Part 37 (1/2)
Repeatedly had the Grand Juries of Quebec and Montreal called attention to this want of jurisdiction. In one report the number of people from the Canadas, chiefly from Lower Canada, was urged as one reason for establis.h.i.+ng in the Indian country a court of competent jurisdiction for the trial of offences committed in these territories, including Hudson's Bay.
[Sidenote: Plea for establishment of jurisdiction.]
”The very heavy expense,” observes the report, ”incident to the conveyance of offenders from the Territory of Hudson's Bay to England, with the necessary witnesses on both sides, and the cost of prosecution and defence, must generally operate, either to prevent recourse to a tribunal across the ocean, and thereby stimulate to private retaliation and revenge, or where such course can or shall be had, the guilty may escape punishment, and the innocent be sacrificed from the distance of time and place of trial, the death or absence of witnesses, or other causes; and the mind cannot contemplate without horror the possible abuses to which such circ.u.mstances might give rise; as in the instance of a prosecutor coming from and at a remote day, when the accused may be dest.i.tute of pecuniary means, and the exculpatory evidence may either be dead, removed, or be otherwise beyond his reach, who at all events (however innocent he may finally be found) will have undergone a long and painful confinement, far removed from his family and connections, and perhaps ruinous to every prospect he had in life.”
Sir Robert Milnes strongly supported the representation of the Grand Jury, and added that ”Under such circ.u.mstances every species of offence is to be apprehended, from Trespa.s.ses to Murder,” and also that ”the national character of the English will be debased among the Indians, and the numerous tribes of those people will in consequence thereof be more easily wrought upon by foreign emissaries employed by the Enemies of Great Britain.”[88]
In consequence of these representations Lord Hobart promised that immediate steps should be taken to remedy the existing state of affairs. But Milnes became impatient for a decision, and writing in September, 1803, to the Under-Secretary, he reminded him of the promise, the great increase and extent of the fur-trade rendering such an Act daily more necessary. The Act to give jurisdiction to the Courts of Upper and Lower Canada had, however, been a.s.sented to on the 11th of the preceding month.
[Ill.u.s.tration: VOYAGEURS TRACKING CANOES UP A RAPID.]
[Sidenote: Canada Jurisdiction Act.]
The first case brought to trial under the Act became celebrated. In the autumn of 1809 William Corrigal was the trader at a Company's post near Eagle Lake. On the 15th of September a party of North-Westers established an encampment about forty yards from the Company's post, under one of their clerks, Aeneas MacDonnell. In the evening an Indian arrived in his canoe to trade with Corrigal and to pay a debt which he owed him. As he was not able to defray the whole amount, Corrigal accepted the canoe in part payment. The Indian requested that it might be lent to him for a few days, which was agreed to; and the Indian spent the night at the post with his canoe. In the morning he received in advance some more merchandise, such as clothing for his family and ammunition for his winter hunt. When he finally departed, three of the Company's servants were sent down to the wharf with the canoe and the goods. On their way they were observed by a number of Northmen, including MacDonnell, who went immediately down to the lake, armed with a sword and accompanied by a voyageur named Adhemer, armed with a brace of pistols. Upon pretence that the unhappy Red man was indebted to the North-West company, they proceeded to seize and drag away the canoe and the merchandise to their own wharf. Corrigal observing this, commanded two of his men, James Tate and John Corrigal, to go into the water and prevent the seizure, and as they approached on this mission MacDonnell drew his sword and struck two blows at Tate's head. The latter was unarmed, and warded the blows with his wrist, which was severely gashed. He then received another deep wound in the neck, which felled him to the ground. In the meantime Adhemer had seized John Corrigal (who was also unarmed) and presenting a c.o.c.ked pistol at his head, swore that if he went near the canoe he would blow out his brains.
Several of the Company's servants who were near the spot, perceiving what was going on, and observing that the rest of MacDonnell's men were collecting with arms, ran up to their own house, which was only about forty or fifty yards from the lake, for weapons of defence.
MacDonnell next attacked John Corrigal, who to escape him ran into the lake. Finding the water too deep, however, he was soon obliged to make a turn towards the sh.o.r.e. His pursuer wading after him, aimed a blow at him with his sword, cut his arm above the elbow and laid the bone bare. He followed this up with a tremendous blow at his head, which Robert Leask, one of the Company's servants, fortunately warded off with the paddle of his canoe, which was cut in two by the blow. The North-West leader in a fury now attacked another servant named Essen, aimed a blow at him with his sword, which, however, only struck his hat off. But in making his escape Essen fell into the water. Before he could recover himself another Canadian aimed a blow at his head with a heavy axe, which missed its aim, but dislocated his shoulder, so that he could make no use of his arm for over two months after this affray.
[Sidenote: Killing of MacDonnell.]
