Part 22 (1/2)

Knight departed from Gravesend on board the _Albany_, and proceeded on his voyage. The s.h.i.+ps not returning to England that year no uneasiness was felt, as it was judged they had wintered in the Bay. Besides, both were known to have on board a plentiful stock of provisions, a house in frame, together with the requisite tools and implements, and a large a.s.sortment of trading goods. Little anxiety was therefore entertained concerning their safety for fifteen months. But when New Year's Day, 1721, arrived, and neither s.h.i.+p nor sloop had been heard from, the Company became alarmed for their welfare.

By the s.h.i.+p sailing to Churchill in June they sent orders for a sloop then in the Bay, called the _Whalebone_, John Scroggs, master, to go in search of the missing explorers. But the _Whalebone_ was cruising about in the north of the Bay at the time, on the Esquimaux trade, and returned to Churchill at so advanced a season of the year as to defer the execution of the Company's wishes until the following summer.

[Sidenote: Anxiety as to the fate of the expedition.]

The north-west coast was little known in those days, so it is not singular that Scroggs, on board the little _Whalebone_, finding himself encompa.s.sed by dangerous shoals and rocks, should return to Prince of Wales' Fort little the wiser regarding the fate of the two s.h.i.+ps. He saw amongst the Esquimaux, it is true, European clothing and articles, as in a later day Rae and McClintock found souvenirs of the Franklin tragedy; but these might have been come by in trade, or even as the result of an accident. None could affirm that a s.h.i.+pwreck or other total calamity had overtaken Knight and his companions.

Many years elapsed without anything to shed light on the fate of this expedition. At first, the strong belief which had so long prevailed in Europe of a north-west pa.s.sage by way of this Bay, caused many to conjecture that the explorers had found that pa.s.sage and had gone through it into the South Sea. But before the voyages of Middleton, Ellis, Bean, Christopher and Jobington had weakened this belief it was known that Knight, Barlow and the crews of the two s.h.i.+ps had been lost. Proofs of their fate were found in the year 1767, as will appear in a later chapter of this work.

An important circ.u.mstance now transpired which was not without effect upon the Company's trade; and which, for a time, gave the Adventurers great uneasiness.

In 1727 Burnett had been appointed to the Governors.h.i.+p of New York.

Finding that the French in Canada were in possession of all the Indian fur-trade of the north and west, which was not in the Hudson's Bay Company's hands, and that the New Englanders and Iroquois were trafficking with the Iroquois, he determined to take a bold step with a view to crippling the French.

[Sidenote: Attempt of New England to secure the fur-trade.]

It had long been understood that the chief support of New France was in the fur commerce; and upon enquiry it was found that the traders, of Quebec and Montreal, were chiefly supplied with European merchandise for barter from the New York merchants, from whom they procured it upon much easier terms than it could possibly be got from France. With this knowledge, the Governor resolved to foster the fur-trade of his colony by inducing direct transactions with the Indians. He procured an Act in the a.s.sembly of the colony, prohibiting the trade in merchandise from New York. The colonial merchants were, not unnaturally, up in arms against such a measure; but Burnett, bent upon carrying his point, had their appeal to King George set aside and the Act confirmed by that monarch.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CONTEMPORARY FRENCH MAP OF THE BAY AND VICINITY.]

By this measure, trade at once sprang up with the Western Indians, since the French had no goods to offer them in any way to their liking at a reasonable price. Intercourse and familiarity ensued moreover in consequence; a fortified trading post was built at Oswego, which not only drew away trade from the French, at Michilimackinac and St.

Marie, but from Albany and Moose as well.

[Sidenote: Boundaries between French and English territory.]

It has been observed that the ancient boundaries of Canada or New France were circ.u.mscribed by the Treaty of Utrecht, and that it is difficult to determine precisely the new boundaries a.s.signed to it.

The general interpretation adopted by the British geographers, as the country gradually became better known from that time up to the final cession of Canada, was that the boundary ran along the high lands separating the waters that discharged into the St. Lawrence from those that discharge into Hudson's Bay to the sources of the Nepigon River, and thence along the northerly division of the same range of high lands dividing the waters flowing direct to Hudson's Bay, from those flowing into Lake Winnipeg, and crossing the Nelson, or (as it was then known) the Bourbon River, about midway between the said Lake and Bay, thence pa.s.sing to the west and north by the sources of Churchill River; no westerly boundary being anywhere a.s.signed to Canada. This and other measures could have but one result: to make the French traders and the Government of New France perceive that their only hope to avert famine and bankruptcy lay in penetrating farther and farther into the west, in an effort to reach remote tribes, ignorant of true values and unspoilt by a fierce and ungenerous rivalry.

It seems fitting to reserve the next chapter for a consideration of who and what the tribes were at this time inhabiting the territories granted by its charter to the Great Company; together with their numbers, their modes of life and relations with the factories.

CHAPTER XIX.

1687-1712.

Hudson's Bay Tribes Peaceful -- Effect of the Traders' Presence -- Depletion of Population -- The Crees and a.s.siniboines -- Their Habits and Customs -- Their Numbers -- No Subordination Amongst Them -- Spirituous Liquors -- Effect of Intemperance upon the Indian.

Let us imagine for a moment that the Hudson's Bay Company had held traffic with the fierce and implacable Iroquois, the Mohawks or the courageous and blood-thirsty tribes of the Mississippi, instead of with the Crees and a.s.siniboines. How different would have been its early history! What frail protection would have been afforded by the forts and wooden palisades, often not stronger than that last fort of the Jesuits in the Huron country, the inmates of which were slaughtered so ruthlessly, or that other at Niagara, where the Chevalier de Troyes and ninety of his companions perished to a man.

But the Red men of the Company's territories, compared to these, were pacific. Occasionally want or deep injustice drove them to acts of barbarism, as we have seen in the case of the ma.s.sacre at York Factory under Jeremie's _regime_; but on the whole they had no marked enmity to the white men, and long displayed a remarkable and extremely welcome docility.

[Sidenote: Character of the a.s.siniboines.]

”The a.s.sinibouels,” remarked Jeremie, ”are humane and affable; and so are also all those Indians with whom we have commerce in the Bay, never trading with the French but as their fathers and patrons.

Although savages, they are foes to lying, which is extraordinary in nations which live without subordination or discipline. One cannot impute to them any vice, unless they are a little too slanderous. They never blaspheme and have not even a term in their language which defines an oath.”

If we are to believe the early traders and explorers, the Red man of Rupert's Land spoke a tongue by no means difficult for an Englishman to master. Yet if these same traders really took the trouble to master it, as they alleged, their knowledge certainly brought little order into the chaos of tribal nomenclature.

[Ill.u.s.tration: INDIAN TEPEE.]