1821-1847.
The Deed Poll -- A Governor-in-Chief Chosen -- A Chaplain
Appointed -- New License from George IV. -- Trade on the
Pacific Coast -- The Red River Country Claimed by the States --
The Company in California -- The Oregon Question --
Anglo-Russian Treaty of 1825 -- The _Dryad_ Affair --
Lieutenant Franklin's two Expeditions -- Red River Territory
Yielded to Company -- Enterprise on the Pacific.
By the terms of the Deed Poll, the immediate control of the Company's
affairs in its territory passed from the hands of a committee sitting
in London, to a personage known as Governor-in-Chief of Rupert's Land
and his council. His commission extended over all the Company's lands
and possessions, with an unlimited tenure of office. The council was
to be composed of chief factors, and occasionally a few chief traders,
who were to meet at some convenient centre for the purposes of
consultation, this particular feature being a survival of the
rendezvous of Fort William. The chartered territories and circuit of
commercial relations were divided into vast sections, known as the
Northern, Southern, Montreal and Western Departments. The Northern
extended between Hudson's Bay and the Rocky Mountains, the Southern,
between James' Bay and Canada, including a part of the eastern shore
of Hudson's Bay.
[Sidenote: Governor Simpson.]
Such a Governor-in-Chief should be a person of energy, shrewdness and
ability. Mr. Ellice had been struck by the qualities and special
aptitude for this important post of a young Scotchman, named George
Simpson. This young man was an illegitimate son of the maternal uncle
of Thomas Simpson, the Arctic explorer. While clerk in a London
counting-house, George Simpson had attracted the attention of Andrew
Colville, Lord Selkirk's brother-in-law, who sent him to Rupert's Land
in the service of the Company. The responsibility was a tremendous
one, but Simpson did not flinch from accepting it; and the end showed
the wisdom of the appointment. For nearly forty years this man stood
at the head of the fur-trade: a potentate in the midst of the
wilderness, the virtual ruler of almost one-half of a continent.
Governor Simpson was a man of small stature, but he had "the
self-possession of an emperor."[110] Accompanied by his voyageurs and
clerks, he journeyed along the old Ottawa and lake route, through the
Grand Portage, or by Fort William and Lake of the Woods, accomplishing
this feat at least once a year throughout the entire period of his
rule. At the outset of his career he perceived that the management of
Red River colony was an extremely difficult task--harder perhaps than
the management of the fur-trade. But he attacked both with energy,
resolved to serve his employers, and to create, at all hazards,
harmony and prosperity in the territories.
Part of the time he spent at Red River, part in Oregon, in Athabasca,
and at Hudson's Bay. He crossed the Rocky Mountains at three different
latitudes, and journeyed extensively over the vast territory of which
he was truly the "commercial sovereign."
The appointment of the Rev. Mr. West as principal chaplain to the
Company led to very great improvements in the moral and religious life
at the forts. Many of the traders and servants of the Company were
soon afterwards induced to marry the women with whom they had lived, a
material step towards the amelioration of the condition of the Indian
and half-breed females.
[Sidenote: Company obtains a new license.]
The next step on the part of the Honourable Adventurers was to further
safeguard their interests, and supplement their charter by a license
from the new king, George IV. This license was for the exclusive
privilege of trading with the Indians in such parts of North America
as were not part of the territories heretofore granted to the
Hudson's Bay Company. This Royal license, dated the 5th of December,
1821, at Carlton House, was expressly issued to prevent the admission
of individual or associated bodies into the British North American
fur-trade, inasmuch as the competition therein had been found for
years to be productive of enormous loss and inconvenience to the
Hudson's Bay Company and to trade at large, and also of much injury to
the natives and half-breeds.
[Illustration: THE BOARD ROOM, HUDSON'S BAY HOUSE, LONDON.]
To anticipate events, it may here be remarked that this license
expired in 1842, but prior to its expiration an extension was granted
at the close of the first year of the reign of her present
Majesty,[111] for a further term of twenty-one years. By virtue of
these licenses the Company was granted exclusive trade in the Indian
territories west of the Rocky Mountains. It must be borne in mind, and
will be pointed out in a subsequent chapter, that it was of the utmost
moment for Great Britain to obtain a standing in Oregon and on the
Columbia River,[112] and the licenses were framed to this great and
desirable end.
