Old Quebec: The Fortress of New France Part 18

[Ill.u.s.tration: MR. SAMUEL HEARNE (Explorer of the Hudson's Bay Company and Chief Factor at Prince of Wales Fort, Hudson's Bay)]

The names of two stand out clearly, first as agents of French enterprise, and afterwards of successful English adventure, in this early commercial history of the far north; where, for nearly two centuries and a half, British energy and justice, and the honesty of English rule has, through the Hudson's Bay Company, worked southward to meet the ever increasing territory owned by the French until 1759.

The Frenchmen whose names are so identified with the early history of Hudson's Bay were Medard Chouart, called also Groseilliers, and Pierre Radisson. They had emigrated from France as young men in the middle years of the century, and settled at first in Three Rivers. After a somewhat intricate matrimonial experience, Radisson had established relations which afterwards stood them both in good stead, at the same time typifying the ambiguous nature of international relations in the far north. On the French side he was son-in-law to Abraham Martin, whose name was given to the Heights of Abraham; he was also son-in-law to Sir John Kirke, a brother of the English admiral to whom Champlain surrendered Quebec; while to bind him closer to the companion of his adventurous life, he was brother-in-law to Groseilliers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Territory of the HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY, 1670 to 1870.]

Thus allied by disposition and relationship the two enterprising Frenchmen, allured by visions of fortune and adventure in the unknown regions of the north, soon abandoned the safe comforts of town life; and having served a probation in several short expeditions, they at last applied to the reigning powers in Quebec for leave to operate on a larger scale. The existing Company, however, jealous for its monopoly, hedged them round with such difficult conditions that the young men broke impatiently from all control and plunged into the wilds of the West, penetrating at least as far as Lake Winnipeg. But Quebec was a stern step-mother, and when they returned, instead of meeting congratulation, they were arrested and fined for illicit trading. After a vain appeal to Paris, finding themselves rejected and discredited among their own countrymen, the two adventurers performed the first of those political somersaults which made them a nine days'

wonder alternately in London and Paris, and finally brought to one, at least, an inglorious competency of 10 a month. Fifty eventful years were, however, to roll past before that anti-climax to the drama of their lives. To begin with, when they had shaken off the dust of New France, they repaired to Boston, propounding to the New England traders the novel scheme for furnishing an expedition to be sent round to Hudson's Bay by way of the sea; at the same time offering their own experience for service in the undertaking. Although disposed to favour the proposal, the Boston merchants had no available ships of their own, but advised an application to the English Court. Arriving in England in 1667, the two friends were introduced by Lord Arlington, then amba.s.sador in Paris, to Prince Rupert, the natural patron of all adventurers at the time, and who, moreover, was then expecting a grant of territory in America as a reward for his services to the royal cause. Already the merchants of London had been roused to the possibilities of this trade by the recent arrival of the first cargo of furs from New Amsterdam; and now when the two impartial Frenchmen pointed out to them that the trade was being choked in Quebec, and that England had a golden opportunity of profitable enterprise, two vessels, the _Nonsuch_ and the _Eagle_, were fitted out without delay, and one Captain Gillam received instructions to investigate and report.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PRINCE OF WALES'S FORT, HUDSON'S BAY, 1777]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PRINCE RUPERT]

Such was the beginning of the Hudson's Bay Company. Having spent a winter at Fort Charles, the first fort on the Bay, so named after the royal patron, the adventurers returned to England in 1670 with such solid proofs of the soundness of the speculation, that the new Company received a charter from the King under the t.i.tle of "_The Governor and Company of Adventurers of England, Trading into Hudson's Bay_." The Company were const.i.tuted lords and proprietors of the territories round Hudson's Bay, now called Rupert's Land, having powers like those of the feudal lords of an earlier time--"to employ ships of war, to erect forts, to make reprisals, to send home English traders who neglected their licenses, and to declare war or make peace with any people not Christian." Although the Declaration of Rights in 1689 limited the rights granted by exclusive charters, and allowed British subjects to trade freely to any quarter, yet the Hudson's Bay Company had in the twenty years previous to that date obtained such a hold upon the new territory, especially by the erection of forts, that they easily left all compet.i.tors behind.

