ART. II. THE HUDSON BAY COMPANY.

The Great Company (1667-1871): Being a History of the Honourable Company of Merchant-Adventurers Trading into Hudson's Bay. By BECKLES WILLSON, with an Introduction by Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL. Portraits and Map. 2 vols. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1900.

'N these two volumes Mr. Beckles Willson tells the story of the Hudson's Bay Company. The story is compiled from the Company's archives and from other reliable sources, and is prefaced by an introduction from the pen of Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal, the governor of the Company. It is full of stirring and often of startling episodes, and narrates many deeds of courage, endurance, and heroism, not unmixed here and there with others of faint-heartedness, cowardice, and even of crime. On the whole, however, it is the story of a great success. The Honourable Company of Adventurers never gave themselves out as anything but traders. They have never carried the Bible in one hand and the rumbottle in the other; nor have they ever laid claim to be acting from any high or exalted motive, or given out that their first and principal aim was the evangelisation of the Red man. Their open and avowed object has always been gain, and while they have pursued it tenaciously, and often in the face of great difficulties and discouragements, to their credit, be it said, they have never condescended to the use of unworthy means, but all through their long career, and in spite of numerous temptations, they have dealt honestly with the natives through whose industry they sought to profit. They have had their reward. Not only have successive generations of shareholders reaped the gain they sought, the Company has proved itself a power for good, scattering the elements of civilisation among the rude and savage tribes with whom its agents came in contact, contributing towards the amelioration of their physical lot and the improvement of their moral

condition, and at the same time adding largely to the sum of our knowledge of the earth's surface, and preparing the way for the colonist. One of the most beneficial results of the Company's operations may be seen in the kindly relations it fostered and which still exists between the White and the Red men through all parts of the British dominions on the North American continent.

The Hudson Bay Company, or the Great Company, as the Red men prefer to call it, originated in 1667. Great Britain had just awaked out of the terrors of the Civil War, and escaped from the oppressive hand of Cromwell. The spirit of commercial enterprise had begun to make itself felt, and the Court of Charles II. was thronged with adventurers, eager to win his favour for the advancement of schemes to which the leaders of the Commonwealth would not have listened. The fur trade of North America was already being vigorously prosecuted by the Dutch, the English in Boston, and the French in Canada. The greatest share of the trade was falling to the French. As early as 1630 the Beaver and several other companies had been organised at Quebec for carrying on the fur trade in the West, near and around the great Lakes, and in the North-West Territory, and twice annually for many years had vessels anchored at Havre laden with the skins of fox, marten, and beaver, collected and shipped by the Company of the Hundred Associates, to whom in 1627 Richelieu had granted a charter conferring upon the Company a monopoly of the trade in Canada. The extent of the trade was no secret, and a feeling became current in London that England ought to have a larger share in the traffic than it had. There were difficulties in the way; but by 1665 the charter of the Compagnie des Cents Assocés having been ceded to the Crown, a new Association known as La Compagnie des Indes Occidentals was formed under a new charter, and in the following year two of the employees of the old Company, dissatisfied with their prospects under the new régime, propounded to the Intendant, Jean Talon, at Quebec, a scheme. for the extension of the fur trade to the shores of Hudson's Bay.

These two employees, 'bushrangers,' as Mr. Willson designates them, were Medard Chouart, who subsequently added to his name des Groseilliers, and his brother-in-law, Pierre Radisson. Groseilliers, for by that name Chouart came to be generally known, was born in France, near Meaux, and had emigrated to Quebec when he was little over sixteen years old. His father, who was a pilot, intended that he should succeed him in the same calling, but, falling in with a Jesuit just returned from Canada, and full of thrilling tales about the New France beyond the seas, he was so affected by the suggestion which the Jesuit's anecdotes awakened in him of a rough and joyous career in the wilderness, that he resolved to take his own part in the glowing life they depicted. In 1641 he sailed with Maissoneuve from Rochelle. Five years later he was trading among the Hurons. Next year he married Etienne, daughter of the pilot Abraham Martin, from whom the plateau adjoining Quebec takes its name, and which a century later was the scene of the struggle between Montcalm and Wolfe. Etienne did not long survive her marriage, and within a year after her death Groseilliers fell in with Pierre and Marguerite Radisson, Hugenots of good family who had just quitted France to start a new life amid new and more tranquil surroundings in Canada. With this young couple Groseilliers was soon on terms of great intimacy. Marguerite he married, and with Pierre he entered into partnership, and the two were soon the leading spirits of the settlement at Three Rivers. Here Radisson married Elizabeth Herault, one of the few Protestant young women in Canada. After her death he married the daughter of a zealous English Protestant, who afterwards became Sir John Kirke, and to whose brothers Champlain had thirty years before surrendered Quebec. Groseilliers about this time is reported to have turned Protestant.

