1670-1870
“GENTLEMEN ADVENTURERS OF ENGLAND”—LORDS OF THE OUTER MARCHES—TWO
CENTURIES OF COMPANY RULE—SECRET OATHS—THE USE OF WHISKEY—THE
MATRIMONIAL OFFICES—THE PART THE COMPANY PLAYED IN THE GAME OF
INTERNATIONAL JUGGLING—HOW TRADE AND VOYAGES WERE CONDUCTED
Just where the world’s traffic converges to that roaring maelstrom in
front of the Royal Exchange, London—on Lime Street, off Leadenhall
Street—stands an unpretentious gray stone building, the home of a
power that has held unbroken sway over the wilds of America for
two-and-a-half centuries. It is the last of those old companies granted
to royal favorites of European courts for the partitioning of America.
To be sure, when Charles II signed away sole rights of trade and
possession to all countries bordering on the passage supposed to lead
from the Atlantic to the South Sea, he had not the faintest notion
that he was giving to “_the Gentlemen Adventurers of England Trading
on Hudson’s Bay_,” three-quarters of a new continent. Prince Rupert,
Albermarle, Shaftsbury, the Carteretts and half a dozen others had
helped him back to his throne, and with a Stuart’s good-natured belief
that the world was made for the king’s pleasure, he promptly proceeded
to carve up his possessions for his friends. Only one limitation was
specified in the charter of 1670—the lands must be those _not_ already
claimed by any Christian power.
But Adventurers on booty bound would sail over the edge of the earth
if it were flat, and when the Hudson’s Bay Company found, instead of
a passage to the fabulous South Sea, a continental watershed whence
mighty rivers rolled north, east, south, over vaster lands than those
island Adventurers had ever dreamed—was it to turn back because these
countries didn’t precisely border on Hudson’s Bay? The Company had been
chartered as Lords of the Outer Marches, and what were Outer Marches
for, but to march forward? For a hundred years, the world heard very
little of these wilderness Adventurers except that they were fighting
for dear life against the French raiders, but when Canada passed to the
English, Hudson’s Bay canoes were threading the labyrinthine waterways
of lake and swamp and river up the Saskatchewan, down the Athabasca,
over the mountain passes to the Columbia. Hudson’s Bay fur brigades
were sweeping up the Ottawa to Abbittibbi, to the Assiniboine, to
MacKenzie River, to the Arctic Circle. Hudson’s Bay buffalo runners
hunted the plains from the Red River to the Missouri. Hudson’s Bay
Rocky Mountain brigades—one, two, three hundred horsemen, followed by a
ragged rabble of Indian retainers—yearly scoured every valley between
Alaska and Mexico in regular platoons, so much territory assigned to
each leader—Oregon to McLoughlin, the Snake Country to Ogden, the
Umpqua to Black or McLeod, the Buffalo Country to Ross or some other,
with instructions not to leave a beaver alive on the trail wherever
there were rival American traders. Hudson’s Bay vessels coasted from
the Columbia to Alaska. The Adventurers could not dislodge Baranoff
from Sitka, but they explored the Yukon and the Pelly, and the official
books show record of a farm where San Francisco now stands. Beginning
with a score of men, the Company to-day numbers as many servants as the
volunteer army of Canada. Railroads to Eastern ports now do the work of
the four or five armed frigates that used yearly to come for the furs,
but two company ships still carry provisions through the ice floes of
Hudson’s Bay, and on every navigable river of the inland North, floats
the flag of the Company’s steamers. The brigades of fur canoes can
yet be seen at remote posts like Abbittibbi; and the dog trains still
tinkle across the white wastes bringing down the midwinter furs from
the North.
* * * * *
The old Company has the unique distinction of being the only instance
of feudalism transplanted from Europe to America, which has flourished
in the new soil. Other royal companies of Virginia, of Maryland, of
Quebec, became part of the new democracy. Only the Hudson’s Bay Company
remains. The charter which by “the Grace of God” and the stroke of a
pen gave away three-quarters of America—was, itself, pure feudalism.
Oaths of secrecy, implicit obedience of every servant to the man
immediately above him—the canoemen to the steersman, the trader to
the chief factor, the chief factor to the governor, the governor to
the king—dependence of the Company on the favor of the royal will—all
these were pure feudalism. Prince Rupert was the first governor. The
Duke of York, afterwards King James, was second. Marlborough, the great
general, came third; and Lord Strathcona, the present governor, as High
Commissioner for Canada, stands in the relation of ambassador from the
colony to the mother country. Always the Company has been under the
favor of the court.