Although, as has been shown, the North-West partners had made great
efforts and borne great sacrifices, to maintain the trade on the
Pacific, they were contending against great odds. The Russian
establishments at Norfolk Sound, and at other places on the coast,
even so far south as California, came to share in a virtual monopoly
with the Americans, who, after the Treaty of Ghent, began to send
ships from Boston to New York. The amalgamation of 1821 came about,
and the Hudson's Bay Company, invigorated by the infusion of new
blood, believed it their duty to seek to regain the trade. They
therefore set to work to re-establish British influence on the
Pacific.
It was no easy task. The Russians had gained a firm foothold, and the
Americans paused at no form of competition, nor any method by which
they might secure their ends. The natives had already become debauched
and now their debauchery spread from tribe to tribe, rendering
dealings with them difficult and formidable. Serious losses, both of
lives and property, were sustained through their savage attacks on the
Company's agents and trading posts. But the work was in the hands of
strong, able, and temperate men, who knew what the situation required
of them and did not shrink from meeting it fully and fearlessly. By
tact and vigorous measures the natives were restrained; at great
expenditure of money and patience, order was restored; and in ten
years time the Company occupied the whole country between the Rocky
Mountains and the Pacific. It maintained six permanent establishments
on the coasts, sixteen in the interior, and several movable posts and
migratory brigades. By 1835 it had a fleet of six armed vessels, one
of them propelled by steam, on the Pacific. Fort Vancouver, its
principal _entrepôt_ on the Columbia River, was surrounded by large
pasture and grain farms, maintaining large herds of horses and cattle,
and was a profitable and growing establishment.
It was a long time since the Company had cut any considerable figure
in international politics, but with the extraordinary growth of the
American States and the increase of the fur traffic of the Russians,
contemporary European publicists came again to speak of the prospect
of trouble over the Company's rights and boundaries.
[Sidenote: Claim of the United States to Red River.]
Before this time there had arisen a cry, sedulously seconded by the
Company's enemies, that the Red River region belonged to the United
States. Nothing can be clearer than that it was never for a moment
contemplated either by the British or American Government, that any of
the Hudson's Bay lands, or any of the waters running into Hudson's
Bay, would be included in the lines assigned as the boundaries between
the possessions of Great Britain and those of the States. It is
sufficiently demonstrated by the treaty concluded with America in 1794
that such an idea never existed in the minds of the negotiators. By
the third article of that treaty, which permits the most perfect
freedom of communication and intercourse between the subjects of both
nations throughout their respective dominions, an exception is made of
the country within the limits of the Hudson's Bay Company, to be
ascertained, of course, in conformity to their charter from which the
Americans are expressly excluded. The terms of the treaty concluded in
1783 with the United States show the express intentions of both
nations to have been that the northern boundary of the United States
should not, in any part, extend farther north than the River St.
Lawrence, or the lakes and streams which feed or fall into it.
The unhappy feature of the matter was that a great part of the second
article of the treaty of 1783 was drawn up in complete ignorance of
the geography of the country. It is so full of contradictions that it
became impossible afterwards to lay down a line which should follow
that article literally. In this dilemma the only fair method of
solving the difficulty was to return to the principles which governed
the framing of the article.
[Illustration: RED RIVER CART.]
[Sidenote: The Treaty of 1783.]
At the close of the Revolution the chief aim of the American
negotiators, as is evinced throughout their correspondence, was to
obtain a recognition of the right of their country to the western
territory as far as the St. Lawrence on the north, and the Mississippi
on the west. When the British Government acceded to this proposition
it was regarded by the Americans as an important concession, and their
plenipotentiaries proceeded upon that concession as the principle on
which their boundary towards Canada, after it had struck the St.
Lawrence, was to be defined. They brought the line from Nova Scotia to
the St. Lawrence, and then followed up the main stream of the river to
what they believed to be its principal source, and what was supposed
to approach the nearest to the source of the Mississippi. In fanciful
conformity to this intention, the second article of the treaty of
1783, after having carried the line to Lake Superior, stipulates that
it shall be continued onwards through the middle of certain water
communications to the north-west point of the Lake of the Woods, and
thence due west to the Mississippi. The fact, however, is that the
waters of the Lake of the Woods feed streams which fall into Hudson's
Bay, but have no communication with any waters which fall into Lake
Superior. It is also a fact that a line drawn due west from the Lake
of the Woods would never reach the Mississippi, which lies far to the
south of such a line.
