Part 38 (2/2)
[92] ”I have,” writes Sir Alexander Mackenzie from London, 13th April, 1812, ”finally settled with that Lord (Selkirk). After having prepared a bill to carry him before the Lord Chancellor, it was proposed to my solicitor by the solicitor of his Lords.h.i.+p that one-third of the stock that was purchased on joint account before I went to America, amounting to 47,000, and the balance of cash in his Lords.h.i.+p's hands, belonging to me, should be given up to me; of this I accepted, though I might have obliged his Lords.h.i.+p to make over to me one-third of the whole purchase made by him in this stock, which at one time I was determined to do, having been encouraged thereto by the house of Suffolk Lane and countenanced by that of Mark Lane. But these houses thought it prudent to desist from any further purchases.”
Mackenzie says that by a verbal understanding with Mr. McGillivray, his purchase of the Hudson's Bay stock belonged to the North-West Company, and that, if Mr. McGillivray himself had been there, a sum of 30,000 might have been invested in that stock, ”all of which Lord Selkirk purchased, and if he persists in his present scheme, it will be the dearest he yet made.
”He will put the North-West Company to a greater expense than you seem to apprehend, and had the Company sacrificed 20,000 which might have secured a preponderance in the stock of Hudson's Bay Co., it would have been money well spent.”
[93] The district thus granted was called a.s.siniboia, a name undoubtedly derived from the a.s.siniboine tribe and river, yet alleged by some at the time to be taken from two Gaelic words ”osni” and ”boia”--the house of Ossian.
[94] ”None of the young men,” says McDonnell, ”made any progress in learning the Gaelic or Irish language on the voyage. I had some drills of the people with arms, but the weather was generally boisterous, and there were few days when a person could stand steady on deck. There never was a more awkward squad--not a man, or even officer, of the party knew how to put a gun to his eye or had ever fired a shot.”
[95] Governor McDonnell's observations are not always to be relied upon. For instance, he says in one report, ”I am surprised the Company never directed a survey to be made of the coast on each side of Hudson's Straits. From the appearance of the country there must be many harbours and inlets for vessels to go in case of an accident from ice, want of water, etc. We were often, ourselves, much in doubt for the accomplishment of our voyage, and had we been under the necessity of putting back, must have suffered for want of water. Two of the s.h.i.+ps, without any additional expense, might execute this survey on the voyage out, with only the detention of a few days, one taking the north and the other the south sh.o.r.e.” Such a survey had been made as early as 1728. Mention has already been made of Captain Coats, who, in 1739, prepared a chart of the Straits and Bay. To some of the older captains in the service, the Straits were as well-known as the harbour of Stromness.
CHAPTER x.x.x.
1812-1815.
The Bois-Brules -- Simon McGillivray's Letter -- Frightening the Settlers -- A second Brigade -- Governor McDonnell's Manifesto -- Defection of Northmen to the Company -- Robertson's Expedition to Athabasca -- Affairs at Red River -- Cameron and McDonell in uniform -- Cuthbert Grant -- Miles McDonnell arrested -- Fort William -- News brought to the Northmen -- Their confiscated account-books -- War of 1812 concluded.
[Sidenote: The Bois-Brules.]
There had lately been witnessed the rapid growth of a new cla.s.s--sprung from the loins of Red man and European. Alert, rugged, turbulent, they evinced at the same time a pa.s.sionate love of the life and manners of the wilderness, and a fierce intractability which could hardly fail to cause occasional uneasiness in the minds of their masters. To this cla.s.s had been given the name of Metis, or Bois-Brules. They were princ.i.p.ally the descendants of the French voyageurs of the North-West concern, who had allied themselves with Indian women and settled down on the sh.o.r.e of some lake or stream in the interior. Amongst these half-breeds hunters and trappers came, and at a later period a number of Englishmen and Scotchmen, hardly less strongly linked to a wild, hardy life than themselves. These also took Indian wives, and they and their children spoke of themselves as neither English, Scotch, or Indian, but as belonging to the ”New Nation.”
From 1812 to 1821 the North-West concern absorbed all the labours and exacted the loyalty of the increasing cla.s.s of Bois-Brules. The Hudson's Bay Company was exclusively an English company, and their Scotch and English servants had left few traces of an alliance with the aborigines. As the posts in the interior began to multiply, and the men were thus cut off from the larger society which obtained at York, c.u.mberland and Moose factories, and were thrown more upon their own resources, a laxer discipline prevailed, and the example of their neighbours was followed. A time was to come when the ”Orkney half-breeds” equalled in point of numbers those of the French Bois-Brules.
