bold and vigorous policy necessary. The North-west Company had a longer season, more active and more experienced agents, and had gained a pres- tige fully ecjual to that of the Company, which had reached an age of a century and a half. To meet the power of the rivals it was necessary to gain a stronger foothold in the country, to have numbers who might be appealed to in case of necessity, and more- over to produce agricultural supplies at a point nearer even than Canada to the great fur-bearing region of the North. The courage of a man who could take a colony of men, women and children, after a sea voyage of thousands of miles, to winter on the frozen shores of Hudson's Bay, and then proceed five hundred miles inland, to settle fifteen hun- dred miles from the nearest white settlement, must have been considerable, the object he had in view an important one, and the necessity for such a course very great. Moreover the willingness of a colony of settlers to leave the old world and begin life in a land that they believed was infested by "wild beasts and wilder men" must ever seem strange. At this juncture, fortu- nately for Lord Selkirk's scheme, an expa- triated people had the choice of going abroad or of being drowned in the German Ocean. One of those harsh and selfish acts which have made many a colonist look back to the home of his childhood — in other respects a pleasing recollection— with the feeling of bitterness and retaliation, drove forth from the estates of the Duchess of Sutherland thousands of poor exiles to find homes in the New World. Lord Selkirk visited the hapless community and induced a number of them to colonize the land he had procured from the Hudson's Bay Company by pur- chase. It is not the object of this paper to enter with any minuteness into the history of this colony. Suffice it to say that the privations they endured were rarely if ever equalled in the early settlement of any country. Women carrying helpless children were compelled to walk with bleeding feet over the frozen earth ; strong men gave way, overcome by hunger and melancholy, and the poor settlers vX V^ 278 THE CANADIAN MONTHLY. seemed the victims of every man and beast. The enmity of the North-west Company, the arrogance and threats of the Indians, the clouds of locusts that devoured their first hard-won harvests and the ordinary and inevitable hardships of the first settlers joined to make their condition most mise- rable. In i8i2 came an additional force of immigrants ; but with each new arrival the enmity of the North-west Company increased. The traders attacked the settlers, and drove them southward with the evident intention of compelling them to leave the country. The brave Highlander could have fought, but his broadsword had grown rusty : the inspiring notes of the pipes of his native hills would have roused his enthusiasm, but there was no heart strong enough to sound the pibroch. The North-west Com pany, organized and daring, were too strong, and the poor colonists found themselves compelled to leave their new home. Dis- guised as Indians the traders induced the settlers to take refuge at Pembina, about sixty miles to the south. The soi-disant Indians made use of their opportunities as guide-, to the unfortunates to despoil them of whatever articles of value they possessed. One woman was compelled to give up the marriage ring placed on her hand in her native lanu, and a warlike Highlander must surrender the trusty claymore his father had carried at CuUoden. So the contest between the two companies increased in intensity. In 1 8 14 an organized effort was made by the I\or" .vesters to rid the country of the Hudson's Bay Company settlers. Two fellow-countrymen of the settlers were sent to gain the confidence of the Highland colo- nists. One of them writes, as he is going forward on his mission, " Nothing but the downfall of the colony will satisfy some by fair or foul means. So here is at them with all my heart and energy." The more crafty of the two emissaries taking advantage of the well known partiality of the Highlander for his clansman ingratiated himself with the sim|)le-minded settlers, and by degrees undermined the allegiance of many to their absent patron the Karl of Selkirk. This work accomplished, an outbreak took place, and the fair words of an enemy were found to have severed the ties of origin, old recollections, and common interest which had hitherto made the struggling band a