CHAPTER VIII
1670-1870
“GENTLEMEN ADVENTURERS OF ENGLANDâ€â€”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
“GENTLEMEN ADVENTURERS OF ENGLANDâ€â€”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
Justwhere 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 EnglandTrading 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 thosenotalready 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’sBay 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 brigadesof 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.â€
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 wagesand 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 beddâ€â€”not a bribebeforethe good turn, but a token of good willafterwards. 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 Highnessat 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.â€
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 congratulateyour 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.â€
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 werekept 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 melodramato 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 Januaryto 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 publicauction 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, trappedluckily 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.â€
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 todeclare 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 thereturns 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 onthe 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’shunt. 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 4B—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 tocommunicate 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 andNansens, 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 asmall 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,givingthe white chief the furs, and the white chief formally presenting the Indian chief with aquid 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 wereemployed 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 thefunniest 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 asdowries 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 separatecompany; 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.â€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 toThe 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 inPathfinders 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£10,5001690 September The same being trebled is21,000______Which made the Stock to be31,5001720 August 29 This Stock being again trebled is63,000______Which made the Stock to be94,500And a subscription then taken in of 10% amounting to Additional Stock9,450______Which makes the present Amount of the Stock to be103,950The 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 Groseillerspassed 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.
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.â€
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 toThe 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 inPathfinders 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:
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 Groseillerspassed 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.