The Remarkable History of the Hudson's Bay Company. Bryce George

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ years after the Treaty of Utrecht, the Memorial of the Hudson's Bay Company shows that while they had received back their forts, yet the line of delimitation between Canada had not been drawn and their losses had not been paid.

      In the preceding chapter we have a list of the claims against the French as computed in 1694, amounting to upwards of 200,000l.; now, however, the amount demanded is not much above 100,000l., though the Memorial explains that in making up the above modest sum, they had not counted up the loss of their forts, nor the damage done to their trade, as had been done in the former case. Immediately after the time of this Memorial of the Company, the Commissioners were named by Great Britain and France, and several meetings took place. Statements were then given in, chiefly as to the boundaries between the British and French possessions in the neighbourhood of Hudson Bay and Canada. The Commissioners for several years practised all the arts of diplomacy, and were farther and farther apart as the discussions went on. No result seems to have been reached, and the claims of the Hudson's Bay Company, so far as recorded, were never met. Peace, however, prevailed in Hudson Bay for many years; the Indians from the interior, even to the Rocky Mountains, made their visits to the Bay for the first forty years of the eighteenth century, and the fur trade, undisturbed, became again remunerative.

       CHAPTER VIII

      DREAM OF A NORTH-WEST PASSAGE

      Stock rises – Jealousy aroused – Arthur Dobbs, Esq. – An ingenious attack – Appeal to the "Old Worthies" – Captain Christopher Middleton – Was the Company in earnest? – The sloop Furnace– Dobbs' fierce attack – The great subscription – Independent expedition – "Henry Ellis, gentleman" – "Without success" – Dobbs' real purpose.

      When peace had been restored by the Treaty of Utrecht, the shores of the Bay, which had been in the hands of the French since the Treaty of Ryswick, were given over to Great Britain, according to the terms of the Treaty; they have remained British ever since. The Company, freed from the fears of overland incursions by the French from Canada, and from the fleets that had worked so much mischief by sea, seems to have changed character in the personnel of the stockholders and to have lost a good deal of the pristine spirit. The charge is made that the stockholders had become very few, that the stock was controlled by a majority, who, year after year, elected themselves, and that considering the great privileges conferred by the Charter, the Company was failing to develop the country and was sleeping in inglorious ease on the shores of Hudson Bay. Certain it is that Sir Bibye Lake was re-elected Governor year after year, from 1720 to 1740.

      It would appear, however, to have been a spirit of jealousy which animated those who made these discoveries as to the Company's inaction. The return of peace had brought prosperity to the traders; and dividends to the stockholders began to be a feature of company life which they had not known for more than a quarter of a century. As we shall see, the stock of the Company was greatly increased in 1720, and preparations were being made by the Committee for a wide extension of their operations.

      About this time a man of great personal energy appears on the scene of English commercial life, who became a bitter opponent of the Company, and possessed such influence with the English Government that the Company was compelled to make a strenuous defence. This was Arthur Dobbs, Esq., an Irishman of undoubted ability and courage. He conducted his plan of campaign against the Company along a most ingenious and dangerous line of attack.

      He revived the memory among the British people of the early voyages to discover a way to the riches of the East, and appealed to the English imagination by picturing the interior of the North American Continent, with its vast meadows, splendid cascades, rich fur-bearing animals, and numberless races of Indians, picturesquely dressed, as opening up a field, if they could be reached, of lucrative trade to the London merchants. To further his purpose he pointed out the sluggish character of the Hudson's Bay Company, and clinched his arguments by quoting the paragraph in the Charter which stated that the great privileges conferred by generous Charles II. were bestowed in consideration of their object having been "The Discovery of a New Passage into the South Sea." Dobbs appealed to the sacrifices made and the glories achieved in earlier days in the attempt to discover the North-West Passage. In scores of pages, the indefatigable writer gives the accounts of the early voyages.

      We have but to give a passage or two from another author to show what a powerful weapon Dobbs wielded, and to see how he succeeded in reviving a question which had slumbered well nigh a hundred years, and which again became a living question in the nineteenth century.

      This writer says: – "It would lead us far beyond our limits were we to chronicle all the reasons urged, and the attempts made to 'finde out that short and easie passage by the North-west, which we have hitherto so long desired.' Under the auspices of the 'Old Worthies' really – though ostensibly countenanced by kings, queens, and nobles – up rose a race of men, daring and enthusiastic, whose names would add honour to any country, and embalm its history.

      "Commencing with the reign of Henry VII., we have first, John Cabot (1497), ever renowned; for he it was who first saw and claimed for the 'Banner of England,' the American continent. Sebastian, his son, follows in the next year – a name honourable and wise. Nor may we omit Master Robert Thorne of Bristol (1527); Master Hore (1536); and Master Michael Lok (1545), of London – men who knew 'cosmography' and the 'weighty and substantial reasons' for 'a discovery even to the North Pole.' For a short time Arctic energy changed its direction from the North-west to the North-east (discoveries of the Muscovy Company), but wanting success in that quarter, again reverted to the North-west. Then we find Martin Frobisher, George Best, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, James Davis, George Waymouth, John Knight, the cruelly treated Henry Hudson, James Hall, Sir Thomas Button, Fotherbye, Baffin and Bylot, 'North-west' Luke Fox, Thomas James, &c.

      "Thus, in the course of sixty years – now breaking the icy fetters of the North, now chained by them; now big with high hope 'of the Passage,' then beaten back by the terrific obstacles, as it were, guarding it – notwithstanding, these men never faltered, never despaired of finally accomplishing it. Their names are worthy to be held in remembrance; for, with all their faults, all their strange fancies and prejudices, still they were a daring and glorious race, calm amid the most appalling dangers; what they did was done correctly, as far as their limited means went; each added something that gave us more extended views and a better acquaintance with the globe we inhabit – giving especially large contributions to geography, with a more fixed resolution to discover the 'Passage.' By them the whole of the eastern face of North America was made known, and its disjointed lands in the North, even to 77 deg. or 78 deg. N. Their names will last while England is true to herself."

      Mr. Dobbs awakened much interest among persons of rank in England as to the desirability of finding a North-West Passage. Especially to the Lords of the Admiralty, on whom he had a strong hold, did he represent the glory and value of fitting out an expedition to Hudson Bay on this quest.

      Dobbs mentions in his book the unwilling efforts of the Hudson's Bay Company to meet the demand for a wider examination of the Bay which took place a few years after the Peace of Utrecht. In 1719, Captain James Knight received orders from the Company to fit out an expedition and sail up the west coast of the Bay. This he did in two ships, the Albany frigate, Captain George Barlow, and the Discovery, Captain David Vaughan. Captain John Scroggs, in the ship Whalebone, two years afterward, sailed up the coast in search of the expedition. It is maintained by the opponents of the Company that these attempts were a mere blind to meet the search for a North-West Passage, and that the Company was averse to any real investigation being made.

      It is of course impossible to say whether this charge was deserved or not. The fact that no practicable North-West Passage has ever been discovered renders the arguments drawn from the running of the tides, &c., of no value, and certainly justifies the Company to some extent in its inaction. The fact that in 1736 the Hudson's Bay Company yielded to the claim raised by Dobbs and his associates, is to be noted in favour of the Company's contention СКАЧАТЬ