But there was a reason for such egregious blundering. The country had
never been surveyed by men of science. Its physical features had been
derived from the vague and inaccurate accounts of ignorant traders and
bushrangers, which had formed the basis for the current maps. These
laid down a large river running from the Lake of the Woods and falling
into Lake Superior. If there had been such a river in existence, there
can be no doubt, from the body of waters contained in the Lake of the
Woods, that it would have been a much larger stream than any of the
feeders of Lake Superior. It was therefore most natural that the
negotiators should suppose the Lake of the Woods to be the main source
of the St. Lawrence. At the same time this must have appeared to them
the point at which the waters of the St. Lawrence approached the
nearest to the source of the Mississippi, because in the maps of the
bushrangers the Mississippi is laid down as rising four or five
degrees of latitude farther north than it does in fact, and as coming
within a short distance of the Lake of the Woods on the west.
As the negotiators in Paris in 1783 reposed the greatest confidence in
these crude productions of the cartographer, is it surprising that the
second article of the treaty should be full of inconsistencies? On any
other supposition the intention of the negotiators would be fatuous
and incomprehensible.
[Sidenote: Examination of American claims.]
This brings us to the whole point involved in the American contention,
which deprived Great Britain and the Company of a vast territory to
which the United States possessed no shadow of right. Where the limits
of a country have never been ascertained the conquest of the
contiguous and encroaching territory may be justly considered as
establishing the bounds originally claimed by the victorious nation;
and this was the case with regard to Canada and the territory of the
Company. But where between two powers there have been no defined
limits, and no conquests have determined the claims of either, the
pretensions of both might be fairly adjusted by laying down as a rule
that "the priority of right should be considered as vested in each, to
the respective countries, which each have either principally or
exclusively frequented."
The Spaniards west of the Mississippi never extended their
establishments nearly so far north as latitude 42, while the Hudson's
Bay limits were long frequented by the English. On what ground,
therefore, could the Americans, the successors merely to the rights
derived from the Spaniards, claim all the country of the Sioux, the
Mandans and many other tribes on the upper branches of the Missouri?
Nevertheless the States, after their purchase of Louisiana, continued
to put in claims for a more northerly and westerly boundary, with what
ultimate result we shall see. It is only pertinent to remark here,
that nothing could be more absurd than the idea that Spain ever
contemplated the cession of any territory on the Pacific Ocean, under
the name of Louisiana.
The interior river waters of the Sacramento and San Joaquin had
attracted the attention of the Company even before the American
trappers had reached them, and traders remained there in unmolested
possession long after the Russians had left the country. The feeble
frontier guard could do nothing but protest, and ultimately when the
trappers had nearly exhausted the outlying districts and desired to
penetrate into the centre of the State, the American Government
admitted them under an agreement with the Hudson's Bay Company,
whereby a tax of fifty cents was to be paid for each beaver skin.
A year before the amalgamation the north-west coast for the first time
engaged the attention of the American Government,[113] and what came
to be known as the Oregon Question had its birth. The States possessed
no title to the country, but a strong party believed that they had a
right to found by occupation a legitimate title to a large portion of
the territory in question. The matter was brought up at several
sessions of Congress, and the utmost was done by such legislators as
Floyd and Benton to flog it into an active issue. It was claimed that
"the United States, through Spain, France and her own establishments,
had the undisputed sovereignty of the coast from latitude 60° down to
36°." A bill was introduced for the occupation of the Columbia, grants
of lands to settlers, and regulation of Indian affairs. But the
Government was by no means so sure of the wisdom of such a proceeding;
the bill was repeatedly shelved. The restoration of Fort George
(Astoria) by the British was one of the strong arguments used.
In the meanwhile Russia had declared that the north Pacific coast down
to latitude 51° belonged to her exclusively. All foreign vessels were
prohibited from approaching within a hundred Italian miles of any part
of the coast. America protested, and between 1821 and 1824
negotiations were carried on between the two powers.
[Sidenote: Russian claims.]
Russia flatly asserted that the boundary question was one between
herself and Great Britain, with which the Americans had no legitimate
concern; and offered proofs that the treaty with Spain gave the United
States a right only to territory south of 42°. A conclusion was,
however, reached in the Treaty of 1824, by which the boundary was
fixed at 54° 40', beyond which neither nation was to found any
establishment, or to resort, without permission; while for a period of
ten years both nations were to have free access for trade and fishery
to each other's territory.
