The Great Company Part 48

8. All t.i.tles to land up to the 8th of March, 1869, conferred by the Company, are to be confirmed.

9. The Company to be at liberty to carry on its trade without hindrance, in its corporate capacity, and no exceptional tax is to be placed on the Company's land, trade or servants, nor an import duty on goods introduced by them previous to the surrender.

10. Canada is to take over the materials of the Electric Telegraph at cost price, such price including transport, but not including interest for money, and subject to a deduction for ascertained deteriorations.

11. The Company's claim to land under agreement of Messrs.

Vankoughnet and Hopkins to be withdrawn.

12. The details of this arrangement, including the filling up of the blanks in Articles 4 and 6, to be settled at once by mutual agreement.

[Sidenote: Cession to Canadian Government.]

On such terms did the Canadian Government acquire this vast territory of two million three hundred thousand square miles. In that portion designated the Fertile Belt, comprising three hundred million acres, there were agricultural lands believed to be capable of yielding support to twenty-five million people.

Filled with high hopes as to the future of the country they had thus acquired, the Canadian Government was confronted by the necessity of providing it with a suitable form of government to replace that of the Company. Little did the public men who had interested themselves in the negotiations ponder on the difficulties of the task. Apparently they undertook it with a light heart. During the session of 1869 an Act was pa.s.sed at Ottawa providing a provisional form of government in the territory, and in October of the same year the Hon. William McDougall received the appointment of Lieutenant-Governor. But before he set out on his duties surveying parties had been busy in the Red River settlement, laying out townships and inst.i.tuting an extended series of surveys.

[Sidenote: Forlorn case of the Metis.]

In order to be in the place of his government when by the Queen's Proclamation it should become a portion of the Dominion of Canada, McDougall, in the month of November, found himself at the frontier of his Province. But the transfer was not to be consummated without bloodshed. A portion of the little community of Red River raised its voice in vehement protest against the arrangements made between the Government of Canada and the Company. These malcontents, chiefly French half-breeds, headed by Louis Riel, expelled the Governor appointed by the Dominion and planned a resistance to all authority emanating from the same source. They a.s.sembled in large numbers, and, after fortifying portions of the road between Pembina and Fort Garry, had taken possession of the latter post. Upon consideration of the case of these wild and ignorant Metis, it is difficult to withhold from them sympathy. Settled government, forms of law, state duty, exactions of citizenship, the sacrifices and burdens of urban civilization--of these he knew but dimly, and held them in a vague horror. He knew that men lived and ground out their lives in cities afar off, and that by means of their wealth they possessed power; that they had cast envious eyes on the hunting-grounds of the Indian and his half-brother the Metis; that they sought to wrest him from his lands and mark it off into town lots, people his beloved prairies and exterminate his race. They must mean him ill or they would not work in such a silent, stealthy fashion to dispossess him and drive him farther west into unfamiliar fastnesses. There were fifteen thousand souls in the country bordering on Red River, and the majority objected, not without reason, that such an arrangement as had just been carried out should be done without their consent or having been consulted. Was it wonderful that the half-breed, resenting this march of civilization which would trample him and his possessions to atoms, should arise, seize his rude weapons, and prepare for war?

It is true the insurrection of 1869-70 could have been averted. It would have been easy, through an agent of tact and eloquence, to have dispelled the illusions which had taken possession of the Metis, and to have restored confidence as to the policy of Canada. But was it the Hudson's Bay Company's duty to enlighten the aggrieved inhabitants?

The Company who had been bullied and badgered and threatened with confiscation unless it agreed to a renunciation of its rights? Was it the fault of the Company that several thousand wild Metis children of the wilderness, pa.s.sionately attached to the old order of things, were in their hearts loyal to the Company, which fed and clothed and administered law to them?[128]

The insurgents, growing bolder, had taken possession of Fort Garry, where a council of half-breeds was held and the inhabitants called upon to send delegates to a national convention. The English colonists accepted the invitation, but were soon made aware that Riel and his supporters were resolved on more desperate measures than they could themselves countenance. The authority of the Company had been observed; but it was now disregarded; the books and records of the Council of a.s.siniboia were seized, and on the 1st December a "Bill of Rights" was pa.s.sed by the "Provisional Government." This act of open rebellion caused the secession of the English; insurgency was now rampant and many of the inhabitants found themselves incarcerated in gaol. Then followed the illegal infliction of capital punishment upon Thomas Scott, a young Orangeman, and the despatch of Colonel (now Lord) Wolseley to the seat of trouble. Leaving Toronto on the 25th of May, 1870, Wolseley and his force, after a long and arduous journey, arrived at Fort Garry on the 24th of August. But the rebellion was already over, and the chief instigator and his companions had fled.