Formerly, every shareholder had to make solemn oath: “_I doe sweare to
bee True & faithfull to ye Govern’r & Comp’y of Adventurers of England
Trading into Hudson’s Bay & to my power will support and maintain the
said comp’y & the privileges of ye same; all bye laws and orders not
repeated which have been or shall be made by ye said Govern’r & Company
I will to my best knowledge truly observe and keepe: ye secrets of ye
said company, which shall be given me in charge to conceale, I will
not disclose; and during the joint stock of ye said comp’y I will
not directly nor indirectly trade to ye limitts of ye said company’s
charter without leave of the Govern’r, the Deputy Govern’r and
committee, So help me God._”
A similar oath was required from the governor. Once a year, usually in
November, the shareholders met in a general session called the General
Court, to elect officers—a governor, a deputy governor, and a committee
which was to transact details of business as occasion required. Each
officer was required to take oath of secrecy and fidelity. This
committee, it was, that appointed the captains to the vessels, the men
of the crews, the local governors for the fur posts on the bay, and
the chief traders, who were to go inland to barter. From all of these,
oaths and bonds of fidelity were required. He, who violated his oath,
was liable to forfeiture of wages and stock in the Company. In all
the minute books for two-and-a-half centuries, both of the committee
and the General Court which I examined, there were records of only one
director dismissed for breaking his oath, and two captains discharged
for illicit trade. Compared to the cut-throat methods of modern
business, whose promise is not worth the breath that utters it and
whose perjuries having become so common, people have ceased to blush,
the old, slow-going Company has no need to be ashamed.
Each officer in his own sphere was as despotic as a czar, but the
despotism was founded on good will. When my Lord Preston did the
Company a good turn by sending Radisson back from Paris to London, the
committee of 1684 orders the warehouse keeper “_to deliver the furrier
as many black beaver skins as will make my lord a fine covering for
his bedd_”—not a bribe _before_ the good turn, but a token of good
will _afterwards_. When Mr. Randolph of New England arrests Ben Gillam
for poaching on the Company’s preserve up on Hudson Bay, the committee
orders a piece of plate to the value of £10 for Mr. Randolph. When
King Charles and the Duke of York interceded with France to forbid
interlopers, “_two pair of beaver stockings are ordered for the King
and the Duke of York_;” and the committee of April, 1684, instructs
“_Sir James Hayes do attend His Royal Highness at Windsor and present
him his dividend in gold in a faire embroidered purse_.” For whipping
“_those vermin, those enemies of all mankind, the French_,” the Right
Honorable Earl John Churchill (Marlborough) is presented with a
cat-skin counterpane.
The General Court and weekly committee meetings were held at the very
high altars of feudalism—in the White Tower built by William the
Conqueror, or at Whitehall where lived the Stuarts, or at the Jerusalem
Coffee House, where scions of nobility met the money lenders and where
the Company seems to have arranged advances on the subscribed stock
to outfit each year’s ships. Often, the committee meetings wound up
with orders for the secretary “_to bespeake a cask of canary for ye
governor_,” or “_a hogshead of claret for ye captains sailing from
Gravesend_,” to whom “_ye committee wished a God Speed, a good wind and
a faire saile_.”
When the Stuart line gave place to a new régime, the Company hastened
to King William at Kensington, and as the minutes of Oct. 1, 1690,
record—“_having the Honour to be introduced into His Majesty’s clossett
... the Deputy-Governor Sir Edward Dering delivered himself in these
words.... May it Please your Majesty—Your Majesty’s most loyal and
dutifull subjects, the Hudson’s Bay Company begg leave most humbly
to congratulate your Majesty’s Happy Returne home with honours and
safety. And wee doo daily pray to Heaven (that Hath God wonderfully
preserved your Royall person) that in all your undertakings, your
Majesty may bee as victorious as Caesar, as Beloved as Titus, and
(after all) have the glorious long reign and peacefull end of
Augustus.... We doo desire also most humbly to present to your Majesty
a dividend of three hundred guineas upon three hundred pounds stock
in the Hudson’s Bay Company now Rightfully devolved to your Majesty.