In the following year was concluded a treaty between Russia and Great
Britain,[114] by which the former again relinquished her claim not
only to the region below latitude 54° 40', but to the vast interior
occupied by the Company up to the Frozen Ocean. No objection to this
was urged by America, although some of her statesmen sought to take a
hand in the matter, and proposed a joint conference. Great Britain's
reply to this proposition was to decline to recognize the right of the
United States to any interest in the territory in question. The recent
promulgation of the Monroe doctrine had given offence not only to her,
but to Russia as well, and both were prepared to combat American
pretensions.
Although his Majesty's ministers had refused to treat for a joint
convention, yet in 1824 negotiations were begun in London, between
Great Britain and America, for the ownership of the northern Pacific
coast. The British commissioners showed clearly that the Americans had
no valid claim to the territory occupied by the Company.
[Illustration: FUR TRAIN FROM THE FAR NORTH.]
[Sidenote: Temporary arrangement between England and the States.]
The mere entrance of a private individual, such as Captain Gray, into
a river could not give the States a claim up and down the coast to
regions which had been previously explored by officially despatched
British expeditions like that of Cook. It was emphatically denied that
the restoration of Fort Astoria, under the Treaty of Ghent, had any
bearing on the title. Nevertheless, Great Britain was willing to
accept as a boundary the forty-ninth parallel from the mountains to
the Columbia (then known as McGillivray River), and down that river to
the sea. But the Americans were obdurate; a deadlock ensued and the
convention of 1818 remained in force. The Company repeatedly urged the
Government not to abandon one inch of territory rightfully under the
Crown, to the United States. Nevertheless, a settlement of the Oregon
Question was highly desirable. If in spite of the treaty of 1818 the
States should attempt to occupy the territory, war would be
inevitable. If on the other hand the treaty should expire without any
attempt at American occupation, Great Britain would be, by the law of
nations, the party rightfully in possession. A new conference was held
in London, in 1827; but it was impossible to agree on a boundary, and
the only thing possible was a compromise to the effect that the treaty
of joint occupation should be indefinitely renewed subject to
abrogation at any time by either party on twelve months' notice. Thus
the _statu quo_ was maintained, and the Hudson's Bay Company remained
in actual possession of the profits of the fur-trade for many years to
come.
In 1828 Governor Simpson believed it advisable to make a general
survey of the western posts, with the object of impressing peace and
good-will upon the natives, and also to acquire a further knowledge of
the needs and abilities of the Company's officers and servants in that
quarter. This journey of the Governor, undertaken in considerable
state, was from York Factory to the Pacific. He was accompanied by a
chief factor, Archibald Macdonald, and a surgeon named Hamlyn.
Fourteen commissioned gentlemen, as the chief factors and chief
traders were called, and as many clerks, accompanied the party to the
canoes, and amidst great cheering and a salute of seven guns, bade
them God-speed. Simpson entered Peace River on the 15th of August, and
reached Fort Vermilion in due course, three hundred and twenty miles
from the mouth, which was then in charge of Paul Fraser. From here he
proceeded to Fort St. James, the capital of Western Caledonia, and the
chief depot for all the region north of the Fraser Forks to the
Russian boundary, including the Babine country. Forts Alexandria,
Kamloops and Vancouver were visited in due order, and in the following
year Simpson returned east by way of the Columbia.
In an attempt to enter the Columbia River in 1829, the Company's ship
from London, _William and Ann_, was wrecked on Land Island. Several of
the crew escaped and landed on Clatsop Point, where they were
immediately murdered by the natives, in order that the plunder of the
vessel might be accomplished without interruption. News of the
disaster was carried to Fort Vancouver, where the officer in charge,
McLaughlin, sent messengers demanding a restoration of the stolen
cargo. In response to this request, an old broom was despatched to the
fort, with the intelligence that this was all the restitution the
Clatsops contemplated. The schooner _Colbore_ was therefore sent on a
punitive expedition. Several of the tribe were wounded and a chief
shot, after which the Clatsops entered into a better frame of mind,
and expressed contrition for their behaviour.
