THE STORY OF THE GREAT TRADING COMPANIES
But now to leave the fortress city for a little space, and see its
influence working in the wilds which it had commanded by the valour of
its adventurers and traders. While England and France had been
contending on the St. Lawrence for mastery, and the struggle to gain
or to retain the Gibraltar of America had dragged its length through
generations, far off in the white north another strife between the
civil energies of both nations was being waged. The English
explorers--Frobisher, Davis, Hudson, and Baffin--had been the first to
reach the northern coast from the sea, giving their names to water and
territory which have since become familiar to the civilised world.
Theirs was the old dream--a north-western route to India and China. No
such vision, however, had presented itself to the French explorers
who, about the same time as the English, planted their flag upon those
barren shores, and pushed up from the south, partly to explore, but
more certainly to develop the trade in furs which the _Compagnie
des cents Associés_, founded by Richelieu in 1627, had already worked
to advantage. The charter of this Company, indeed, did not include the
regions of Hudson's Bay, but was confined to the province of Canada
alone. To-day, Canada comprises all the vast territory north of the
49th parallel of latitude, even to the pole; then its sphere of
influence stretched westward to the Missouri and the Mississippi, and
southward to Louisiana; while those regions now called Manitoba,
Saskatchewan, Athabasca, Assiniboine, and the Klondike were as yet
unknown. When Hearne, the Hudson's Bay Company explorer, pushed his
way northward and westward to the copper mine on the Copper River, it
seemed as if the ultimate ends of the world had been reached, and that
the vast region of ice and snow, inhabited by wandering tribes of
Indians, would be for ever the property of a trading company.
[Illustration: Gen. Lord Aylmer. Born in 1775.
Governor General of Canada.
1830-1831--1831-1835]
So far back as 1630 an agency of commerce and exploration was founded
in Quebec, under the name of the Beaver Company. This was forty years
before the Hudson's Bay Company received its charter from the second
Charles. The French went so far in their eagerness for territory that
they even claim to have discovered Hudson's Bay, through one Jean
Bourdon, in 1656. This claim is not admitted, however, in the _Jesuit
Relations_, where, in 1672, Father Albanel writes: "Hitherto this
voyage had been considered impossible to Frenchmen, who, after having
undertaken it three times, and not having been able to surmount the
obstacles, had seen themselves to abandon it in despair of success."
The claims of England to the territory were undoubted; but there can
be no question that Frenchmen were the first traders in the vicinity
of Hudson's Bay.
[Illustration: 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.
[Illustration: 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 ambassador 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.
[Illustration: PRINCE OF WALES'S FORT, HUDSON'S BAY, 1777]
[Illustration: 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 title of "_The
Governor and Company of Adventurers of England, Trading into Hudson's
Bay_." The Company were constituted 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 competitors 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 Duchesneau 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 quantities 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 ambassador 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.]
[Illustration: 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 assumed 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 assailants, 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 shores 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 competition, 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 Vérendrye'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 passed 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
classification 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-glass 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 coarse 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 coarse, 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.
[Illustration: 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
Vérendrye 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 passage 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.]
[Illustration: 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 anticipating 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 pass away
with the old _régime_. 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 Cumberland House to distant
Athabasca. The spirit of competition was now aflame, and on many
occasions in the course of the next fifty years it caused the opposing
Companies to pass 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 brûles_ 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.]
[Illustration: 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
gratitude of the empire--unliveried policemen of good government and
national integrity.
[Illustration: EARL OF SELKIRK
(Founder of Selkirk Settlement, 1820)]