For many years the Company's officers in charge of the various districts in Rupert's Land had annually met in Council for the regulation and discussion of affairs of the fur-trade in general.

Regarding themselves as true partners of the Company, they naturally looked to share with the shareholders in the sum agreed to be paid by Canada for its territory.

[Sidenote: Turbulent meetings at Hudson's Bay House.]

In July, just one month before the entrance of the future hero of Tel-el-Kebir and the British troops into Fort Garry, a last meeting of the council of officers of the Honourable Hudson's Bay Company was held at the post known as Norway House. It was presided over by Fort Garry's Governor, Mr. Donald Alexander Smith,[129] a servant since boyhood of the Company. At this meeting it was decided to represent the claims of the officers to the partners in England. To this end Mr.

Smith was unanimously appointed their representative, he undertaking the task of presenting their claims. The London shareholders were by no means immediately acquiescent. But although Sir Stafford Northcote presided over some turbulent meetings in Fenchurch Street, the claims of the "wintering partners" were ultimately recognized in the only manner possible. Out of the 300,000 paid by the Dominion, the sum of 107,000 was divided amongst the officers for the relinquishment of their claims.

The Governor of the Company, in his report to the shareholders in November, stated that "since the holding of the General Court on the 28th June, the Committee have been engaged in proceeding with the re-organization of the fur-trade, and have entered into an agreement with the Chief Factors and Chief Traders for revoking the Deed Poll of 1834, and settling claims arising under it upon the terms sanctioned by the proprietors at the last General Court. They have also prepared the draft of a new Deed Poll adopted to the altered circ.u.mstances of the trade."

A new era had thus begun in the history of the Honourable Company of Merchants-Adventurers trading into Hudson's Bay.

FOOTNOTES:

[123] "To my mind the worst feature in the new Company is that of allowing a foreigner (American) to hold office. He owes allegiance to the United States, and his position gives him knowledge which no American should possess. 'Blood is thicker than water,' says the proverb: 'No man can serve two masters.' As to the idea that being in the fur-trade his experience and influence will benefit the new Company, will any furrier believe that? If the Company will sell all the furs, I would never rest satisfied while an American was in the management.'"--William McNaughten, the Company's agent at New York.

[124] The eighty-five shares belonging to the wintering partners, in 1863, were held as follows:

15 chief factors 30 shares 37 chief traders 37 "

10 retired chief factors 13 "

10 retired chief traders 5 "

-- 85 shares.

[125] "Its continued attacks upon the Company," wrote Governor Dallas, "find a greedy ear with the public at large, both in the settlement and in Canada."

[126] "With regard to the Hudson's Bay matter," wrote Cartier to Watkin, under date of 15th of February, 1868, "not the least doubt that the speech of 'John A.,' was very uncalled for and injudicious. He had no business to make such a speech, and I told him so at the time--that he ought not to have made it. However, you must not attach too much importance to that speech. I myself, and several of my colleagues, and John A. himself, have no intention to commit any spoliation; and for myself in particular, I can say to you that I will never consent to be a party to a measure or anything intended to be an act of spoliation of the Hudson's Bay's rights and privileges."

[127] "The present state of government in the Red River settlement is attributable alike to the habitual attempt encouraged, perhaps very naturally, in England and in Canada, to discredit the tradition and question the t.i.tle of the Hudson's Bay Company, and to the false economy which has stripped the Governor of a military force, with which, in the last resort, to support the decisions of the legal tribunals. No other organized government of white men in the world, since William Penn, has endeavoured to rule any population, still less a promiscuous people composed of whites, half-breeds, Indians and borderers, without a soldiery of some sort, and the inevitable result of the experiment has, in this case, been an unpunished case of prison-breaking, not sympathized in, it is true, by the majority of the settlers, but still tending to bring law and government into contempt, and greatly to discourage the governing body held responsible for keeping order in the territory."--_Governor Dallas._

[128] "It is an undoubted fact," remarks General Sir William Butler, "that warning had been given to the Dominion Government of the state of feeling amongst the half-breeds, and the phrase, 'they are only eaters of pemmican,' so cutting to the Metis, was thus first originated by a distinguished Canadian politician."

[129] The distinguished philanthropist, the present Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal, High Commissioner for Canada in London and Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE TRADING ROOM AT A HUDSON'S BAY POST.]