Under the Anglo-Russian Treaty of 1825, the Company possessed the free
navigation of streams which, having their rise in British territory,
crossed Russian territory in their course to the sea. The Company were
not long in availing themselves of this privilege. Posts were
successively erected, as far as the Stickeen River; but seven years
afterwards there was yet no permanent post on that stream. It was,
therefore, decided to establish one, and a brig, the _Dryad_, was
accordingly fitted out and despatched from Fort Vancouver. But in that
year, 1833, the Russian Government had received the petition of its
subjects to rescind the proviso in the treaty favourable to the
British. The Company's enterprise in thus encroaching on Russian
territory had alarmed Wrangel, who was then in charge of the Russian
establishment[115] at Sitka, and he wrote to his superiors urging them
to memorialize the Emperor. He alleged that the Hudson's Bay Company
had violated its agreement to refrain from selling fire-arms or
spirituous liquors to the natives--an allegation which was not founded
on fact.
[Sidenote: The _Dryad_ appears.]
Believing that the situation called for instant action, Wrangel did
not wait to learn what course his Government would take in the matter,
but at once despatched two armed vessels to the entrance of Stickeen
River. A fort was hastily built on the site of an Indian village, guns
were mounted, and the Company's expedition awaited. All unconscious
the _Dryad_ force approached. Suddenly a puff of smoke and a loud
report arrested them, and several shots came from two vessels hitherto
concealed in the offing. While the astonished captain and crew put the
brig about, with a design to anchor out of range, a boat reached them
from the shore, bearing an officer in Russian uniform. He protested in
the name of the Emperor and the Governor of the Russian-American
possessions, against the entrance of a British vessel into a river
appertaining to those powers. The Company's agent attempted to argue
the matter, but his representations went unheeded. The Russian was
obdurate; they were all threatened with peril to their lives, and
their vessel, if the _Dryad_ did not immediately weigh anchor. There
was consequently nothing to do but to return.
The Company was indignant at this outrage. The forts it had already
built, together with the cost of fitting out the _Dryad_ and other
vessels, besides a vast quantity of provisions and perishable
merchandise sent into that country, had amounted to £20,000 sterling.
The Emperor had granted the petition of the Russian Company; and both
the British and the American Governments received notification that
the clause in the treaty would terminate at twelve months' notice. But
the _Dryad_ affair took place before this decision was made public.
The British Government very properly demanded immediate satisfaction,
and for a time public interest was keenly aroused. The Russian
Government merely consented to disavow the act of its officer; and
issued instructions prohibiting further hindrance to the trading
limits previously agreed upon.
The matter did not, however, receive settlement until 1839, in which
year a convention was held in London to arrange the points long in
dispute between the two companies. The matter was settled with
despatch. The Hudson's Bay Company's claim for compensation was waived
in return for a lease from the Russian Company of all their territory
on the mainland lying between Cape Spencer and latitude 54° 40'. For
this lease the Company agreed to pay an annual rental of two thousand
land-otter skins, and also to supply the Russians with provisions at
moderate rates.
In the last chapter, the expedition in 1819-20 of Lieutenant
(afterwards Sir John) Franklin, was alluded to.
Franklin and his party reached Fort Chippewyan on the 26th March,
after having travelled on foot eight hundred and fifty-six miles, with
the weather so intensely cold that the mercury continually froze in
the bulb. In July, 1820, they journeyed five hundred miles more to
Fort Enterprise, where the party wintered, Back returning to Fort
Chippewyan to procure supplies for the next season's operations. He
was eagerly awaited, and when he arrived, in March, 1821, he had a
tale of great hardship to relate. He had travelled over one thousand
one hundred miles, sometimes going two or three days without food,
with no covering at night but a blanket and deerskins to protect him
from the fearful rigours of fifty-seven degrees below zero. In June
the party started out from the Coppermine to reach the sea, which they
did in eighteen days. Their subsequent sufferings were of the most
dreadful description. When the survivors returned to York Factory,
they had travelled five thousand five hundred and fifty miles by land
and water; but their object was still unaccomplished.[116]
In 1825, Franklin entered upon a second journey to the shores of the
Polar Sea, again accompanied by Lieutenant Back and Peter Dease, one
of the Company's chief traders.
"The Governor and Committee took," says Franklin, "a most lively
interest in the objects of the expedition, promised their utmost
support to it, and forthwith sent injunctions to their officers in the
fur countries to provide the necessary depots of provisions at the
places which I pointed out, and to give every other aid in their
power."
