THE INTERESTING BLUE-BOOK OF 1749.
"Le roi est mort"--Royalty unfavourable--Earl of
Halifax--"Company asleep"--Petition to Parliament--Neglected
discovery--Timidity or caution--Strong "Prince of Wales"--Increase
of stock--A timid witness--Claims of discovery--To make
Indians Christians--Charge of disloyalty--New Company promises
largely--Result nil.
Arthur Dobbs, Esq., was evidently worsted in his tilt with the Hudson's
Bay Company. His fierce onslaught upon Captain Middleton was no doubt
the plan of attack to enable him to originate the expedition of the
_Dobbs_ galley and _California_. Even this voyage had brought little
better prospect of the discovery of a north-west passage, except the
optimistic words of Ellis, the use of which, indeed, seemed very like
the delectable exercise of "extracting sunbeams from cucumbers."
But the energy of the man was in no way dampened. Indeed, the
indications are, as we survey the features of the time, that he had
strong backing in the governing circles of the country. Time was when
the Hudson's Bay Company basked in the sunshine of the Court. It is,
perhaps, the penalty of old institutions that as rulers pass away and
political parties change, the centre of gravity of influence shifts.
Perhaps the Hudson's Bay Company had not been able to use the convenient
motto, "Le Roi est mort: Vive le Roi!" At any rate the strong Court
influence of the Company had passed away, and there is hardly a nobleman
to be found on the list of stockholders submitted by the Company to the
Committee of the Lords.
On the other hand, when Henry Ellis, the historian of the expedition,
writes his book in the year after his return, he is permitted to
dedicate it to His Royal Highness Frederick, Prince of Wales, is
privileged to refer in his dedication to a "gracious audience" allowed
him by the Prince after his return, and to speak of "the generous care"
expressed by the Prince "for the happy progress of his design." Again,
in a similar dedication of a book written four years afterwards by
Joseph Robson, a former employé of the Hudson's Bay Company, but a book
full of hostility to the Company, allusion is made to the fact that the
Earl of Halifax, Lord Commissioner of Trade and Plantations, gave his
most hearty approval to such plans as the expedition sought to carry
out. It is said of Lord Halifax, who was called the Father of Colonies:
"He knows the true state of the nation--that it depends on trade and
manufactures; that we have more rivals than ever; that navigation is our
bulwark and Colonies our chief support; and that new channels should be
industriously opened. Therefore, we survey the whole globe in search
of fresh inlets which our ships may enter and traffic." Those familiar
with the work of Lord Halifax will remember that the great colonization
scheme by which Nova Scotia was firmly grappled to the British Empire
and the City of Halifax founded, was his; and the charge made by Dobbs
that for a generation the "Company had slept on the shores of the Bay,"
would appeal with force to a man of such energetic and progressive
nature as the Lord Commissioner.
Accordingly, Dobbs now came out boldly; not putting the discovery of
the North-West Passage in the front of his plan, but openly charging
the Hudson's Bay Company with indolence and failure, and asking for the
granting of a charter to a rival company.
As summed up by the sub-committee to which the petition of Dobbs and his
associates was submitted, the charges were:--
I. The Company had not discovered, nor sufficiently attempted to
discover, the North-West Passage into the southern seas.
II. They had not extended their settlements to the limits given them by
their Charter.
III. They had designedly confined their trade within very narrow limits:
(_a_) Had abused the Indians.
(_b_) Had neglected their forts.
(_c_) Ill-treated their own servants.
(_d_) Encouraged the French.
The Hudson's Bay Company, now put on their mettle, exhibited a
considerable amount of activity, and filed documents before the
Committee that in some respects met the charges against them. They
claimed that they had in the thirty years preceding the investigation
done a fair amount of exploratory work and discovery. In 1719, they had
sent out the _Albany_ frigate and _Discovery_ to the northern regions,
and neither of them returned to tell the tale. In the same year its
vessels on the Bay, the _Prosperous_ and the _Success_, one from York
Factory, the other from Prince of Wales Fort, had sailed up the coast on
exploratory expeditions. Two years afterward, the _Prosperous_, under
Kelsey, made a voyage, and the _Success_, under Captain Napper, had
sailed from York Fort and was lost. In the same year the _Whalebone_,
under Captain John Scroggs, went from England to Prince of Wales Fort,
and after wintering there, in the following year made a decided effort
on behalf of the Passage, but returned unsuccessful. In the year when
Dobbs became so persistent (1737) James Napper, who had been saved from
the wreck of the _Success_ sixteen years before, took command of the
_Churchill_ from Prince of Wales Fort, but on the exploration died, and
the vessel returned. The _Musquash_, under Captain Crow, accompanied
the _Churchill_, but returned with no hope of success. This was the
case presented by the Hudson's Bay Company. It was still open to the
opponents of the Company to say, as they did, that the Hudson's Bay
Company was not in earnest, wanted nothing done to attract rivals, and
were adepts in concealing their operations and in hoodwinking the public.
