The Great Company Part 43

[Ill.u.s.tration: SIR GEORGE SIMPSON.]

The partners met at Fort William, in July, 1820, and a stormy session served to reflect their vexed plight. Dissensions exhibited themselves; the minority, at least, felt that in their London agents--Ellice and the McGillivrays--coming to terms with the Hudson's Bay Company, lay their only hope of salvation.

[Sidenote: Union of the two Companies.]

Without, however, consulting the powers at Fort William, these agents in London were acting on their own account. Conferences with the Chartered Adventurers took place daily. By the time the partners.h.i.+p between the Northmen themselves expired, in 1821, the negotiations had attained the form of an agreement. Delegates had been sent from Fort William to confer with their English representatives as to the future of the interests of the North-West Company. Ellice received them cordially in his office in Mark Lane and showed them an instrument which he called the Deed Poll. This doc.u.ment bore the names of the Governor, Berens, and the Committee of the Honourable Hudson's Bay Company, on the one part, and the McGillivrays and Ellice, on the other. The astonished delegates gazed upon the signed and sealed instrument, and recognized that the North-West Company had ceased to exist. "Amalgamation," cried one of them, "this is not amalgamation, but submersion. We are drowned men."

A coalition and partners.h.i.+p had been agreed upon for twenty-one years, on the basis that each should furnish an equal capital for conducting the trade. This Deed Poll, which bore date of March 26, 1821, provided that the expenses of the establishment should be paid out of the trade, and that no expense of colonization or any commerce not directly relating to the fur-trade, was to fall upon the Company.

The profits were to be divided into one hundred equal parts, of which forty were to be shared between the chief factors and chief traders, according to profit and loss. If a loss should occur in one year on these forty shares it was to be made good out of the profits of the year ensuing. A general inventory and account was to be made out annually on the 1st of June. If profits were not paid to any parties within fourteen days of that date, interest was to be allowed then at the rate of five per cent.

When the Deed Poll was signed, it was stipulated that twenty-five chief factors and twenty-eight chief traders should be appointed, to be named in alternate succession from the Hudson's Bay and the North-West Company's servants. Both were placed on an equal footing, the forty shares out of the hundred being again subdivided into eighty-five shares, in order that each of the twenty-five chief factors should receive two (or 2/85ths), and each of the chief traders one of such shares. The remaining seven shares, to complete the eighty-five, were set apart for old servants, to be paid them during a term of seven years.

[Sidenote: Plan of union.]

The chief factors were to superintend the business of the Company at their respective stations, while the chief traders under them were to conduct the commerce with the Indians. The third cla.s.s was the clerks, who were promoted to factors.h.i.+ps and traders.h.i.+ps, according to good conduct and seniority, but whose clerical salaries ranged from 20 to 100 per annum. The chief factors and traders, who wintered in the interior, were granted, in addition to their share of profits, certain personal necessaries free of cost. They were not, however, permitted to carry on any private trade on their own account with the Indians.

Strict accounts were required of them annually. The councils at the various posts were empowered to mulct, admonish or suspend any of the Company's servants. Each year three chief factors and two chief traders were granted twelve months leave of absence. A chief factor or chief trader, after wintering three years in the service might retire, and hold his full share of profits for one year after so retiring, with half the share for the four succeeding years. If he wintered for five years, he was granted half profits for six years on retiring.

Retirements of chief factors and chief traders were made annually by rotation, three of the former, or two of the former and two of the latter. The heirs of a chief factor or chief trader who died after wintering five years received all the benefit to which the deceased or himself would have been ent.i.tled had he lived, or in proportion otherwise. Everything was thus regulated, provision was effected for everything. The Northmen, rough, enterprising, adventurous, as many of them were, found themselves part of a huge machine, operated with sleepless vigilance of a governor and committee in London. As for the profits, they were to be estimated after the entire expenses, both in London and the fur country, were deducted. They were then to be divided into fifths, of which three-fifths went to the proprietary and two-fifths to the chief factors, chief traders and clerks, who were to be thenceforward known as the "fur-trade" or the "wintering partners."

No wonder that many of the Northmen were constrained to cry out, in the language of one of their number[109]: "Alas, the North-West is now beginning to be ruled with an iron rod!"

FOOTNOTES:

[106] Benjamin Frobisher was a native of York, England.

[107] At the trials at York in October, 1818, Sherwood, the North-West Company's counsel, continually demanded to know why Semple was called governor. "Why," he exclaimed, with ludicrous energy, "why should this gentleman be continually dignified by the appellation of governor? The indictment charged that Robert Semple was killed and murdered; it said nothing about his being a governor. If he was a governor, then he was also an emperor. Yes, gentlemen," shrieked the counsel, working himself up to fever heat, "I repeat, an emperor--a bashaw in that land of milk and honey, where nothing, not even a blade of corn, will ripen. Who made him governor? Did the King? Did the Prince Regent? No; this pretended authority was an illegal a.s.sumption of power, arrogating to itself prerogatives such as are not exercised even by the King of England. I demand that Robert Semple be called Robert Semple--but as he was not a governor let us not be ----"

"Come, come," cried Chief Justice Powell, "do let this trial go on! It is no matter whether he was or was not a governor, or what he was called, or called himself, he is not to be murdered, though he was not a governor."

[108] "Ses postes," says Senator Ma.s.son, "avient ete pilles et devastes; ses exportatiors considerablement sedintes." On the other hand, he adds, these losses were partly compensated for by the high prices secured in England for their furs.

[109] Wentzel.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII.

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 pa.s.sed 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 sh.o.r.e 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 apt.i.tude 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, accomplis.h.i.+ng 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 lat.i.tudes, and journeyed extensively over the vast territory of which he was truly the "commercial sovereign."

The appointment of the Rev. Mr. West as princ.i.p.al 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 a.s.sociated bodies into the British North American fur-trade, inasmuch as the compet.i.tion 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE BOARD ROOM, HUDSON'S BAY HOUSE, LONDON.]

To antic.i.p.ate 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 s.h.i.+ps 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 compet.i.tion, 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 princ.i.p.al _entrepot_ 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 a.s.signed 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 princ.i.p.al 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 lat.i.tude 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 establis.h.i.+ng 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 princ.i.p.ally or exclusively frequented."

The Spaniards west of the Mississippi never extended their establishments nearly so far north as lat.i.tude 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 t.i.tle to the country, but a strong party believed that they had a right to found by occupation a legitimate t.i.tle 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 lat.i.tude 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.