MacDonnell and Adhemer, the one with a drawn sword and the other with a c.o.c.ked pistol, continued to pursue several other of the Company's servants towards the fort, when one of them, named John Mowat, whom MacDonnell had previously struck with his sword, and was preparing to strike again, shot MacDonnell on the spot.
[Sidenote: Trial of Mowat.]
MacDonnell's body was carried away, and the parties separated, Corrigal fearing a further attack. On the 24th, a partner of the North-West Company, named Haldane, arrived in a canoe with ten men, and on the following day another partner, McLellan, also arrived. They came to the gates of the stockades, behind which Corrigal and his men had barricaded themselves, and demanded the man who had shot MacDonnell. They declared that if the person was not immediately given up they would either shoot every one of the Company's men, or get the Indians to kill them, were it even to cost them a keg of brandy for each of their heads! Mowat now stepped forward and acknowledged that he was the man, and that he would shoot MacDonnell again in the same circ.u.mstances. Much to his surprise the North-Westers announced their intention of taking him and two witnesses down to Montreal for trial.
Mowat was thereupon put in irons. From the 2nd of October, when they arrived at Rainy Lake, the unhappy man was generally kept in irons from six in the morning till eight in the evening, and during the night until the 14th of December. During the whole winter he was kept in close confinement, and the two witnesses, Tate and Leask, who had voluntarily accompanied him, were themselves subjected to much insult and indignity, and were obliged to submit to every species of drudgery and labour in order to obtain a bare subsistence. In June the whole party, including Corrigal, arrived at Fort William, the chief trading-post rendezvous of the North-Westers. Here Mowat was imprisoned in a close and miserable dungeon, about six feet square, without any window or light of any kind whatsoever, and when he finally reached Montreal he was in a most pitiable condition. The witnesses were seized on a charge of aiding and abetting the murder of MacDonnell, and this upon the oath of one of the North-West half-breeds. The Hudson's Bay Company had at this time no agent or correspondent at Montreal or any place in Canada, and it was not until the end of November that the Honourable Adventurers heard of the prosecution being carried on against their servants. Immediate steps were taken for their protection, and counsel engaged for the defence.
Mowat and his witnesses were indicted for murder. The grand jury found a true bill against Mowat, but not against the others, and Tate and Leask were accordingly discharged.[89]
In spite of the evidence, the jury brought in a verdict of manslaughter. The judge, however, had charged them to find it murder.
Mowat was sentenced to be imprisoned six months and branded on the hand with a hot iron. After his discharge, two years from the time he was first put in irons at Eagle Lake, Mowat proceeded from Canada to the United States in order to return to England, but was never heard of again. He is supposed to have been drowned by the breaking of the ice in one of the rivers he had to cross on his way.
[Sidenote: The Earl of Selkirk.]
Such was the situation in the early years of the century. At this time there rose a name destined to be of more than local fame, that of Thomas Douglas, fifth Earl of Selkirk, a young man of benevolent character, whose feelings had been deeply moved by the sufferings of his countrymen in the Scottish Highlands. Nor was the n.o.bleman's compa.s.sion excited without cause. A compulsory exodus of the inhabitants of the mountainous regions in the county of Sutherland was in progress. The tale of expulsion of a vast number of poor tenantry from the estates of the d.u.c.h.ess of Sutherland, which they and their ancestors had looked upon as their own without the necessity of rent and taxes, may be heard to-day from some white-haired old grandfather, who had it from the lips of his sire, in the far north of Scotland.
The system of rents and land-management as it prevails to-day all over the Highlands had only then been put in force, and the squatters were driven to seek their homes as best they might in the remote and sequestered places of the earth. Selkirk encouraged this emigration as the only remedy; and having endeavoured in vain to secure the active co-operation of the Government, resolved to settle a colony on waste lands granted him in Prince Edward Island. The better to ensure success, he went in person to oversee the whole enterprise. Gathering together about eight hundred of these poor people, who bade a melancholy farewell to their heather-robed hills, they arrived at their future home early in September, 1803.
[Ill.u.s.tration: LORD SELKIRK.]
Selkirk visited Montreal in this and also in the following year on matters connected with his philanthropic undertaking, and on both occasions evinced the heartiest interest in the great territory to the north-west which formed the theatre of action for the two rival fur-trading companies.
The Prince Edward Island colony continuing to prosper, Lord Selkirk now conceived the plan of forming a colony on the banks of the Red River, in Rupert's Land.[90] In order to execute his project with a greater a.s.surance of success, he again, in 1805, addressed the British Government and nation, pointing out the successful issue of his colony as an example of the excellent results which would attend a further exodus of the superfluous population.
Time went on and the execution of the plan being still in abeyance, the great decline in Hudson's Bay stock suggested an idea to Selkirk.
He submitted the charter to several of the highest legal authorities in England, and got from them the following:
”We are of the opinion that the grant of the said contained charter is good, and that it will include all the country, the waters of which run into Hudson's Bay, as ascertained by geographical observations.
[Sidenote: Legal opinion on the Company's charter.]