And altho we have been the greatest sufferers of any Company, from
these common enemies off all mankind, the French, yet when your
Majesty’s just arms shall have given repose to all Christendom, wee
also shall enjoy our share of those great Benefitts and doo not doubt
but to appeare often with this golden fruit in our hands—And the
Deputy-Governor upon his knees humbly presented to his Majesty, the
purse of gold ... and then the Deputy-Governor and all the rest had the
honour to kiss His Majesty’s Hand_.”
* * * * *
Holding its privilege by virtue of royal favor, the Company was
expected to advance British dominion abroad and resist all enemies. For
exactly one hundred years (1682-1782) it fought the ground inch by inch
against the French. From 1698, agents were kept in Russia and Holland
and Germany to watch the fur markets there, and when the question of
designating the bounds between Russian Alaska and British Columbia,
came up between England and Russia, it was on the Hudson’s Bay Company
that the British Government relied for the defense of its case.
Similarly, when the United States took over Louisiana, the British
Government called on the Company in 1807 to state what the limits ought
to be between Louisiana and British America. But perhaps the most
notoriously absurd part the Company ever played internationally was in
connection with what is known as “the Oregon question.” The bad feeling
over that imbroglio need not be recalled. The modern Washington and
Oregon—broadly speaking, regions of greater wealth than France—were
at stake. The astonishing thing, the untold inside history of the
whole episode was that after insisting on joint occupancy for years
and refusing to give up her claims, England suddenly kow-towed flat
without rhyme or reason. The friendship of the Company’s chief factor,
McLoughlin, for the incoming American settlers of Oregon, has usually
been given as the explanation. Some truth there may be in this, for
the settlers’ tented wagon was always the herald of the hunter’s end,
but the real reason is good enough to be registered as melodrama to
the everlasting glory of a martinet officer’s ignorance. Aberdeen was
the British minister who had the matter in hand. His brother, Captain
Gordon in the Pacific Squadron was ordered to take a look over the
disputed territory. In vain the fur traders of Oregon and Vancouver
Island spread the choicest game on his table. He could not have his
English bath. He could not have the comforts of his English bed. He had
bad luck deerstalking and worse luck fishing. Asked if he did not think
the mountains magnificent, his response was that he would not give the
bleakest hill in Scotland for all these mountains in a heap. Meanwhile,
the Hudson’s Bay Company was wasting candle light in London preparing
the British case for the retention of Oregon. Matters hung fire. Should
it be joint occupancy, “fifty-four-forty or fight,” or compromise?
Aberdeen’s brother on leave home was called in.
“Oregon? Oregon?” Yes, Gordon remembered Oregon. Been there fishing
last year, and “the fish wouldn’t rise to the fly worth a d——! Let the
old country go!” This, in a country where fish might be scooped out in
tubfuls without either fly or line!
* * * * *
The committeemen meeting to transact the details of business were, of
course, paid a small amount, but coming together in the court, itself,
or in the jolly chambers of a gay gallant like Prince Rupert, or at the
Three Tunns, or at the Golden Anchor, great difficulty was experienced
in calling the gentlemen to order, and the law was early passed, “_yt
whensoever the committee shall be summoned, yt one hour after ye
Deputy-Governor turns up ye glass, whosoever does not appear before
the glass runs out, shall lose his committee money_.” The “_glass_,”
it may be explained, was the hourglass, not the one for the “cask of
canary.” Later on, fines were imposed to be put in the Poor Box, which
was established as the minutes explain, “a token of gratitude for God’s
great blessing to the company,” the proceeds to go to old pensioners,
to those wounded in service, or to wives and children of the dead.