The spirit of discovery was never so alive among the French as during those years following the expulsion of Radisson and Groseilliers; yet the Government in Quebec was slow to realise the serious nature of the menace in the north; and from the official papers afterwards prepared for the British delegates at Utrecht, their easy confidence is thus described:--

"Mr. Bailey, the Company's first Governor of their factories and settlements in that Bay, entertained a friendly correspondence by letters and otherwise with Monsieur Frontenac, then Governor of Canada, not in the least complaining, in several years, of any pretended injury done to France by the said Company's settling a trade and building a fort at the bottom of Hudson's Bay, nor making pretensions to any right of France on that Bay, or to the countries bordering on it, till long after this time."

Trouble, however, came in due course. With a natural distrust of renegade Frenchmen, Governor Bailey suspected the two friends of being concerned in a plot set on foot by certain Jesuit agents of the Intendant Talon in 1673, by which the loyalty of the Indians was to be alienated from the English traders. After scenes of personal violence, the alleged traitors justified the suspicions of the Governor by severing once more the slender tie of their allegiance and returning to the service of France. Nor was it long before new fruits of their restless energy appeared. In 1681 the _Compagnie du Nord_ was organised as a rival to the "Adventurers of England"; and in the same year the Intendant d.u.c.h.esneau complained to his Government of the aggressions of the English traders.

"They" (the English), he wrote, "are still in Hudson's Bay on the north and do great damage to our fur trade....The sole means to prevent them succeeding in what is prejudicial to us would be to drive them by main force from that Bay, which belongs to us. Or, if there would be an objection in coming to that extremity, to construct forts on the rivers falling into the lakes, in order to stop the Indians at these points."

From this time to the peace of Utrecht there was war between the Hudson's Bay Company and the French. A veiled expedition set out from Quebec in 1682, under the guidance of Groseilliers and Radisson, to attack the forts on the Bay; and by their effrontery and good generalship they at last became possessed of the newly built Fort Nelson, with Bridgar its Governor, and returned next year with their prisoners and spoils to Quebec. But this triumph was soon converted by their lawless temper into disgrace and condemnation; and to escape penalty for misappropriating large quant.i.ties of fur, the two leaders were compelled to fly from New France for the second time, and once more take refuge in Paris.

But now the English Company decided to make another bid for the services of these versatile bushrangers, who once more proved their graceful facility for playing a double game. Radisson was sent by the English amba.s.sador to London, where he became a lion of society, and was presented to Charles II. John Selwyn thus describes his appearance:[40]--

"To the Duke's Playhouse, where Radisson, the American fur-trader, was in the royal box. Never was such a combination of French, English, and Indian savage as Sir John Kirke's son-in-law....He was not wont to dress so when he was last here, but he has got him a new coat with much lace upon it, which he wears with his leather breeches and shoes. His hair is a perfect tangle. It is said he has made an excellent fortune for himself."

[Footnote 40: Quoted by Beckles Willson, _The Great Company_, vol. i.

p. 141.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Earl of Durham.

Governor General of Canada May-Oct. 1838.]

Radisson's star, however, was almost set, for although he enriched his new masters with fresh cargoes of spoil from the north, his reckless disposition had again involved him in a quarrel with a powerful agent of the Company, and on returning to England he found himself discredited and neglected. With a pension of ten pounds a month, paid by the Company only after the strenuous Radisson had had recourse to law, he continued to live in obscurity until 1720, his friend Groseilliers having died ten years before. He had paid dearly for his lack of patriotism. An affected or a.s.sumed distrust of him on the part of the Hudson's Bay Company, who had profited enormously by his services, was the unconvincing reason given for mean neglect and an injustice only at last set right by the law invoked through Sir William Young and Richard Cradock, members of the Company. Brigand or traitor though he was, as such he had been the agent of the Hudson's Bay Company, and his bold services were worthy of reward.

Meantime the Company's servants were being hard pressed in the Bay, confronted as they were by one of the best commanders of the time, the famous Sieur d'Iberville, who gained his first laurels in this obscure conflict. Although the glory of the campaign was reaped by their French a.s.sailants, who, between the years 1682 and 1688, inflicted losses on the Company to the extent of seven ships with their cargoes, and six forts and factories, yet the material advantages turned out in the end to be on the side of the English traders. Among other indiscretions, the conquerors fell to quarrelling with the Indian tribes, who soon made their position on the sh.o.r.es of Hudson's Bay intolerable; while the _coureurs de bois_, spreading out from their headquarters at Michillimackinac, diverted the Indian trappers from French and English forts alike.

