Part 38 (1/2)

As to proposed grants of land to settlers, two hundred acres were to be given to labourers or artificers; one thousand acres to a master of a trading-house. The Company were, of course, to have full rights of access to all the surrendered districts.

[Sidenote: Earl Selkirk's proposal accepted.]

The customs duties, exports and imports, payable by settlers were not to exceed five per cent, at Port Nelson, unless it happened that a higher duty was levied at Quebec. The duties so to be levied were to be applied to the expense of Government police, communication between Lake Winnipeg and Port Nelson, etc., and not to be taken as profits for the Company. The show of hands was in favour of the proposal; but a protest was handed in to the Governor by Thwaytes and others. In spite of this, on the 13th of June, the deed was signed, sealed and delivered by the secretary on behalf of the Company.

The lands were defined by deed as situate between 52 30' north lat.i.tude and 102 30' west longitude, a map being affixed to the deed.

In reading this protest, one who was ignorant of the true state of affairs would have been led to believe that the partners concerned had no object so dear to them as the welfare and prosperity of the Hudson's Bay Company. These gentlemen appeared to be animated by the most thorough devotion and zeal, as they stood together declaiming in loud, earnest tones against the errors into which their beloved Company was falling, and pouring out their sympathy to the emigrant settlers who might be lured to their destruction by establis.h.i.+ng themselves on the lands so granted ”out of reach,” to employ their own phrase, ”of all those aids and comforts which are derived from civil society;” and so it did truly appear to many then as it has done since. But let us examine those signatures, and lo, the wolf obtrudes himself basking in the skin of a lamb!

The grant was thus confirmed. The opposition had found itself powerless, and Selkirk was put into possession of a territory only 5,115 square miles less than the entire area of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.[93]

The grant secured, Selkirk at once despatched agents to Ireland and throughout the highlands of Scotland, to engage servants, some for the Company's service, others for general labourers in the colony. These last were known as ”his lords.h.i.+p's servants,” and were engaged for a term of years, at the expiration of which they became ent.i.tled to one hundred acres of land, free of cost. They were placed under the charge of Miles McDonnell, who received a joint appointment from Selkirk and the Company, as first Governor of the new colony.

[Sidenote: Selkirk's immigrants arrive.]

The first section of the immigrant party arrived at York Factory late in the autumn of 1811.[94] This post was then in charge of William Auld, who, as we have seen, occupied the position of Superintendent of the Northern Department of Rupert's Land. After a short residence at the fort, where they were treated in a somewhat tyrannical and high-handed fas.h.i.+on by the Governor, who had scant sympathy for the new _regime_, the party were sent forward to Seal Creek, fifty miles up Nelson River. Governor McDonnell and one Hillier, in the character of justice of the peace, accompanied them thither, and preparations were at once made for the erection of a suitable shelter.

[Ill.u.s.tration: STORNAWAY.

(_The Hebrides._)]

McDonnell experienced a great deal of trouble during the winter with the men under his charge, for a mutinous spirit broke out, and he was put to his wits' end to enforce discipline. He put it all down to the Glasgow servants. ”These Glasgow rascals,” he declared to Auld, the Governor of York Factory, ”have caused us both much trouble and uneasiness. A more stubborn, litigious and cross-grained lot were never put under any person's care. I cannot think that any liberality of rum or rations could have availed to stop their dissatisfaction.

Army and navy discipline is the only thing fit to manage such fierce spirits.”

But the Irish of the party were hardly more tractable. On New Year's night, 1812, a violent and unprovoked attack was made by some of the Irish on a party of Orkneymen, who were celebrating the occasion.

Three of the latter were so severely beaten that for a month the surgeon could not report their lives entirely out of danger. Four of the Irishmen concerned in this a.s.sault were sent back home. ”Worthless blackguards,” records the Governor; ”the lash may make them serviceable to the Government in the army or navy, but they will never do for us.”

On the subject of the Orkney servants of the Company all critics were not agreed. Governor McDonnell's opinion, for instance, was not flattering:--

”There cannot,” he reported, ”be much improvement made in the country while the Orkneymen form the majority of labourers; they are lazy, spiritless, and ill-disposed--wedded to old habits, strongly prejudiced against any change, however beneficial. It was with the utmost reluctance they could be prevailed on to drink the spruce juice to save themselves from the scurvy; they think nothing of the scurvy, as they are then idle, and their wages run on.... It is not uncommon for an Orkneyman to consume six pounds or eight pounds of meat in a day, and some have ate as much in a single meal. This gluttonous appet.i.te, they say, is occasioned by the cold. I entirely discredit the a.s.sertion, as I think it rather to be natural to themselves. All the labour I have seen these men do would scarcely pay for the victuals they consume. With twenty-five men belonging to it, the factory was last winter distressed for firewood, and the people sent to tent in the woods.”[95]

[Sidenote: Opposition by the Nor'-Westers.]

Meanwhile, leaving the s.h.i.+vering immigrants, distrustful of their officers and doubtful of what the future had in store for them, to encamp at Seal Creek, let us turn to the state of affairs amongst the parties concerned elsewhere, particularly amongst the Nor'-Westers.

Simon McGillivray, who was agent in London for that Company, watched all Selkirk's acts with the utmost distrust, and kept the partners continually informed of the turn affairs were taking. He a.s.sured them that Selkirk's philanthropy was all a cloak, designed to cover up a scheme for the total extinction of the Hudson's Bay Company's rivals.

The colony was to be planted to ruin their trade. It was an endeavour to check the physical superiority of the Nor'-Westers and by means of this settlement secure to the Hudson's Bay Company and to himself, not only the extensive and sole trade of the country within their own territories, but a ”safe and convenient stepping-stone for monopolizing all the fur-trade of the Far West.”

The partners in Montreal were stirred to action. Regarding Lord Selkirk's motives in this light, they warmly disputed the validity of the Hudson's Bay Company's Charter and of the grants of land made to him. It was decided to bring all the forces of opposition they possessed to bear on this ”invasion of their hunting grounds.”

FOOTNOTES:

[88] Canadian Archives.

[89] It has been noted that several partners of the North-West concern were upon the grand jury which found the bill of indictment, and out of four judges who sat upon the bench, two were nearly related to individuals of that a.s.sociation.

[90] Already, in April, 1802, Lord Selkirk had addressed a letter and memorial to Lord Pelham, the Home Secretary, detailing the practicability of promoting emigration to Rupert's Land. ”To a colony in these territories,” he concluded, ”the channel of trade must be the river of Port Nelson.”

[91] In the course of a letter reporting on the disputes between the Hudson's Bay Company and the North-Westers, Commissioner Coltman attributed the disasters in the territories to the Company having held in abeyance its right to jurisdiction and that this neglect was the reason for pa.s.sing the act of 1803. This letter is in the Canadian Archives, _v._ Report 1892.