The great events of the year to the committee were the dispatching
of the boats, the home-coming of the cargoes and the public sales
of the furs. Between these events, long recesses were taken without
any evidence that the Company existed but a quiet distribution of
dividends, or a courier spurring post-haste from Southampton with word
that one of the Company’s ships had been captured by the French, the
Company’s cargo sold, the Company’s ship sunk, the Company’s servants
left rotting in some dungeon waiting for ransom. From January to
April, all was bustle preparing the ships, two in the first years,
later three and four and five armed frigates, to sail to the bay. Only
good ice-goers were chosen, built of staunchest oak or ironwood, high
and narrow at the prow to ride the ice and cut the floes by sheer
weight. Then captains and crews were hired, some captains sailing for
the Company as long as forty years. Goods for trade were stowed in the
hold, traps, powder, guns, hatchets, blankets, beads, rope; and the
committee orders the secretary “_to bespeake a good rat catcher to kill
the vermin that injure our beaver_,” though whether this member of the
crew was biped or quadruped does not appear. A surgeon accompanied
each ship. The secret signals left in duplicate with the posts on the
bay the year before were then given to the captains, for if any ship
approached the bay without these signals the forts had orders to fire
their cannon at the intruder, cut the harbor buoys, put out all lights
and do all they could to cause the interlopers’ wreck. If taken by
pirates, all signals were to be thrown overboard, and the captains
were secretly instructed how high a ransom they might in the name of
the Company offer their captors. On the day of sailing, usually in
early June, the Committee went down on horse-back to Gravesend. Lockers
were searched for goods that might be hidden for clandestine trade,
for independent trade, even to the extent of one muskrat, the Company
would no more tolerate than diamond miners will allow a private deal in
their mine. These searchers examined the ships for hidden furs when she
came home, just as rigorously as the customs officers examine modern
baggage on any Atlantic liner. The same system of search was exercised
among the workers on the furs of the Company’s warehouses, the men
being examined when they entered in the morning, and when they left at
night. For this, the necessity was and is yet plain. Rare silver fox
skins have been sold at auction for £200, £300, £400, even higher for a
fancy skin. Half a dozen such could be concealed in a winter overcoat.
That the searchers could no more prevent clandestine trade than the
customs can smuggling—goes without saying. Illicit trade was the pest
of the committeeman’s life. Captains and crews, traders and factors and
directors were alike dismissed and prosecuted for it. The Company were
finally driven to demanding the surrender of even personal clothing,
fur coats, mits, caps, from returning servants. On examination, this
was always restored.
The search over, wages were paid to the seamen with an extra half-crown
for good luck. The committee then shook hands with the crew. A parting
cheer—and the boats would be gone for six months, perhaps forever,
for wrecks were frequent, so frequent that they are a story of heroism
and hardship by themselves. Nor have the inventions of modern science
rendered the dangers of the ice floes less. There are fewer Hudson’s
Bay Company ships among the floes now than in the middle period of its
existence, but half a dozen terrible wrecks mark its latter history,
one but a few years ago, when a $300,000 cargo went to the bottom; the
captain instead of being dismissed was presented by Lloyds with gold
plate for preventing another wreck in a similar jam the next year.
Pirates, were, of course, keener to waylay the ships home-bound with
furs than out-going, but armed convoys were usually granted by the
Government at least as far as the west Irish coast.
One of the quaintest customs that I found in the minute books was
regarding the home-coming ships. The money, that had accrued from sales
during the ships’ absence, was kept in an iron box in the warehouse on
Fenchurch Street. It ranged in amount from £2,000 to £11,000. To this,
only the governor and deputy-governor had the keys. Banking in the
modern sense of the word was not begun till 1735. When the ships came
in, the strong box was hauled forth and the crews paid.
After the coming of the cargoes the sales of the furs were held in
December, or March, by public auction if possible, but in years when
war demoralized trade, by private contract. This was the climax of the
year to the fur trader. Even during the century when the French raiders
swept the bay, an average of ten thousand beaver a year was brought
home. Later, otter and mink and marten and ermine became valuable.
These, the common furs, whalebone, ivory, elks’ hoofs and whale blubber
made up the lists of the winter sales. Before the days of newspapers,
the lists were posted in the Royal Exchange and sales held “by candle”
in lieu of auctioneer’s hammer—a tiny candle being lighted, pins stuck
in at intervals along the shaft, and bids shouted till the light
burned out. One can guess with what critical caress the fur fanciers
ran their hands over the soft nap of the silver fox, blowing open the
fur to examine the depth and find whether the pelt had been damaged
in the skinning. Half a dozen of these rare skins from the fur world
meant more than a cargo of beaver. What was it anyway, this creature
rare as twentieth century radium, that was neither blue fox nor gray,
neither cross nor black? Was it the black fox changing his winter coat
for summer dress just caught at the moment by the trapper, or the same
fellow changing his summer pelt from silver to black for winter? Was it
a turning of the black hairs to silver from old age, trapped luckily
just before old age had robbed the fur of its gloss? Was it senility
or debility or a splendid freak in the animal world like a Newton or a
Shakespeare in the human race? Of all the scientists from Royal Society
and hall of learning, who came to gossip over the sales at the coffee
houses, not one could explain the silver fox. Or was the soul of the
fur trader, like the motto painted on his coat of arms by John Pinto
for thirty shillings, in December, 1679—_Pro Pelle Cutem_—not above the
value of a beaver skin?