CHAPTER x.x.xVI.

1821-1871.

The Company still King in the North-West -- Its Forts Described -- Fort Garry -- Fort Vancouver -- Franklin -- Walla Walla -- Yukon -- Kamloops -- Samuel Black -- Mountain House -- Fort Pitt -- Policy of the Great Company.

The Company, in yielding the sovereignty of the Great North-West to Canada, was still a king, though crown and sceptre had been taken from it. Its commercial ascendancy was no whit injured; it is still one of the greatest corporations and the greatest fur company in the world.

But new interests have arisen; its pristine pride, splendour and dignity, would now be out of place. The old lion has been shorn of its mane, and his roar is now no longer heard in the Great North-West. It no longer crouches in the path of progress determined to sell dearly the smallest sacrifice of its ancient rights and privileges; it is ready to co-operate with the settler and explorer, and all its whilom enemies.

[Sidenote: Canada's debt to the Company.]

Yet, since 1871, its history has not been without many stirring pa.s.sages. Its long record of steady work, enterprise, and endurance, has never been greater. Its commanding influence with the Indians, and with a large number of the colonists, has enabled it to a.s.sist the authorities in many ways and often in forwarding the public interests, suppressing disorder and securing the good-will of the Red men who inhabit Canada. The Great Dominion owes much to the Great Company.

The posts of the Company reach from the stern coasts of Labrador to the frontiers of Alaska, and throughout this enormous region it yet controls the traffic with the aborigines. To-day there are one hundred and twenty-six posts at which this active trade is conducted, besides those numerous wintering stations or outposts, which migrate according to circ.u.mstances and mercantile conditions.

[Ill.u.s.tration: YORK FACTORY. ARRIVAL OF HUDSON'S BAY CO.'S SHIP.

(_By permission, from "Picturesque Canada."_)]

[Sidenote: Latter-day forts of the Company.]

The forts of the Company in Rupert's Land and on the Pacific, with few exceptions, all resembled each other. When permanent, they were surrounded by palisades about one hundred yards square. The pickets were of poles and logs ten or fifteen inches in diameter, sunk into the ground and rising fifteen or twenty feet above it. Split slabs were sometimes used instead of round poles; and at two diagonally opposite corners, raised above the tops of the pickets, two wooden bastions were placed so as to command a view of the country. From two to six guns were mounted in each of these bastions--four six or twelve-pounders, each with its aperture like the port-hole of a ship.

The ground floor beneath served as a magazine. Within the pickets were erected houses, according to necessity, store and dwelling being most conspicuous.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FORT PELLY.]

The older forts have already been described. When Fort Garry was constructed it became the Company's chief post and headquarters. High stone walls, having round towers pierced for cannon at the corners, enclosed a square wherein were substantial wooden buildings, including the storehouses, dwellings, the Governor's residence and the gaol. Some distance below Fort Garry, on Red River, was Stone Fort, which comprised about four acres, with numerous buildings.

The chief establishment of the Saskatchewan district was Fort Edmonton. It was of s.e.xagonal form, with pickets, battlemented gateways and bastions. Here were the usual buildings, including the carpenter's shop, blacksmith's forge and windmill. At Fort Edmonton were made and repaired, boats, carts, sleighs, harness and other articles and appliances for the annual voyage to York Factory, and for traffic between posts. There was also here a large and successful farm, where wheat, barley and vegetables were raised in abundance.

How different was Fort Franklin, a rough, pine-log hut on the sh.o.r.e of Great Bear Lake, containing a single apartment eighteen by twenty feet! It was roofed with sticks and moss, and the interstices between the logs were filled with mud.

[Sidenote: Fort Vancouver.]

In 1825 was built Fort Vancouver, the metropolitan establishment of the Company on the Pacific. It stood on the north side of the Columbia River, six miles above the eastern mouth of the Willamette. At first located at the highest point of some sloping land, about a mile from the river, this site was found disadvantageous to transport and communication, and the fort was moved a few years later to within a quarter of a mile of the Columbia. The plan presented the familiar parallelogram, but much larger than usual, of about seven hundred and fifty feet in length and five hundred in breadth. The interior was divided into two courts, with about forty buildings, all of wood, except the powder magazine, which was of stone. In the centre, facing the main entrance, stood the Governor's residence, with the dining-room, smoking-room, and public sitting-room or bachelors' hall, the latter serving also for a museum of Indian relics and other curiosities. Single men, clerks and others, made the bachelors' hall their place of resort, but artisans and servants were not admitted.