unit. The unfaithful settlers and their new- found friends sacked Fort Douglas, a rude stronghold of the Company, standing a mile below the present Fort Carry ; i)ossessed themselves of the few small guns stored there ; shortly after attacked the Covernor's house ; killed several of its inmates, and carried away the ("lOvemor himself a captive to Montreal. Numbers of the unfortunate settlers, harassed and annoyed, set out in company with those who had proved false to their allegiance, determined to leave the country. It was a long and weary journey for the exiles, taking with them their women and children. For four long months their journey lasted. From Red River over what is now the Dawson Route to Fort William, along the rugged shores of Lakes Superior and Huron the wanderers toiled until at last A they reached the lonely military station of^' Penetanguishene. In the settlements they formed in the London District and in the County of Simcoe, in Ontario, may yet be found the old men — few in number now — who accomplished this tedious four months' voyage in 1 8 1 5. The fugitives, though suffer- ing much, escaped many of the severe trials of those who remained behind; for both Companies, now that hostilities had com- menced, began to put forth most strenuous efforts. At one time the remnant had not only resolved to return to Britain, but had actually gone several hundred miles on their way to Hudson's Bay. Met at this point by a representative of the Hudson's Bay Company they were induced to return ; and on their reaching Red River the Nor'-wester agent, who had sown the seeds of dissension among them, was seized and sent off to A FRAGMENT OF CANADIAN HISTORY. »rt by degrees many to of Selkirk, l^rtak took ncmy were origin, old est which 'g band a their new- las, a nide i"g a mile possessed ins stored •overnor's lates. and a caj)tive ^fortunate iet out in >vcd false leave the y journey ir women iths their 5ver what William, Superior itil at last A tation of ^ -nts they d in the y yet be r now — months' ;h suffer- -re trials or both id com- renuous had not but had 3n their is point I's Bay n ; and '-wester sension off to England for trial. Lord Selkirk, hearing of the sad condition of his infant state, hastened out by way of Canada to relieve the colo- nists, Tiic messenger dcs))atched to assure them of his sympathy and to promise assist- ance never reached his destination. The Nor'-westcrs scattered over the interior were, however, unwilling to leave the key of the country in the hands of their foes, and so organized an expedition of the Half-breeds and Highlanders at Qu'Appelle River, and coming eastward, they attacked the re- established colony now under the rule of Governor Semple. On the i6th of June, 1816, as Chiiteaubriand the French writer, who was travelling at that time in Canada, facetiously remarks, just a year after the Battle of Waterloo, French and F^nglish again met in conflict, this time on the prai- ries of the North-west, and this lime to see the French the victors. The Bois-brfll6s had passed Fort Douglas, when Governor Semjjle, poorly attended, sallied out to recon- noitre. After passing the Fort they captured three of the Selkirk settlers, known to them as " the men of Orkney." They hastened back to meet the Governor, when his want of tact seems to have ended disastrously; for a volley from the Nor'-westers laid low nearly the whole of the body-guard, and killed the rash and hasty man as well. A fragment, perhaps the only fragment of Bois-brfll<5s' literature, unless it be the Rebellion proclamation of Louis Riel, the President of the unfortunate Red River Provisional Government of 1869, has come down to us. The fragment, with its bad French and grandiloquent strains, is something of a curiosity in its way : — CHANSON ECRITE PAR PIERRE FALCON. " Voulez-vous icouter chanter un chanson de v6ril6 : Le dix-neuf de Juin, les ' Bois-brflWs ' sont arrives Comme des braves guerriers. Ont arrivons jl la Grenouilliire, Nous avons fait trois prisonniers Des Orcanais ! lis sont ici pour piller notre pays. Etant sur le point de d^barquer, Deux de nos gens se sont (icri6s — Voila r Anglais qui vient nous attaquerl Tous aussilAt nous nous sonimes devir^s I'our alter les rencontrer. '■ J 'avons ccrn< labande de Grenadiers, lU sont immobiles ! ils sont ddmont^s I J'nvons ngi comme des gers d'honneur Nous envoyftnies un ambassadeur. Gouvemeur! voulez-vous arr6ler un petit moment Nous voulons