Terse business methods of to-day, where the sales are advertised in a
newspaper and afterward held apart from the goods, have robbed them of
their old-time glamor, for the sale was to the city merchant what the
circus is to the country boy, the event of the year. By the committee
of Nov. 8, 1680, “_Sir James Hayes is desired to choose 3 doz. bottles
of sack & 3 doz. of claret to be given the buyers at the sale & a
dinner to be spoke at the Stellyarde, Mr. Stone to bespeake a good dish
of fish, a lione of veale, 2 pullets and 4 ducks._”
In early days when the Company had the field to itself, and sent out
only a score or two of men in two small ships, £20,000 worth of beaver
were often sold in a year, so that after paying back money advanced for
outfit and wages, the Company was able to declare a dividend of 50
per cent. on stock that had been twice trebled. Then came the years of
the conflict with France—causing a loss in forts and furs of £100,543.
Though small cargoes of beaver were still brought home, returns were
swamped in the expenses of the fight. No dividends were paid for twenty
years. The capital stock was all out as security for loans, and the
private fortunes of directors pledged to keep the tradesmen clamoring
for payment of outfits quiet. Directors borrowed money on their own
names for the payment of the crews, and the officers of the Company,
governors, chief factors and captains were paid in stock. Then came
the peace of 1713 and a century’s prosperity, when sales jumped from
£20,000 to £30,000 and £70,000 a year. In five years all debts were
paid, but the Company had learned a lesson. To hold its ground, it
must strengthen grip. Instead of two small sloops, four and five armed
frigates were sent out with crews of thirty and forty and sixty men.
Eight men used to be deemed sufficient to winter at a fur post. Thirty
and forty and sixty were now kept at each post, the number of posts
increased, some of them built and manned like beleaguered fortresses,
and that forward march begun across America which only ended on the
borders of the Pacific and the confines of Mexico. Though the returns
were now so large from the yearly cargo, dividends never went higher
than 20 per cent., fell as low as six, and hardly averaged above eight.
Then came the next great struggle of the Company for its life—against
the North-West Company in Canada and the American traders in the
Western States. Sales fell as low as £2,000. Oddly enough to-day, with
its monopoly of exclusive trade long since surrendered to the Canadian
Government, its charter gone, free traders at liberty to come or go,
and populous cities spread over two-thirds of its old stamping ground,
the sales of the Company yield as high returns as in its palmiest days.
The reason is this:
It was only in regions where there were rival traders, or where
colonization was bound to come, as in the Western States, that the fur
brigades waged a war of extermination against the beaver. Elsewhere,
north of the Saskatchewan and Athabasca, where cold must forever bar
out the settler and leave the hunter in undisturbed possession of his
game preserve, the Company acted as a nursery for the fur-bearing
animals. Indians were taught not to kill in summer, not to kill the
young, to leave the mother untouched. Tales are told—and the tales
are perfectly true—of Hudson’s Bay fur traders taking a particularly
long-barreled old musket standing it on the ground and ordering the
poor, deluded Indian to pile furs to the top before he could have the
gun; but to make these tales entirely true it should be added that the
furs were muskrat and rabbit killed out of season not worth a penny
apiece in the London market and only taken to keep the Indians going
till a year of good hunting came. When arraigned before a committee
of the House of Commons, in 1857, charged with putting an advance
of 50 per cent. on all goods traded to the Indians, and with paying
ridiculously small prices for the rare skins in proportion to what
they had paid for the poor, the Company frankly acknowledged both
facts, but it was proved that 33 per cent. of the advance represented
expenses of carriage to the interior. As for the other charge, the
Company contended that it was wiser to take many skins that were
absolutely worthless and buy the valuable pelts at a moderate price;
otherwise, the Indians would die from want in bad years, and in good
years kill off the entire supply of the rare fur-bearing animals. Since
the surrender of the monopoly, countless rival traders have invaded
the hunting grounds of the Company. None has yet been able to wean the
Indians away from the old Company. It is a question if the world shows
another example of such a long-lived feudalism.