On the other hand, the Hudson's Bay Company were able, in 1690, to declare a dividend of seventy-five per cent on their original stock; and on the accession of William III. they presented him with a substantial proof of the progress of their undertaking:--

"On this happy occasion," so their address ran, "we desire also most humbly to present to your Majesty a dividend of 225 guineas upon a 300 stock in the Hudson's Bay Company...and although we have been the greatest sufferers of any Company from those enemies of all mankind, the French, yet when your Majesty's just arms shall have given repose to all Christendom, we also shall enjoy our share of these great benefits, and do not doubt but to appear often with this golden fruit in our hands, under the happy influence of your Majesty's most gracious protection over us and all our concerns."

William acknowledged this manifestation of loyalty by granting the Company a confirmation of their charter, and by including a statement of their grievances in his first declaration of war against France; but it is evident that the Home Government at that time took little real heed to the interests of this distant dependency, and by a casual clause in the Treaty of Ryswick the most important ports on Hudson's Bay were ceded to the French.

The Company's prospects after that surrender were indeed gloomy; shares fell low, indifference and ignorance prevailing in high places; and the faithful remnant could only hope for a renewal of the war. But at last Fortune began to smile again; for although no important battles were ever afterwards fought in the region of the Bay, the brilliant campaigns of Marlborough in Europe reflected glory upon the struggling traders in the New World, and gave them prestige and power; until finally, by the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, the huge undefined domain of Hudson's Bay was unconditionally yielded up to Great Britain. After many years one more hapless attempt was made to capture the forts of the north; but thenceforth the French put forward no regular claim to the territory so long disputed.

Although the merchants of New England in due course made efforts to secure a share of the fur trade, the only real compet.i.tion, from first to last, was offered by the French explorers. In 1684 Du Lhut had been sent westward by Governor La Barre to counteract the influence of the Hudson's Bay Company with the Indians, and he had only reported to his master that in two years not a single savage would visit the English at Hudson's Bay. Iberville's victories in the north, however, had distracted the attention of the Government from this enterprise, and the work was left to be carried on by independent traders. A profitable trade in furs sprang up on the lines of La Verendrye's discoveries, and the forts of Michillimackinac and Sault Ste. Marie continued to flourish until the traders were finally withdrawn from all the outlying regions to defend Quebec against the English.

It had been a gallant fight, in which the native qualities of both races had been seen to advantage. Ardent, brave, adventurous, the Frenchman had ever been the best of pioneers. With a faculty for acquiring languages and dialects, he quickly adapted himself to the ways of the Indian, won their sympathy, and treated them with an equality and freedom which made their path of peaceful conquest easy and trade a cheerful jugglery. From first to last there entered into the life of the French trader and adventurer an element of patriotism and romance--conquest for conquest's sake and for the glory of French enterprise. He must ever remain the more eloquent, the more picturesque figure, the more admired pioneer of the Far North. But his rival, the Briton, had qualities which outwore him, and the patriarchal and stable methods of the Hudson's Bay Company prevailed in the end.

The heroic age of the Company had pa.s.sed away; and now a long and uneventful period began, in which, as in the Middle Ages, the energies of men were slowly gathering for the more strenuous activity of modern conditions.

"_Pro pelle cutem_," the chosen motto of the Company, was perhaps humorously understood as conveying loosely the notion of an exchange of peltries; for certainly the vindictive principle, "a skin for a skin," did not mark their dealings with the Indian tribes. From the first they were fortunate in encountering more peaceable races than those opposing the colonists further south; and a regular trade was conducted upon the basis of a fixed scale of values, the unit of calculation being one beaver skin. Thus a gun could be procured for eight, or ten, or twelve winter beavers, according to the cla.s.sification of the skin by size and weight. One beaver was the equivalent of a hatchet, or four pounds of shot, or half a pound of beads, or a pound of tobacco. A laced coat was worth six beavers, and a looking-gla.s.s and comb cost two beavers; and so on through all the luxuries and necessities of Indian life, other pelts being always reduced to the terms of beaver skins.