[Ill.u.s.tration: A BOIS-BRULe.]
There were yet few half-breeds of English extraction. The Bois-Brules were pa.s.sionately attached to the North-West company, who were quick to recognize their value as agents amongst the Indians. The idea of nationality, so far from being frowned upon, was encouraged amongst them. So much for the instruments which the Company proposed to employ in Montreal.
It was only natural that amongst this rude race there should arise a leader, a half-breed to whose superior ability and natural advantages was added an education in Montreal, the seat of the co-partnery.
Cuthbert Grant, which was the name this individual bore, was known far and wide amongst the hunters and trappers of Rupert's Land, and everywhere commanded homage and respect. He had risen to be one of the most enterprising and valued agents of the Nor'-Westers, and was constantly admitted to their councils.
On the 22nd of May, 1811, at which period the matter was in embryo in London, Simon McGillivray had frankly declared to Miles McDonnell, agent to Lord Selkirk, that he was ”determined to give all the opposition in his power, whatever might be the consequences,” because, in his opinion, ”such a settlement struck at the root of the North-West company, which it was intended to ruin.”[96]
By way of argument, this gentleman took it upon himself to inform the Hudson's Bay Company that the proposed settlement was foredoomed to destruction, inasmuch as it ”must at all times lie at the mercy of the Indians,” who would not be bound by treaties, and that ”one North-West Company's interpreter would be able at any time to set the Indians against the settlers and destroy them.”
[Sidenote: Defections from the North-West Company.]
Selkirk was now informed that there were several clerks who had been many years in the service of the Northmen, and who were disaffected in that service. They grumbled at not having been sooner promoted to the proprietary--that the claims of the old and faithful were too often pa.s.sed over for those of younger men of little experience, because they were related to the partners. The Earl was not slow to avail himself of this advantage. It became a matter of importance to persuade as many as possible of these dissatisfied spirits to join his scheme, by the offer of large salaries, and several accepted his offer with alacrity. Amongst the most enterprising was one Colin Robertson, a trader who had often ventured his life amongst the tribes and half-breeds, to forward the interests of his establishment. He possessed a perfect knowledge of the interior and of the fur-trade, and to him Lord Selkirk entrusted the chief management of the latter for the Company. Robertson was well convinced of the superiority of the Canadian voyageurs over the Orkneymen, in the management of canoes, for example, and he proceeded to engage a number of them in Montreal at a much higher wage than they had received hitherto.
To Robertson's counsels must be ascribed much of the invigoration which now began to mark the policy of the Company. His letters to the Company were full of a common-sense and a fighting spirit. ”Let us carry the trade to Athabasca,” he said; and he proceeded to demonstrate how all rivalry could be annihilated. The strength and weakness of his rivals were familiar to him, and he was well aware how much depended on the Indians themselves. They could and would deal with whom they chose; Robertson determined they should deal henceforth, not with the North-West, but with the Hudson's Bay Company.
The Northmen had been for years continually pressing to the West. They were doing a thriving trade on the Columbia River, in Oregon, where they had a lucrative post; they had a post to the south of that in California, and to the north as far as New Archangel. In the second decade of the century the North-West a.s.sociation had over three hundred Canadians in its employ on the Pacific slope, sending three or four s.h.i.+ps annually to London by way of Cape Horn. In 1810 they had a compet.i.tor in the post of Astoria, founded by John Jacob Astor, a fur-monopolist of New York. Astor had made overtures to the North-West partners, which had been declined; whereupon he induced about twenty Canadians to leave them and enter his service. He despatched two expeditions, one overland and the other by sea, around Cape Horn. But the founder of Astoria had not foreseen that the breaking out of war between Great Britain and America would upset all his plans. Fort Astoria, in the fortunes of war, changed hands and became Fort George; and although the post was, by the Treaty of Ghent, restored, the Canadians and Scotchmen had returned to their old employers and interests. In a few years the Hudson's Bay Company was to control the chief part of the fur-trade of the Pacific Coast.
[Ill.u.s.tration: FORT GEORGE.
(_Astoria--as it was in 1813._)]
None of the Company's servants had yet penetrated as far west as Athabasca. Yet it was the great northern department of Rupert's Land--a country which, if not flowing with milk and honey, swarmed with moose and beaver. To Athabasca, therefore, Robertson went.
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