Though a Hudson’s Bay servant could not take as much as one beaver
skin for himself, every man afield had as keen an interest in the
total returns as the shareholders in London. This was owing to the
bounty system. To encourage the servants and prevent temptations to
dishonesty, the Company paid bounty on every score (20) of made beaver
to captains, factors, traders, and trappers, in amounts ranging from
three shillings to sixpence a score. Latterly, this system has given
place to larger salaries and direct shareholding on the part of the
servants, who rise in the service.
A change has also taken place in methods of barter. Up to 1820, beaver
was literally coin of the realm. Mink, marten, ermine, silver fox,
all were computed as worth so much or so many fractions of beaver.
A roll of tobacco, a pound of tea, a yard of blazing-red flannel, a
powderhorn, a hatchet, all were measured and priced as worth so many
beaver. This was the Indian’s coinage, but this, too, has given way to
modern methods, though the old system may perhaps be traced among the
far Northern tribes. The account system was now used, so much being
consigned to each factor, for which he was responsible. The trader,
in turn, advanced the Indian whatever he needed for a yearly outfit,
charging it against his name. This was repaid by the year’s hunt. If
the hunt fell short of the amount, the Indians stood in debt to the
Company. This did not in the least prevent another advance for the
next year. If the hunt exceeded the debt, the Indian might draw either
cash or goods to the full amount or let the Company stand in his debt,
receiving coins made from the lead of melted tea chests with 1, 2, 3 or
4 _B_—beaver—stamped in the lead, and the mystic letters N. B., A. R.,
Y. F., E. M., C. R., H. H., or some other, meaning New Brunswick House,
Albany River, York Fort, East Main, Churchill River, Henley House—names
of the Company’s posts on or near the bay. And these coins have in turn
been supplanted by modern money.
One hears much of the Indians’ slavery to the Company owing to the
debts for these advances, but any one who knows the Indians’ infinite
capacity for lounging in idleness round the fort as long as food lasts,
must realize that the Company had as much trouble exacting the debt as
the Indian could possibly have in paying it.
A more serious charge used to be leveled against the fur traders—the
wholesale use of liquor by which an Indian could be made to give away
his furs or sell his soul. Without a doubt, where opposition traders
were encountered—Americans west of the Mississippi, Nor’Westers on the
Saskatchewan, French south of the bay, Russians in Alaska—liquor and
laudanum, bludgeon and bribe were plied without stint. Those days are
long past. For his safety’s sake, the fur trader had to relinquish the
use of liquor, and for at least a century the strictest rules have
prohibited it in trade, the old Russian company and the Hudson’s Bay
binding each other not to permit it. And I have heard traders say that
when trouble arose at the forts the first thing done by the Company was
to split open the kegs in the fort and run all liquor on the ground.
The charge, however, is a serious one against the Company’s past, and I
searched the minutes for the exact records on the worst year. In 1708,
conflict was at its height against the French. The highest record of
liquor sent out for two hundred servants was one thousand gallons—an
average of five gallons a trader for the year, or less than two quarts
a month. In 1770, before the fight had begun with the Nor’Westers,
the Company was sending out two hundred and fifty gallons a year for
three hundred traders. In 1800, when Nor’Westers and Hudson’s Bay came
to open war and each company drove the other to extremes of outlawry,
neither had intended at the beginning, coureurs falling by the
assassin’s dagger, a Hudson’s Bay governor butchered on the open field,
Indians horsewhipped for daring to communicate with rivals, whole
camps demoralized by drugged liquor, the highest record was twelve
thousand six hundred gallons of brandy sent out for a force of between
4,000 or 5,000 men. This gives an average of three gallons a year for
each trader. So that however terrible the use of liquor proved in
certain disgraceful episodes between the two great British companies—it
must be seen that the orgies were neither general nor frequent.
* * * * *
It is astonishing, too, to take a map of North America and consider
what exploration stands to the credit of the fur traders. They were
first overland from the St. Lawrence to Hudson Bay, and first inland
from the St. Lawrence to the Mississippi—thanks to Radisson.