A more serious charge was that they had not sought to reach the
interior, but had confined their trade to the shores of the Bay. Here
it seems that the opponents of the Company made a better case. It is
indeed unaccountable to us to-day, as we think that the Company had now
been eighty years trading on the Bay and had practically no knowledge
of the inheritance possessed by them. At this very time the French,
by way of Lake Superior, had journeyed inland, met Indian tribes,
traded with them, and even with imposing ceremonies buried metal plates
claiming the country which the Hudson's Bay Company Charter covered as
lying on rivers, lakes, &c., tributary to Hudson Bay. It is true they
had submitted instructions to the number of twenty or thirty, in which
governors and captains had been urged to explore the interior and extend
the trade among the Indian tribes. But little evidence could be offered
that these communications had been acted on.
The chief dependence of the Company seems to have been on one Henry
Kelsey, who went as a boy to Hudson Bay, but rose to be chief officer
there. The critics of the Company were not slow to state that Kelsey had
been a refugee from their forts and had lived for several seasons among
the Indians of the interior. Even if this were so, it is still true that
Kelsey came to be one of the most enterprising of the wood-runners of
the Company. Dobbs confronted them with the fact that the voyage from
Lake Superior to Hudson Bay had been only made once in their history,
and that by Joseph La France, the Canadian Indian. Certainly, whether
from timidity, caution, inertia, or from some deep-seated system of
policy, it was true that the Company had done little to penetrate the
interior.
The charge that the Company abused the Indians was hardly substantiated.
The Company was dependent on the goodwill of the Indians, and had they
treated them badly, their active rivals, the French, would simply have
reaped the benefit of their folly. That the price charged the Indians
for goods was as large as the price paid for furs was small, is quite
likely to have been true. Civilized traders all the world over, dealing
with ignorant and dependent tribes, follow this policy. No doubt the
risks of life and limb and goods in remote regions are great, and great
profits must be made to meet them. It is to be remembered, however,
that when English and French traders came into competition, as among
the Iroquois in New York State, and afterwards in the Lake Superior
district, the quality of the English goods was declared by the Indians
better and their treatment by the English on the whole more honest and
aboveboard than that by the French.
That traders should neglect their own forts seems very unlikely. Those
going to the Hudson Bay Main expected few luxuries, and certainly did
not have an easy life, but there was on the part of the Company a vast
difference in treatment as compared with that given to the fur traders
in New France as they went to the far west. No doubt pressure for
dividends prevented expenditure that was unnecessary, but a perusal of
the experience of Champlain with his French fur company leads us to
believe that the English were far the more liberal and considerate in
the treatment of employés.
The fortress of the River Churchill, known as the Prince of Wales Fort,
with its great ruins to be seen to-day, belonging to this period, speaks
of a large expense and a high ideal of what a fort ought to be. During
the examination of witnesses by the Committee, full opportunity was
given to show cases of ill-treatment of men and poor administration of
their forts. Twenty witnesses were examined, and they included captains,
merchants, and employés, many of whom had been in the service of the
Company on the Bay, but whether, as Robson says, "It must be attributed
either to their confusion upon appearing before so awful an assembly, or
to their having a dependence on the Company and an expectation of being
employed again in their service," little was elicited at all damaging to
the Company.
The charge of the fewness of the forts and the smallness of the trade
was more serious. That they should have a monopoly of the trade, and
should neither develop it themselves, nor allow others to develop it,
would have been to pursue a "dog in the manger" policy. They stated that
they had on an average three ships employed solely on their business,
that their exports for ten years immediately preceding amounted to
40,240_l._ and their imports 122,835_l._, which they claimed was a
balance of trade satisfactory to England.
The objection that the whole capital of the Company at the commencement,
10,500_l._, was trifling, was perhaps true, but they had made great
profits, and they used them in the purchase of ships and the building of
forts, and now had a much more valuable property than at the beginning.