Franklin descended the Mackenzie and traced the coast line through
thirty-seven degrees of longitude from the mouth of the Coppermine
River, where his former survey began, to near the one hundred and
fiftieth meridian, and coming within one hundred and sixty miles of
the most easterly point reached by Captain Beechy, who was exploring
from Bering's Strait.
[Illustration: SIR GEORGE BACK, R.N.]
In 1832 the protracted absence of Captain (afterwards Sir John) Ross,
who had sailed three years before for the Polar regions, became cause
for anxiety. It was decided to send an expedition, commanded by
Captain Back, in search of this explorer, and the Government granted
£2,000 towards the expense, "it being understood that the Hudson's Bay
Company will furnish the supplies and canoes free of charge, and that
the remainder of the expense, which is estimated at £3,000, will be
contributed by Captain Ross's friends." The expedition sailed, but
after it had been absent one year, news reached them[117] that Ross
had returned safe and sound in England; and Captain Back was ordered
to attempt a completion of the coast line of the north-eastern
extremity of North America. The Company, through Sir George Simpson,
nominated four officers, in its service, to be placed under Back's
command.
In 1834 there was witnessed a confirmation of the Deed Poll of 1821,
with a more definite prescription of the duties and emoluments of the
Company's servants.
It was not until the year 1835 that Lord Selkirk's heirs determined to
give up their control of the Red River colony, and to surrender the
territories granted in 1811. The expenses incurred by the Earl in his
expeditions, and in his costly law suits, were estimated at a large
amount, and this the Company agreed to assume.
In 1839 a powerful blow was dealt at the prosperity of the Company by
the successful substitution of silk for beaver fur in the manufacture
of hats. The price of beaver almost instantly fell, and continued to
fall thenceforward for many years, inflicting great loss upon the
Company which was fortunately atoned for in other directions.
In this same year the Company, at the suggestion of Chief Factor
McLaughlin, demanded and obtained of the Russian Fur Company a ten
years' lease for trading purposes of a strip of land ten leagues wide,
extending north from latitude 50° 40', and lying between British
territory and the ocean, paying therefor two thousand east side land
otter, worth thirty-two shillings and sixpence each. Statesmen in
England marvelled at this arrangement, wondering why the Company
sought these ten leagues of Russian seaboard. But traffic with the
natives was only one of the objects of the Company, for they also
contemplated making a customer of the Russians for European goods, as
well as for those products of the soil which the inclemency of the
more northern regions prevented their rivals from raising.
Acting upon this arrangement, a party was organized at Montreal in
1839 to take possession of the leased territory. They set out from
York Factory in July, and travelled from thence by way of Edmonton,
Jasper House and Walla Walla to Fort Vancouver. In the following year
they proceeded to the Redoubt St. Dionysius, or as it was thereafter
called, Fort Stickine, the Russian post at the mouth of the Stickine
River, which was to be the British headquarters in the leased
territory. In charge of the fort they found a Russian officer with
fifty men, guarded by a brig of thirty-two guns. The officer was
informed by the Company's pioneers that they would remain with
eighteen men, at which the Russians expressed astonishment. They
informed young McLaughlin and W. G. Rae, who had been appointed to the
new post, that the savages were troublesome, that the chief had many
slaves skilled in assassination and accustomed to obey his murderous
orders. To which the Company's men replied, "Other forts we rule with
twenty men, and we will hold Stickine."
[Illustration: THOMAS SIMPSON.]
To this period belong the adventures and the tragic end of Thomas
Simpson, the Arctic explorer. As a youth, Simpson had shown great
scholastic promise, and seemed destined for medicine, when fortune
tempted him to try the service of the Company. His cousin, George
Simpson, was then Governor of the Company's territories, and repeated
offers of a position decided the brilliant student to embark in the
fur-trade. He began work as secretary to Governor Simpson, with whom
he travelled from post to post for some time, until he settled down as
accountant at Fort Garry. But soon the Company had a duty for him to
perform. In order to strengthen their hand when applying for a renewal
of their general trading license, the Honourable Adventurers decided
to spend some money in exploring the Arctic coast. Young Simpson was
requested to undertake this arduous task. Exploration from the
Atlantic showed a defined coast line to within seven degrees of the
Great Fish River, and it was to devolve upon Simpson to explore the
intervening gap. The important duty was laid upon him of completing
the discovery of the northern coast of North America, and in
accomplishing this it was thought that the long-looked for North-West
passage would be brought to light. Simpson set out from Fort Garry in
the winter of 1836-37 and travelled on foot the whole distance to
Lake Athabasca, a matter of one thousand two hundred miles, where he
encountered Dease, the chief factor, who was nominally at the head of
the expedition. In the spring the party descended the Mackenzie in
open boats, coasting along to the westward until they attained the
farthest point attained by Franklin. From here a successful journey
was made to within a short distance of Point Barrow, when their
progress was arrested by the ice. After wintering at Great Bear Lake,
in the spring of 1838 the expedition again started for the coast,
crossing the Coppermine River and descending that stream to its mouth.