In the exploration of the Arctic, who stands highest? It was a matter
of paralyzing astonishment to the Company, itself, when I told them
I had counted up in their books what they had spent on the Northwest
Passage, and that before 1800 they had suffered dead loss on that
account of £100,000. Beginning with old Captain Knight in 1719, who
starved to death on Marble Island with his forty-three men, on down
to Hearne in 1771, and Simpson and Rae in later days—that story of
exploration is one by itself. The world knows of Franklins and
Nansens, but has never heard of the Company’s humble servants whose
bones are bleaching on the storm-beaten rocks of the desolate North.
Take that bleak desert of the North, Labrador—of which modern explorers
know nothing—by 1750 Captain Coates of the Hudson’s Bay had explored
its shores at a loss to the company of £26,000.
Inland—by 1690, that ragamuffin London boy, Henry Kelsey, who ran away
with the Indians and afterward rose to greatness in the service, had
penetrated to the present province of Manitoba and to the Saskatchewan.
The MacKenzie River, the Columbia, the Fraser, the passes of the
Rocky Mountains, the Yukon, the Liard, the Pelly—all stand to the
credit of the fur trader. And every state north of Louisiana, west
of the Mississippi, echoed to the tramp of the fur traders’ horses
sweeping the wilderness for beaver. Gentlemen Adventurers, they called
themselves, but Lords of the Outer Marches were they, truly as any
robber barons that found and conquered new lands for a feudal king.
* * * * *
Old-fashioned feudalism marked the Company’s treatment of its
dependents. To-day, the Indian simply brings his furs to the trader,
has free egress to the stores, and goes his way like any other buyer.
A hundred years ago, bartering was done through a small wicket in the
gate of the fort palisades; but in early times, the governor of each
little fort felt the pomp of his glory like a Highland chief. Decking
himself in scarlet coat with profusion of gold lace and sword at belt,
he marched out to the Indian camp with bugle and fife blowing to the
fore, and all the white servants in line behind. Bartering was then
accomplished by the Indian chief, _giving_ the white chief the furs,
and the white chief formally presenting the Indian chief with a _quid
pro quo_, both sides puffing the peace pipe like chimney pots as a
token of good-fellowship.
How these pompous governors—little men in stature some of them—kept
their own servants obedient and loyal in the loneliness of these
wilderness wilds, can only be ascribed to their personal prowess. Of
course, there were desertions, desertions to the wild life and to the
French overland in Canada and to the Americans south of the boundary,
but only once was payment withheld from the men of the far fur post on
account of mutiny, though many a mutiny was quelled in its beginnings
by the governor doffing his dignity and laying a sound drubbing on the
back of the mutineer. The men were paid by bills drawn on the home
office to the amount of two thirds of their wages, the other third
being kept against their return as savings. Many devices were employed
to keep the men loyal. Did a captain accomplish a good voyage? The home
committee ordered him a bounty of £150. Hearne, for his explorations
inland, over and above his wages was given a present of £200. Did a
man suffer from rigorous climate? The committee solemnly indites: “£4,
smart money, for a frozen toe.” Such luck as a French wood-runner
deserting from Canada to the Hudson’s Bay was promptly recognized by
the order: “To Jan Ba’tiste Larlée, £1-5, a periwig to keep him loyal.”
No matter to what desperate straits war reduced the Company’s finances,
it was never too poor to pension some wreck of the service, or present
gold plate to some hero of the fight, or give a handsome funeral to
some servant who died in harness—“funeral by torch light and linkmen,
to St. Paul’s Churchyard, company and crew in attendance, £31.” Though
Governor Semple had been little more than a year on the field when
he was murdered, the Company pensioned both his sisters for life.