A traveller[41] who visited the country at a somewhat later period of the eighteenth century has drawn a picture of the ornate ceremony, which, on the Indian side at least, transformed barter into a solemn function, and provided the exiled traders with a comedy of manners. He describes how, salutes having been fired on both sides, the Indians are elaborately welcomed within the fort, where, after long silence and much tobacco-smoking, the subject of the visit is distantly broached, and the chief receives propitiatory gifts of brightly coloured apparel: "A coa.r.s.e cloth coat, either red or blue, lined with baize, and having regimental cuffs; and a waistcoat and breeches of baize. The suit is ornamented with orris lace. He is also presented with a white orris shirt; his stockings are of yarn, one of them red, the other blue, and tied below the knee with worsted garters; his Indian shoes are sometimes put on, but he frequently walks in his stocking feet; his hat is coa.r.s.e, and bedecked with three ostrich feathers of various colours, and a worsted sash tied round the crown; a small silk handkerchief is tied round his neck, and this compleats his dress."

[Footnote 41: Umfreville, _Present State of Hudson's Bay_, 1790.]

The Chief thus gaily equipped is conducted back from the fort to his own tent. "In the front a halbard and ensign are carried; next a drummer beating a march; then several of the factory servants bearing the bread, prunes, pipes, tobacco, brandy, etc. Then comes the Captain [Chief], walking quite erect and stately, smoaking his pipe, and conversing with the Factor."

Afterwards came the smoking of the sacred calumet, the pledge of peace and unity, followed by the inspection of the merchandise, and a speech from the Chief in this wise:--

"You told me last year to bring many Indians to trade, which I promised to do; you see I have not lied; here are a great many young men come with me; use them kindly, I say; let them trade good goods; I say! We lived hard last winter and hungry, the powder being short measure and bad, I say! Tell your servants to fill the measure, and not to put their thumbs within the brim; take pity on us, take pity on us, I say! We paddle a long way to see you; we love the English. Let us trade good black tobacco, moist and hard twisted; let us see it before it is opened. Take pity on us, take pity on us, I say! The guns are bad; let us trade light guns, small in the hand and well shaped, with locks that will not freeze in the winter, and red gun cases. Let the young men have more than measure of tobacco; cheap kettles, thick and high.

Give us good measure of cloth; let us see the old measure; do you mind me? The young men love you, by coming so far to see you; take pity, take pity, I say; and give them good goods; they like to dress and be fine.

Do you understand me?"

By such yearly functions, by gifts, and a sober friendliness never dissociated from the authority of the ruling race, the English company held its sway after the French had retired.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SIR ALEXANDER MACKENZIE (Celebrated North-West explorer)]

About this time, however, loud complaints were heard on all hands of the want of enterprise of the Hudson's Bay Company in not seizing the opportunities afforded by the charter. Its trade was lethargic, its traders were timid or slothful, its people possessed none of that audacity and adventure which had sent Frenchmen like Du Lhut and La Verendrye into the wilds intent on territory or trade. They yawned and were content with the trade which came their way. It seemed as though they smugly counted on their business virtue to attract, and their yearly gifts and patronage to allure the fur-hunting tribes. A world lay spread around them, and they remained at the doors of their posts and forts. No joy of the woods possessed them, no faith in the future drew them on; they followed the makers of Empire, guessing nothing of what Empire meant, hating their rivals for gifts they neither possessed nor desired. One Joseph Robson, who worked as surveyor in the northern forts in 1744, relates a conversation held that year with the captain at York Factory:--

"I expressed my surprise," he writes, "that the Company did not send Englishmen up the rivers to encourage and endear the natives, and by that means put a stop to the progress of the French....He said that he believed the French would have all the country in another century. To which I could not help immediately replying that such an alienation could only be effected through the remissness of the English." Robson next requested leave to travel inland; and "this brought on dismal tales of the difficulties to be encountered in such an expedition; and when I talked of going up rivers, I was told of stupendous heaps of ice and dreadful waterfalls, which would not only obstruct my pa.s.sage but endanger my life.

To confirm this, he said that Governor Maclish once attempted to go a little way up Nelson River to look for timber in order to build a factory, but found such heaps of ice in the river that they were discouraged from proceeding any higher."[42]

Umfreville, the writer and traveller already quoted, likewise challenges the Company for its "total want of spirit, to push on its work with that vigour which the importance of the contest deserves.

