HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY FOUNDED.
Royal charters--Good Queen Bess--"So miserable a
wilderness"--Courtly stockholders--Correct spelling--"The nonsense
of the Charters"--Mighty rivers--Lords of the territory--To execute
justice--War on infidels--Power to seize--"Skin for skin"--Friends
of the red man.
The success of the first voyage made by the London merchants to Hudson
Bay was so marked that the way was open for establishing the Company and
carrying on a promising trade. The merchants who had given their names
or credit for Gillam's expedition lost no time in applying, with their
patron, Prince Rupert, at their head, to King Charles II. for a Charter
to enable them more safely to carry out their plans. Their application
was, after some delay, granted on May 2nd, 1670.
The modern method of obtaining privileges such as they sought would have
been by an application to Parliament; but the seventeenth century was
the era of Royal Charters. Much was said in England eighty years after
the giving of this Charter, and again in Canada forty years ago, against
the illegality and unwisdom of such Royal Charters as the one granted to
the Hudson's Bay Company. These criticisms, while perhaps just, scarcely
cover the ground in question.
As to the abstract point of the granting of Royal Charters, there
would probably be no two opinions to-day, but it was conceded to be a
royal prerogative two centuries ago, although the famous scene cannot
be forgotten where Queen Elizabeth, in allowing many monopolies which
she had granted to be repealed, said in answer to the Address from the
House of Commons: "Never since I was a queen did I put my pen to any
grant but upon pretext and semblance made to me that it was both good
and beneficial to the subject in general, though private profit to some
of my ancient servants who had deserved well.... Never thought was
cherished in my heart that tended not to my people's good."
The words, however, of the Imperial Attorney-General and
Solicitor-General, Messrs. Bethel and Keating, of Lincoln's Inn, when
appealed to by the British Parliament, are very wise: "The questions of
the validity and construction of the Hudson's Bay Company Charter cannot
be considered apart from the enjoyment that has been had under it during
nearly two centuries, and the recognition made of the rights of the
Company in various acts, both of the Government and Legislature."
The bestowal of such great privileges as those given to the Hudson's Bay
Company are easily accounted for in the prevailing idea as to the royal
prerogative, the strong influence at Court in favour of the applicants
for the Charter, and, it may be said, in such opinions as that expressed
forty years after by Oldmixon: "There being no towns or plantations
in this country (Rupert's Land), but two or three forts to defend the
factories, we thought we were at liberty to place it in our book where
we pleased, and were loth to let our history open with the description
of so wretched a Colony. For as rich as the trade to those parts has
been or may be, the way of living is such that we cannot reckon any man
happy whose lot is cast upon this Bay."
The Charter certainly opens with a breath of unrestrained heartiness
on the part of the good-natured King Charles. First on the list of
recipients is "our dear entirely beloved Prince Rupert, Count Palatine
of the Rhine, Duke of Bavaria and Cumberland, etc," who seems to have
taken the King captive, as if by one of his old charges when he gained
the name of the fiery Rupert of Edgehill. Though the stock book of the
Company has the entry made in favour of Christopher, Duke of Albemarle,
yet the Charter contains that of the famous General Monk, who, as "Old
George," stood his ground in London during the year of the plague
and kept order in the terror-stricken city. The explanation of the
occurrence of the two names is found in the fact that the father died in
the year of the granting of the Charter. The reason for the appearance
of the name of Sir Philip Carteret in the Charter is not so evident, for
not only was Sir George Carteret one of the promoters of the Company,
but his name occurs as one of the Court of Adventurers in the year after
the granting of the Charter. John Portman, citizen and goldsmith of
London, is the only member named who is neither nobleman, knight, nor
esquire, but he would seem to have been very useful to the Company as a
man of means.
The Charter states that the eighteen incorporators named deserve the
privileges granted because they "have at their own great cost and
charges undertaken an expedition for Hudson Bay, in the north-west parts
of America, for a discovery of a new passage into the South Sea, and for
the finding of some trade for furs, minerals, and other considerable
commodities, and by such their undertakings, have already made such
discoveries as to encourage them to proceed farther in pursuance of
their said design, by means whereof there may probably arise great
advantage to Us and our kingdoms."
The full name of the Company given in the Charter is, "The Governor
and Company of Adventurers of England, trading into Hudson Bay." They
have usually been called "The Hudson's Bay Company," the form of the
possessive case being kept in the name, though it is usual to speak
of the bay itself as Hudson Bay. The adventurers are given the powers
of possession, succession, and the legal rights and responsibilities
usually bestowed in incorporation, with the power of adopting a seal
or changing the same at their "will and pleasure"; and this is granted
in the elaborate phraseology found in documents of that period.