The humblest servants in the ranks—men beginning on twenty shillings
a month, like Kelsey, and Grimmington, and Hearne, and old Captain
Knight—were urged and encouraged to rise to the highest positions
in the Company. The one thing required was—absolute, implicit,
unquestioning loyalty; the Company could do no wrong. Quite the
funniest instance of the Company’s fatherly care for its servants was
the matrimonial office. For years, especially in time of war, it was
almost impossible to secure apprentices at all, though the agents paid
£2 as bonus on signing the contract. At this period in the Company’s
history, I came across a curious record in the minutes. A General Court
was secretly called of which no entry was to be made in the minutes,
to consider the proposals of one, Mr. Andrew Vallentine, for the good
of the Company’s service. In addition to the shareholders’ general
oath of secrecy, every one attending this meeting had to take solemn
vows not to reveal the proceedings. What could it be about? I scanned
the general minutes, the committee books, the sub-committee records
of shippings and sailings and wars. It was not about France, for
proceedings against France were in the open. It was not a “back-stairs”
fund, for when the Company wanted favors it openly sent purses of
gold or beaver stockings or cat-skin counterpanes. But farther on in
the minutes, when the good secretary had forgotten all about secrecy,
I found a cryptic entry about the cryptic gentleman, Mr. Andrew
Vallentine—“that all entries about Mr. Andrew Vallentine’s office for
the service of the Company be made in a Booke Aparte,” and that 10 per
cent. of the regular yearly dividends go as dowries for the brides of
the apprentices, the ceremonies to be performed—not by any unfrocked
clergyman under the rose—but by the Honorable, the Very Reverend Doctor
Sacheverell of renown. The business with the gentleman of matrimonial
fame was not called “a marriage office.” No such clumsy herding of fair
ones to the altar, as in Virginia and Quebec, where brides were sent in
shiploads and exposed on the town square like slaves at the shambles.
The Company’s matrimonial venture was kept in dignified reserve,
that would send down no stigma to descendants. It was organized and
designated as a separate _company_; certainly, a company of two. Later
on, Mr. Vallentine’s office being too small for the rush of business,
the secretary, “_Mr. Potter is ordered to arrange a larger office for
Mr. Vallentine in the Buttery of the Company’s store house._” But all
the delightful possibilities hidden in Mr. Vallentine’s suggestive
name and in the oleaginous place which he chose for his matrimonial
mart—failed to make the course of true love run smooth. Mr. Vallentine
entangled the Company in lawsuits and on his death in 1731, the office
was closed.
_Notes on Foregoing Chapters._—Groseillers’s name is given in a
variety of ways, the full name being Medard Chouart Groseillers—the
last translated by the English as “Goosebery,” which of course would
necessitate the name being spelled “Groseilliers.”
The account of the passage of the ships across the Atlantic is drawn
from Radisson Journals, from his Petitions, and from the Journal of
Gillam as reported by Thomas Gorst, Bayly’s secretary. There are also
scraps about the trip in Sir James Hayes’ report of damage to _The
Eaglet_, which he submitted to the Admiralty.
The relationship of Radisson to Groseillers and the French version
of the quarrel on the bay—are to be found in the life of Radisson
in _Pathfinders of the West_. Though I have searched diligently, I
have not been able to find a single authority, ancient or modern,
for the odd version given by several writers of Radisson and
Groseillers absconding overland to New France. The statement is sheer
fiction—neither more nor less, as the Minutes of Hudson’s Bay House
account for Radisson’s movements almost monthly from 1667 to 1674, when
he left London for France.
A comical story is current in London about the charter. After the
monopoly was relinquished by the Company in 1870 and its territory
taken over by Canada, the old charter was, of course, of no importance.
For thirty years it disappeared. It was finally found jammed behind old
papers tumbled down the back of an old safe—and this was the charter
that deeded away three-quarters of America.
Before a Parliamentary Commission on March 10, 1749, the Company made
the following statement concerning its stock:
1676 October 16 It appears by the Company’s Books, that their stock
then was £10,500 1690 September The same being trebled is 21,000 ______
Which made the Stock to be 31,500 1720 August 29 This Stock being
again trebled is 63,000 ______ Which made the Stock to be 94,500 And a
subscription then taken in of 10% amounting to Additional Stock 9,450
______ Which makes the present Amount of the Stock to be 103,950
The minutes of the Company and Radisson’s journal alike prove that he
passed to France from England, in October, 1674. Whether Groseillers
came to England on the ship is not stated, therefore the question is
left open, but it is stated that Groseillers passed to France at the
same time, so that pretty story of Groseillers knocking Bayly’s head is
all fiction.
I was not able to find that “Booke Aparte” in which entries were made
of Mr. Andrew Vallentine’s matrimonial mart. It may yet turn up in the
cellarful of old papers in the Company’s warehouse. Perhaps it is as
well that it should not, for some of the most honored names in Canadian
history came into the service of the Company at this time.
Lyddell’s salary as governor of the west coast of the bay was to be
£100 per annum. Sailors were paid, in 1671, from £20 to £30 a year,
the surgeons £20 a year.