The merchants from Canada," he continues, "have been heard to acknowledge that were the Hudson's Bay Company to prosecute their trade in a spirited manner, they must be soon obliged to give up all thoughts of penetrating into the country; as from the vicinity of the Company's factories to the inland parts, they can afford to undersell them in every branch."

[Footnote 42: Robson, _Six Years' Residence in Hudson's Bay_, 1752.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Sir John Colborne, (afterwards Lord Seaton) Governor General of Canada 1838-1841.]

This advantage enabled the older Company to reach the stations on the Bay at an earlier season of the year than was possible for their rivals by the overland route. Yet such was the zeal animating the Canadian companies that, conquering all difficulties of season and situation, they delivered goods to the Indians in their villages and tepees, thus antic.i.p.ating their journey to the north; and some time after the Conquest forty canoes of about four tons burden each left the St. Lawrence every year for the interior.

The fall of Quebec marked a crisis in the affairs of the Hudson's Bay Company, and for a time indeed it seemed as if it also would pa.s.s away with the old _regime_. Their foes at this time began to multiply; for while the veteran _coureurs de bois_ of Canada were ready enough, after the Conquest, to take service under their new masters, the Colonial forces were now further augmented by a large body of Scotch settlers, partly Jacobite refugees, and partly soldiers of the Highland regiments of Amherst and Wolfe. With vitality thus renewed the Canadians now turned to the west, their emissaries penetrating as far westward as Sturgeon Lake on the Saskatchewan, where a trading station was erected to divert the Indians from the forts at Hudson's Bay. But suddenly the "Adventurers of England" awoke from their long sleep, and Hearne, their agent, was forthwith sent to open up new territories, across which a chain of stations soon marked the successive stages of their progress, from c.u.mberland House to distant Athabasca. The spirit of compet.i.tion was now aflame, and on many occasions in the course of the next fifty years it caused the opposing Companies to pa.s.s the limits of commercial strife and contend in open warfare, until mutual interest and vice-regal authority at last combined to reconcile them.

A great and threatening rival to the Hudson's Bay Company had come.

The North-West Company, founded at Montreal in 1782, under the leadership of Simon McTavish, was founded on principles which made it a power against the older organisation, its agents receiving a stimulus to enterprise from a share in the profits of the undertaking and pay double that given by the English Company. These advantages proved so potent, that soon after beginning operations the North-Westers were able to send abroad skins to four times the value of those exported by their great rival.

But this zeal was met in a new and robust spirit which held the issue of the conflict long in doubt. The beginning of the new century saw its force increase--a civil war carried on beyond the vision of the nations in the vast forests of the north. The story of this Homeric struggle, however, with its romantic episodes and opposing heroes--Cuthbert Grant, Colin Robertson, Duncan Cameron, and the rest--the battle of Greys against Blues, in which the chiefs of the north, issuing with their wild _bois brules_ from the stronghold of Fort William,[43] raided and harried the despised "old countrymen,"

the "Pork-eaters," the "Workers in gardens," or suffered reprisals from these underestimated rivals; the history of Lord Selkirk's settlement in the Red River, around which the final battle wound in the year when Europe was witnessing the last great effort of Napoleon--all this does not fall within the scope of the present work.

[Footnote 43: Founded in honour of William M'Gillivray in 1805.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: SIMON M'TAVISH (Founder of the North-West Company in 1783)]

In 1821, under pressure from the Duke of Richmond, the Greys and Blues agreed to merge their forces in an equal partnership, which, retaining the name of the older Company, was framed on the co-operative principle so effective in the success of the North-Western concern. Having received a fresh charter from the Government, the new Company began a peaceful and not less profitable career, until in exchange for an indemnity of three hundred thousand pounds, and a grant of seven million acres in the best districts of the North-West Territories, the feudal rights of the Hudson's Bay Company were at last taken over by the Dominion of Canada. The Company, however, still pursues its prosperous way. Its forts and posts are sources of influence, centres of safety; its officers and men a devoted and upright band who have proved their right to the grat.i.tude of the empire--unliveried policemen of good government and national integrity.