Part 48 (1/2)
8. All t.i.tles to land up to the 8th of March, 1869, conferred by the Company, are to be confirmed.
9. The Company to be at liberty to carry on its trade without hindrance, in its corporate capacity, and no exceptional tax is to be placed on the Company's land, trade or servants, nor an import duty on goods introduced by them previous to the surrender.
10. Canada is to take over the materials of the Electric Telegraph at cost price, such price including transport, but not including interest for money, and subject to a deduction for ascertained deteriorations.
11. The Company's claim to land under agreement of Messrs.
Vankoughnet and Hopkins to be withdrawn.
12. The details of this arrangement, including the filling up of the blanks in Articles 4 and 6, to be settled at once by mutual agreement.
[Sidenote: Cession to Canadian Government.]
On such terms did the Canadian Government acquire this vast territory of two million three hundred thousand square miles. In that portion designated the Fertile Belt, comprising three hundred million acres, there were agricultural lands believed to be capable of yielding support to twenty-five million people.
Filled with high hopes as to the future of the country they had thus acquired, the Canadian Government was confronted by the necessity of providing it with a suitable form of government to replace that of the Company. Little did the public men who had interested themselves in the negotiations ponder on the difficulties of the task. Apparently they undertook it with a light heart. During the session of 1869 an Act was pa.s.sed at Ottawa providing a provisional form of government in the territory, and in October of the same year the Hon. William McDougall received the appointment of Lieutenant-Governor. But before he set out on his duties surveying parties had been busy in the Red River settlement, laying out towns.h.i.+ps and inst.i.tuting an extended series of surveys.
[Sidenote: Forlorn case of the Metis.]
In order to be in the place of his government when by the Queen's Proclamation it should become a portion of the Dominion of Canada, McDougall, in the month of November, found himself at the frontier of his Province. But the transfer was not to be consummated without bloodshed. A portion of the little community of Red River raised its voice in vehement protest against the arrangements made between the Government of Canada and the Company. These malcontents, chiefly French half-breeds, headed by Louis Riel, expelled the Governor appointed by the Dominion and planned a resistance to all authority emanating from the same source. They a.s.sembled in large numbers, and, after fortifying portions of the road between Pembina and Fort Garry, had taken possession of the latter post. Upon consideration of the case of these wild and ignorant Metis, it is difficult to withhold from them sympathy. Settled government, forms of law, state duty, exactions of citizens.h.i.+p, the sacrifices and burdens of urban civilization--of these he knew but dimly, and held them in a vague horror. He knew that men lived and ground out their lives in cities afar off, and that by means of their wealth they possessed power; that they had cast envious eyes on the hunting-grounds of the Indian and his half-brother the Metis; that they sought to wrest him from his lands and mark it off into town lots, people his beloved prairies and exterminate his race. They must mean him ill or they would not work in such a silent, stealthy fas.h.i.+on to dispossess him and drive him farther west into unfamiliar fastnesses. There were fifteen thousand souls in the country bordering on Red River, and the majority objected, not without reason, that such an arrangement as had just been carried out should be done without their consent or having been consulted. Was it wonderful that the half-breed, resenting this march of civilization which would trample him and his possessions to atoms, should arise, seize his rude weapons, and prepare for war?
It is true the insurrection of 1869-70 could have been averted. It would have been easy, through an agent of tact and eloquence, to have dispelled the illusions which had taken possession of the Metis, and to have restored confidence as to the policy of Canada. But was it the Hudson's Bay Company's duty to enlighten the aggrieved inhabitants?
The Company who had been bullied and badgered and threatened with confiscation unless it agreed to a renunciation of its rights? Was it the fault of the Company that several thousand wild Metis children of the wilderness, pa.s.sionately attached to the old order of things, were in their hearts loyal to the Company, which fed and clothed and administered law to them?[128]
The insurgents, growing bolder, had taken possession of Fort Garry, where a council of half-breeds was held and the inhabitants called upon to send delegates to a national convention. The English colonists accepted the invitation, but were soon made aware that Riel and his supporters were resolved on more desperate measures than they could themselves countenance. The authority of the Company had been observed; but it was now disregarded; the books and records of the Council of a.s.siniboia were seized, and on the 1st December a ”Bill of Rights” was pa.s.sed by the ”Provisional Government.” This act of open rebellion caused the secession of the English; insurgency was now rampant and many of the inhabitants found themselves incarcerated in gaol. Then followed the illegal infliction of capital punishment upon Thomas Scott, a young Orangeman, and the despatch of Colonel (now Lord) Wolseley to the seat of trouble. Leaving Toronto on the 25th of May, 1870, Wolseley and his force, after a long and arduous journey, arrived at Fort Garry on the 24th of August. But the rebellion was already over, and the chief instigator and his companions had fled.
For many years the Company's officers in charge of the various districts in Rupert's Land had annually met in Council for the regulation and discussion of affairs of the fur-trade in general.
Regarding themselves as true partners of the Company, they naturally looked to share with the shareholders in the sum agreed to be paid by Canada for its territory.
[Sidenote: Turbulent meetings at Hudson's Bay House.]
In July, just one month before the entrance of the future hero of Tel-el-Kebir and the British troops into Fort Garry, a last meeting of the council of officers of the Honourable Hudson's Bay Company was held at the post known as Norway House. It was presided over by Fort Garry's Governor, Mr. Donald Alexander Smith,[129] a servant since boyhood of the Company. At this meeting it was decided to represent the claims of the officers to the partners in England. To this end Mr.
Smith was unanimously appointed their representative, he undertaking the task of presenting their claims. The London shareholders were by no means immediately acquiescent. But although Sir Stafford Northcote presided over some turbulent meetings in Fenchurch Street, the claims of the ”wintering partners” were ultimately recognized in the only manner possible. Out of the 300,000 paid by the Dominion, the sum of 107,000 was divided amongst the officers for the relinquishment of their claims.
The Governor of the Company, in his report to the shareholders in November, stated that ”since the holding of the General Court on the 28th June, the Committee have been engaged in proceeding with the re-organization of the fur-trade, and have entered into an agreement with the Chief Factors and Chief Traders for revoking the Deed Poll of 1834, and settling claims arising under it upon the terms sanctioned by the proprietors at the last General Court. They have also prepared the draft of a new Deed Poll adopted to the altered circ.u.mstances of the trade.”
A new era had thus begun in the history of the Honourable Company of Merchants-Adventurers trading into Hudson's Bay.
FOOTNOTES:
[123] ”To my mind the worst feature in the new Company is that of allowing a foreigner (American) to hold office. He owes allegiance to the United States, and his position gives him knowledge which no American should possess. 'Blood is thicker than water,' says the proverb: 'No man can serve two masters.' As to the idea that being in the fur-trade his experience and influence will benefit the new Company, will any furrier believe that? If the Company will sell all the furs, I would never rest satisfied while an American was in the management.'”--William McNaughten, the Company's agent at New York.
[124] The eighty-five shares belonging to the wintering partners, in 1863, were held as follows:
15 chief factors 30 shares 37 chief traders 37 ”
10 retired chief factors 13 ”
10 retired chief traders 5 ”