Full provision is made in the Charter for the election of Governor,
Deputy-Governor, and the Managing Committee of seven. It is interesting
to notice during the long career of the Company how the simple machinery
thus provided was adapted, without amendment, in carrying out the
immense projects of the Company during the two and a quarter centuries
of its existence.
The grant was certainly sufficiently comprehensive. The opponents of
the Company in later days mentioned that King Charles gave away in
his sweeping phrase a vast territory of which he had no conception,
and that it was impossible to transfer property which could not be
described. In the case of the English Colonies along the Atlantic
coast it was held by the holders of the charters that the frontage
of the seaboard carried with it the strip of land all the way across
the continent. It will be remembered how, in the settlement with the
Commissioners after the American Revolution, Lord Shelburne spoke of
this theory as the "nonsense of the charters." The Hudson's Bay Company
was always very successful in the maintenance of its claim to the full
privileges of the Charter, and until the time of the surrender of its
territory to Canada kept firm possession of the country from the shore
of Hudson Bay even to the Rocky Mountains.
The generous monarch gave the Company "the whole trade of all those
seas, streights, and bays, rivers, lakes, creeks, and sounds, in
whatsoever latitude they shall be, that lie within the entrance of the
streights commonly called Hudson's Streights, together with all the
lands, countries, and territories upon the coasts and confines of the
seas, streights, bays, lakes, rivers, creeks, and sounds aforesaid,
which are not now actually possessed by any of our subjects, or by the
subjects of any other Christian prince or State."
The wonderful water system by which this great claim was extended over
so vast a portion of the American continent has been often described.
The streams running from near the shore of Lake Superior find their way
by Rainy Lake, Lake of the Woods, and Lake Winnipeg, then by the River
Nelson, to Hudson Bay. Into Lake Winnipeg, which acts as a collecting
basin for the interior, also run the Red River and mighty Saskatchewan,
the latter in some ways rivalling the Mississippi, and springing from
the very heart of the Rocky Mountains. The territory thus drained was
all legitimately covered by the language of the Charter. The tenacious
hold of its vast domain enabled the Company to secure in later years
leases of territory lying beyond it on the Arctic and Pacific slopes.
In the grant thus given perhaps the most troublesome feature was the
exclusion, even from the territory granted, of the portion "possessed
by the subjects of any other Christian prince or State." We shall see
afterwards that within less than twenty years claims were made by the
French of a portion of the country on the south side of the Bay; and
also a most strenuous contention was put forth at a later date for the
French explorers, as having first entered in the territory lying in
the basin of the Red and Saskatchewan Rivers. This claim, indeed, was
advanced less than fifty years ago by Canada as the possessor of the
rights once maintained by French Canada.
The grant in general included the trade of the country, but is made
more specific in one of the articles of the Charter, in that "the
fisheries within Hudson's Streights, the minerals, including gold,
silver, gems, and precious stones, shall be possessed by the Company."
It is interesting to note that the country thus vaguely described is
recognized as one of the English "Plantations or Colonies in America,"
and is called, in compliment to the popular Prince, "Rupert's Land."
Perhaps the most astounding gift bestowed by the Charter is not that of
the trade, or what might be called, in the phrase of the old Roman law,
the "usufruct," but the transfer of the vast territory, possibly more
than one quarter or a third of the whole of North America, to hold it
"in free and common socage," i.e., as absolute proprietors. The value
of this concession was tested in the early years of this century, when
the Hudson's Bay Company sold to the Earl of Selkirk a portion of the
territory greater in area than the whole of England and Scotland; and
in this the Company was supported by the highest legal authorities in
England.
To the minds of some, even more remarkable than the transfer of the
ownership of so large a territory was the conferring upon the Company by
the Crown of the power to make laws, not only for their own forts and
plantations, with all their officers and servants, but having force over
all persons upon the lands ceded to them so absolutely.
The authority to administer justice is also given in no uncertain
terms. The officers of the Company "may have power to judge all persons
belonging to the said Governor and Company, or that shall live under
them, in all causes, whether civil or criminal, according to the laws of
this kingdom, and execute justice accordingly." To this was also added
the power of sending those charged with offences to England to be tried
and punished. The authorities, in the course of time, availed themselves
of this right. We shall see in the history of the Red River Settlement,
in the very heart of Rupert's Land, the spectacle of a community of
several thousands of people within a circle having a radius of fifty
miles ruled by Hudson's Bay Company authority, with the customs duties
collected, certain municipal institutions established, and justice
administered, and the people for two generations not possessed of
representative institutions.