That they had been able to increase their stock so largely was a tribute
to the profits of their business and to its ability to earn dividends on
a greatly increased capital stock.
The increase of stock as shown by the Company was as follows:--
Original stock £10,500
Trebled in 1690 31,500
Trebled in 1720 94,500
At this time there was a movement to greatly increase the stock, but the
stringency of the money market checked this movement, and subscriptions
of ten per cent. were taken, amounting to 3,150_l._ only. This was also
trebled and added to the original 94,500_l._, making a total stock of
103,950_l._
Some three years after the investigation by the Committee, one of the
witnesses, Joseph Robson, who gave evidence of the very mildest, most
non-committal character, appears to have received new light, for he
published a book called, "An Account of Six Years' Residence in Hudson's
Bay." He says in the preface, speaking of the evidence given by him in
the investigation, "For want of confidence and ability to express myself
clearly, the account I then gave was far from being so exact and full
as that which I intended to have given." What the influence was that
so effectually opened Robson's eyes, we do not know. The second part
of this work is a critique of the evidence furnished by the Company,
and from the vigour employed by this writer as compared with the apathy
shown at the investigation, it is generally believed that in the
meantime he had become a dependent of Dobbs.
The plea put forward by the petitioners for the granting of a charter
to them contained several particulars. They had, at their own cost and
charges, fitted out two ships, the _Dobbs_ galley and _California_,
in search of the North-West Passage to the West and Southern Ocean.
Their object was, they claimed, a patriotic one, and they aimed at
extending the trade of Great Britain. They maintained that though the
reward offered had been 20,000_l._, it was not sufficient to accomplish
the end, as they had already spent more than half of that sum.
Notwithstanding this, they had discovered a number of bays, inlets,
and coasts before unknown, and inasmuch as this was the ground of the
Charter issued by Charles II. to the Hudson's Bay Company, they claimed
like consideration for performing a similar service.
The petitioners made the most ample promise as to their future should
the charter be granted. They would persevere in their search for the
passage to the Southern Ocean of America, of which, notwithstanding the
frequent failures in finding it, they had a strong hope. The forward
policy of Lord Halifax of extensive colonization they were heartily in
favour of, and they undertook to settle the lands they might discover.
The question had been raised during the investigation, whether the
Company had done anything to civilize the natives. They had certainly
done nothing. Probably their answer was that they were a trading
company, and never saw the Indians except in the months of the trading
season, when in July and August they presented themselves from the
interior at the several factories. The petitioners promised, in regard
to the natives, that they would "lay the foundation for their becoming
Christians and industrious subjects of His Majesty." Beyond the sending
out of a prayer-book from time to time, which seemed to indicate a
desire to maintain service among their servants, the Company had taken
no steps in this direction.
The closing argument for the bestowal of a charter was that they would
prevent French encroachments upon British rights and trade on the
continent of America. The petition makes the very strong statement that
the Hudson's Bay Company had connived at, or allowed French and English
to encroach, settle, and trade within their limits on the south side of
the Bay. Whatever may have been in the mind of the petitioners on this
subject of conniving with the French, a perusal of the minutes of the
Company fails to show any such disposition. The Company in Charles II.'s
times was evidently more anti-French than the Government. They disputed
the claim of the French to any part of the Bay, and strongly urged
their case before the English Commissioners at the Treaty of Ryswick.
One of their documents, seemingly showing them to be impressed with
the claim of priority of ownership of the French King, did propose a
division of the Bay, giving the south part of the Bay to the French and
the remainder to themselves. It is easy to understand a trading company
wishing peace, so that trade might go on, and knowing that Hudson Bay,
with its enormous coast line, afforded wide room for trade, proposing
such a settlement.
No doubt, however, the reference is to the great competition which was,
in a few years, to extend through the interior to the Rocky Mountains.
This was to be indeed a battle royal. Arthur Dobbs, judging by his book,
which shows how far ahead he was of his opponents in foresight, saw
that this must come, and so the new Company promises to penetrate the
interior, cut off the supply of furs from the French, and save the trade
to Britain. A quarter of a century afterwards, the Hudson's Bay Company,
slow to open their eyes, perceived it too, and as we shall see, rose
from their slumbers, and entered the conflict.
The Report was made to the Privy Council, expressing appreciation of the
petition, and of the advanced views enunciated, but stating that the
case against the Hudson's Bay Company had not yet been made out. So no
new charter was granted!