But to their great disappointment they found the coast ice-bound. In
the following spring they were more fortunate, finding the sea
comparatively open, and as before, Simpson struck off along the coast
on foot. The expedition returned by way of the Coppermine and Great
Bear Lake to the Mackenzie River, and here Simpson wrote a narrative
of the expedition while waiting for the freezing up of that stream. He
departed from Fort Simpson on the 2nd December, and reached Fort Garry
on 1st of February, covering a distance of one thousand nine hundred
and ten miles in sixty-one days, many of which were spent in enforced
delays at the Company's forts on the way. Simpson was greatly
disappointed to find on his arrival at Red River no letters from the
Company in London, inasmuch as he had offered to make another
expedition to complete the seven degrees still remaining of unexplored
coast. The Company had accepted his offer, and wrote to that effect,
but the letter arrived too late. The same mail also contained the news
that the Royal Geographical Society, in view of the success which had
attended his first expedition, had awarded him its gold medal; while
the British Government had bestowed on him a pension of £100 sterling
per annum. Simpson's later discoveries far excelled those he had made
in 1837, and no doubt the honours accorded him would have been very
great; but in 1840, while travelling, about three days' journey from
Fort Garry, in what is now Dakota, a tragedy took place, the details
of which are still wrapt in mystery. It appears that the party of
which Simpson was a member were arranging their camp for the night.
Their horses were grazing hard by. All were armed with guns and
pistols, for the Sioux were on the warpath. One of the party was
helping to pitch the tent when he heard the report of a gun. On
turning around he beheld Simpson in the act of shooting, first, John
Bird and then Antoine Legros, the former of whom fell dead, while the
latter had time to give his son a last embrace. According to this
witness, Simpson then spoke for the first time, demanding if he knew
of any plot to rob him of his papers. This was the last seen alive of
the Arctic explorer; next morning his dead body was found lying beside
the others he had slain. There is little doubt that he was the victim
of a fit of insanity, superinduced by the fear that one of his
fellow-travellers might report the results of the expedition to the
Company in England before him. His death removed an able and
distinguished explorer, who rendered good service to the Company.
In 1842 Lord Ashburton arrived in the United States, equipped with
instructions and powers for the settlement of certain questions long
pending between Britain and America. It was expected that the Oregon
boundary matter would be one of these, but this was not the case.[118]
Meanwhile the utmost excitement prevailed in Oregon, the settlers of
both nationalities claiming possession. Political meetings were held
on the part of the British, at which old Hudson's Bay Company servants
and ignorant voyageurs were nominated for office, the latter men,
"whose ideas of government," says McKay, "were little above those of a
grisly bear."
Travelling along the middle Columbia at this time was by no means
devoid of danger, owing to the animosity of the natives towards the
Americans. Their faith in the Company remained unshaken; but they were
subject to fits of suspicion and ill-temper, which were occasionally
fraught with considerable inconvenience for the Hudson's Bay servants.
In 1844, when J. W. McKay first came to Fort Vancouver, he found that
many of the Indians along the route were not to be trusted. Early in
1846 McKay was dispatched to California to ascertain what arrangements
might be made for securing certain supplies nearer than England, in
case the Company's farming establishment on the Columbia should be
surrendered to the United States.
In 1846 Joseph McKay was given the general supervision of the Pacific
establishments, in succession to James Douglas. Taking passage
northward in the _Beaver_ in October, according to the custom of the
general agent, he visited the several stations and made such changes
and left such instructions as he deemed advisable. The Russians he
found "affable and polite, but tricky." In August, 1847, he mentions
meeting a chief of the Stickine Indians, whom he had reason to believe
perfectly trustworthy. "He told me that he had been approached by a
Russian officer with presents of beads and tobacco, and that he was
told that if he would get up a war with the English in that vicinity
and compel them to withdraw, he should receive assistance in the shape
of arms and ammunition; and in case of success he would receive a
medal from the Russian Emperor, a splendid uniform, and anything else
he might desire, while his people should always be paid the highest
prices for their peltries."