One of the powers most jealously guarded by all governments is the
control of military expeditions. There is a settled unwillingness to
allow private individuals to direct or influence them. No qualms of this
sort seem to have been in the royal mind over this matter in connection
with the Hudson's Bay Company. The Company is fully empowered in the
Charter to send ships of war, men, or ammunition into their plantations,
allowed to choose and appoint commanders and officers, and even to issue
them their commissions.
There is a ludicrous ring about the words empowering the Company to
make peace or war with any prince or people whatsoever that are not
Christians, and to be permitted for this end to build all necessary
castles and fortifications. It seems to have the spirit of the old
formula leaving Jews, Turks, and Saracens to the uncovenanted mercies
rather than to breathe the nobler principles of a Christian land.
Surely, seldom before or since has a Company gone forth thus armed
_cap-à-pie_ to win glory and profit for their country.
An important proviso of the Charter, which was largely a logical
sequence of the power given to possess the wide territory, was the
grant of the "whole, entire, and only Liberty of Trade and Traffick."
The claim of a complete monopoly of trade was held most strenuously by
the Company from the very beginning. The early history of the Company
abounds with accounts of the steps taken to prevent the incoming of
interlopers. These were private traders, some from the English colonies
in America, and others from England, who fitted out expeditions to trade
upon the Bay. Full power was given by the Charter "to seize upon the
persons of all such English or any other subjects, which sail into
Hudson's Bay or inhabit in any of the countries, islands, or territories
granted to the said Governor and Company, without their leave and
license in that behalf first had and obtained."
The abstract question of whether such monopoly may rightly be granted
by a free government is a difficult one, and is variously decided by
different authorities. The "free trader" was certainly a person greatly
disliked in the early days of the Company. Frequent allusions are made
in the minutes of the Company, during the first fifty years of its
existence, to the arrest and punishment of servants or employés of the
Company who secreted valuable furs on their homeward voyage for the
purpose of disposing of them. As late as half a century ago, in the more
settled parts of Rupert's Land, on the advice of a judge who had a high
sense of its prerogative, an attempt was made by the Company to prevent
private trading in furs. Very serious local disturbances took place in
the Red River Settlement at that time, but wiser counsels prevailed, and
in the later years of the Company's régime the imperative character of
the right was largely relaxed.
The Charter fittingly closes with a commendation of the Company by the
King to the good offices of all admirals, justices, mayors, sheriffs,
and other officers of the Crown, enjoining them to give aid, favour,
help, and assistance.
With such extensive powers, the wonder is that the Company bears, on the
whole, after its long career over such an extended area of operations,
and among savage and border people unaccustomed to the restraints of
law, so honourable a record. Being governed by men of high standing,
many of them closely associated with the operations of government
at home, it is very easy to trace how, as "freedom broadened slowly
down" from Charles II. to the present time, the method of dealing with
subjects and subordinates became more and more gentle and considerate.
As one reads the minutes of the Company in the Hudson's Bay House for
the first quarter of a century of its history, the tyrannical spirit,
even so far at the removal of troublesome or unpopular members of the
Committee and the treatment of rivals, is very evident.
This intolerance was of the spirit of the age. In the Restoration,
the Revolution, and the trials of prisoners after rebellion, men were
accustomed to the exercise of the severest penalties for the crimes
committed. As the spirit of more gentle administration of law found its
way into more peaceful times the Company modified its policy.
[Illustration: ARMS OF THE HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY.]
The Hudson's Bay Company was, it is true, a keen trader, as the motto,
"Pro Pelle Cutem"--"skin for skin"--clearly implies. With this no fault
can be found, the more that its methods were nearly all honourable
British methods. It never forgot the flag that floated over it. One of
the greatest testimonies in its favour was that, when two centuries
after its organization it gave up, except as a purely trading company,
its power to Canada, yet its authority over the wide-spread Indian
population of Rupert's Land was so great, that it was asked by the
Canadian Government to retain one-twentieth of the land of that wide
domain as a guarantee of its assistance in transferring power from the
old to the new régime.
The Indian had in every part of Rupert's Land absolute trust in the
good faith of the Company. To have been the possessor of such absolute
powers as those given by the Charter; to have on the whole "borne their
faculties so meek"; to have been able to carry on government and trade
so long and so successfully, is not so much a commendation of the royal
donor of the Charter as it is of the clemency and general fairness of
the administration, which entitled it not only officially but also
really, to the title "The Honourable Hudson's Bay Company."