It was to Groseilliers and Radisson that the Hudson's Bay Company may in one sense be said to have owed its existence, and for a long time they are the central figures in the early part of its history. As already said, they were for some time in the employment of the Hundred Associates, and it was while engaged with them that they acquired the information

which suggested the plan of carrying on the fur-trade from the shores of Hudson's Bay. When the proposal was laid before the Intendant at Quebec he refused to entertain it. Groseilliers then made his way to Boston. In Boston his scheme was regarded with favour, but money was scarce, and the colouy was already overstrained in carrying out projects for its own security and maintenance. At Boston, however, he met with the members of a Commission who had been sent over to adjust certain complaints, and one of them, Colonel Carr, it is said, strongly urged him to proceed to England and offer his services to the King. In Boston he also met with Zachary Gillam, captain and part owner of the Nonsuch, in which he plied a trade between the colony and the mother country. Gillam entered into the project with enthusiasm, and offered his services in case an equipment could be found. But, failing to find the support they needed in Boston, in June, 1665, Groseilliers and Radisson set sail in the Nonsuch for Plymouth, from whence they proceeded to Paris. Here they were as unsuccessful with the French authorities as they had been in Canada. By a happy coincidence, however, the Colonel Carr just referred to, chanced to be in Paris, and meeting with Groseilliers and hearing of the failure of his mission, he renewed his recommendation to the bushranger to try his fortune in London, and gave him a letter to Lord Arlington, the British ambassador in Paris who, after carefully weighing the matter, gave him a letter to Prince Rupert, then in London, where he was spending the time in the cultivation of science and the arts.

Groseilliers left Radisson, who by this time was thoroughly disheartened, in Paris, and made his way to London. On his arrival the Prince was unfortunately ill and unable to see him, and it was not till the 4th of June, 1667, some two or three weeks later, that they met. When they met they were alone, and the result of the interview was that the Prince promised his credit for the scheme. Three days later the Prince sent for Groseilliers. This time he was not alone. In the Prince's apartments were several gentlemen, among whom were Lord Craven, Sir John Robinson, and Mr. John Portman. A week later

Groseilliers, Radisson, and Portman travelled to Windsor Castle at the Prince's request. Of what happened there is no record, but Oldenburgh, the famous Secretary of the Royal Society, soon after wrote to Robert Boyle in America :- Surely I need not tell you from hence, what is said here with great joy, of the discovery of a north-west passage by two Englishmen and one Frenchman, lately represented by them to His Majesty at Oxford, and answered by the grant of a vessel to sail into Hudson's Bay and Channel into the South Sea.' Evidently the scheme of the two intrepid traders was at last to be set afoot.

The year 1667 was too far advanced for any practical steps. to be taken, but in the following year Zachary Gillam's Nonsuch, a ketch of fifty tons, was chartered for the project, and after success to the expedition had been drunk in the captain's cabin by Prince Rupert and several of his friends, the vessel dropped down the Thames on the 3rd of June. Two months later Resolution. Isle, at the entrance of Hudson's Straits, was sighted, and on the 29th of September the adventurers cast anchor at the mouth of a river situated in 51 degrees of latitude. Groseilliers and Gillam went promptly ashore. They christened the river Rupert's River, and resolved to winter on the spot where they had landed.

The first care of the traders was to build a fort. Under Groseilliers' direction they made it of logs after the manner of those built by the traders and Jesuits in Canada, a stockade enclosing it, as offering some protection against sudden attack. The cargo was not landed until the attitude of the Indians had been ascertained. On the fourth day a number of these appeared. Under the management of Groseilliers they proved friendly, and promised to return before the winter set in with all the furs they had, and to spread the tidings of the new trading post amongst the neighbouring tribes. The supply of furs brought in in the autumn was small, but that of the following spring, chiefly owing to the activity and tact of Groseilliers, was abundant, and in June the Nonsuch sailed away with such cargo as had been gathered, to report to the Prince and his friends the excellent prospects afforded by the post on