In the East as in the West, at Red River, at Edmonton, and on the
Pacific, the old policy of procuring provisions and the necessaries of
life from England had been abandoned. The Company now raised horses,
horned cattle, sheep, and other farm stock. It owned large farms in
different parts of the country, grist mills, saw mills, tanneries,
fisheries, etc. From its posts on the Pacific it exported flour,
grain, beef, pork, and butter, to the Russian settlements; lumber and
fish to the Sandwich Islands; hides and wool to England. It opened the
coal mines at Nanaimo, after an unremunerative expenditure of £25,000
in seeking coal at Fort Rupert.
[Sidenote: Agricultural and mercantile enterprise.]
On the Pacific Coast, as many of the Company's men who could be spared
from the business of the fort, as well as such natives as had a
leaning towards civilization, were employed in clearing lands and
establishing farms. It was not difficult to convince these Indians
that they were pursuing the best policy, and they set to with a will
to help the white men and half-breeds, "becoming good bullock-drivers
and better ploughmen than the Canadians or Ranakes," to whom,
nevertheless, they gave freely of their women as wives, a circumstance
which tended to promote good behaviour amongst the medley throng of
Company's servants. Such natives were treated with all fairness, and
paid wages as high as the other labourers, usually from £17 to £25 per
annum.
The Company became banker for the thousands who thrived by hunting,
trading, tilling or mining, within its domains. It issued notes, and
so valid were they that it has been said "the Hudson's Bay Company's
note was taken everywhere over the northern continent when the 'shin
plasters' of banks in the United States and Canada were refused."[119]
[Illustration: HUDSON'S BAY CO., TRADE TOKENS.]
FOOTNOTES:
[110] In March, 1821, Wentzel, one of the North-West partners, wrote:
"The Hudson's Bay Company have apparently relaxed in the extravagance
of their measures; last autumn they came in the [Athabasca] Department
with fifteen canoes only, containing each about fifteen pieces. Mr.
Simpson, a gentleman from England last spring, superintends their
business. His being a strange, and reputedly gentlemanly, man, will
not create much alarm, nor do I presume him formidable as an Indian
trader."
[111] May 30th, 1838.
[112] "Such is the spirit and avidity exhibited by the Council," wrote
one of the Company's factors, in 1823, "that it is believed these
discoveries will be extended as far as the Russian settlements on the
Pacific Ocean."
[113] On motion of Mr. Congressman Floyd, a committee was appointed in
December, 1820, "to enquire into the situation of the settlements upon
the Pacific Ocean, and the expediency of occupying the Columbia
River."
[114] See Appendix for copy of this Treaty.
[115] The Russian Company was incorporated under the patronage of the
Crown with a capital of two hundred and sixty thousand pounds
sterling. It had a large commerce with Northern China which did not
deal with Canton; and it was in the northern part of the empire that
the consumption of furs was greatest. Canton was merely the _entrepôt_
where furs were received for distribution throughout China.
[116] From Joseph Berens, Esq., the Governor of the Hudson's Bay
Company and the gentlemen of the Committee, I received all kinds of
assistance and information, communicated in the most friendly manner
previous to my leaving England; and I had the gratification of
perusing the orders to their agents and servants in North America,
containing the fullest directions to promote by every means the
progress of the expedition.--_Sir John Franklin._
[117] "The extraordinary expedition with which this despatch was
transmitted by the Hudson's Bay Company," says Back, "is worthy of
being recorded."
[118] Indeed it cannot be doubted that Great Britain was wholly
influenced by the position of the Company. It has been said that she
did not anticipate any permanent possession of the country. "The
British have certainly no other immediate object," wrote Mr. Gallatin,
the American commissioner, to Henry Clay, "than that of protecting the
Company in its fur-trade."
[119] Sir Edward Walkin tells how, when he was for a short time, in
1865 and 1866, shareholders' auditor of the Company, he cancelled many
of these notes which had become defaced, mainly owing to the fingering
of Indians and others, who had left behind on the thick yellow paper,
coatings of pemmican.