vous parler. " Le gouvemeur qi.i est enrage, II dit a scs soklats — Tircz ! Le premier coup I'Anglais le tire, L'ambassndeur a presque nianqu6 d'filre tuA. Lc gouvemeur se croyant I'Empereur 11 agit avec rigueur. Le gouvemeur se croyant I'E -.pereur A son malheur agit avec trop de rigueur. " Ayant vu passer les Rois-brAMs II a parti pour nous opouvanter. ICtant parti pour nous epouvanter II s'est trompt! : il s'est bien fait tu^ Quantiti' de ses grenadiers. " J'avons tu«? presque toute son arm^e De la bande quatre ou cinq se sont sauvds .Si vous aviez vu les Anglais Et tous les Bois-brftWs apris ! De butte en bulte les Anglais culbutaient I^s liois-brAl^s jetaient des cris dejoie ! " Qui en a compost la chanson ? C'est Pierre Falcon ! Le bon garfon ! Elle a t5tt5 faite et composde Sur la Victoire que nous avons gagn^ I Elle a «5te faite et composite Chantons la gloire de tous ces Bois-brAl^s. " SONG WRITTEN BY PIERRE FALCON. " Come listen to this song of truth ! A song of the brave Bois-brfll^s, Who at Frog Plain took three captives, Strangers come tarob our country. " When dismounting there to rest us, A cry is raised — the English ! They are coming to attack us, So we hasten forth to meet them. " I looked upoii their army, They are motionless and downcast ; So, as honour would incline us. We desire with them to parley. 38o THE CANADIAN MONTHLY. " Bui their leader, moved wilh nni;er, Oives tlie word tu (ire upon us ; And imperiously repeats it, Rushing on to his dcBtruction. " Having seen us pass his stronghold. He had thought to strike with terror The Bois-brQl^s : ah ! mistaken, Many of his soldiers perish. " But a ftw escaped the slaughter. Rushing from the field of battle ; Oh, to see the English fleeing I Oh, the shouts of their pursuers 1 " Who has sung this song of triumph ? The good Pierre I alcon has composed 't. That the praise of these Bois-br^Ms Might be evermore recordetl." Such was the triumphant spirit of the Nor'-westers ; but their triumph was a short one. The death of Governor Semple served to hasten on the Earl of Selkirk, who with his band of soldiers of the old De Meuron regiment took Fort William, and in due time reached the scene of the unfortunate collision. The skirmish of " Seven Oaks," which Pierre Falcon commemorates, has had its effect on all subsequent affairs in the Red River region and, while giving a prestige to the Bois-brfllfe element in the North-west, has done much to encourage that lawless- ness which has so disfigured the country since. The wide extent of territory, the facility this gave for escape, and the difR- culty of detection have made it easy for bodies of men to accomplish, by a coup-de- main, what they might never be called to account for, and which only involved the risk of the encounter itself. It is a danger- ous thing for a country when this is the case; and it is to be hoped that, under Canadian rule, a more settled state of affairs may fol- low, and that the conviction may grow in the popular mind that, though justice nay be long delayed, yet a Nemesis is certainly and unremittingly pursuing the guilty. Tf,3 few years succeeding hostilities were spent by the settlers in overcoming the natu- ral difficulties of their situation and in gain- ing a foothold in the country. It will be the duty of the future historian to tell of their privations, of their betaking themselves to the ch^se of the buffalo and deer, and of their losses by the locust ; to recount their journeyings to the United States for sup- plies, and to tell of the state of comparative tranquillity, if nc t inertia, which succeeded their fiery triaU, occasionally interrupted by the floods which have alarmed or the inter- nal dissensions which have disturbed them. Lord Selkirk, the founder of the colony, died in 182 1, after which, at the instance of the British Government, the Companies, both reduced to the verge of bankruptcy, brought their tedious negotiations to an end and, uniting heartily, formed the Hudson's Bay Company, which, with all its faults, has been a respectable, energetic and honourable Corporation, and has performed the signal service to Canada and the British empire of keeping a vast extent of territory, in danger of being Americanized, true to its allegiance, and of making every Indian respect the Scotch bonnet and the trader known to be one of King George's men. The history from 1 82 1 to the present is a subject full of interest to the Canadian. Manitoba.