would not have made his claim to the sovereignty of the country lying beyond the grant any the less strong; and can any one say upon what ground that claim can be based? Whoever has taken the trouble to look into the policy of granting charters like this, must be aware that they were not usually given, because the king had the sovereignty of the country conveyed, but in order that it might become his by the subsequent acts of those to whom the grant was made.* There are in the history of English colorization many instances of prospective grants of this kind; and the validity of the grant, as against any foreign prince or his subjects, depends upon the fact as to who was the first to perform those acts, which are held, by the law of nations, to constitute a title to the sovereignty of the country. The widest possible extent of territory was usually granted by the king, not because another sovereign could thereby be stopped from conveying, in like manner, a title equally valid to his subjects, but for the purpose of extending his dominions by stimulating certain of his people to make discovery, and take possession of unappropriated tracts of country, by his authority, and on his behalf. The French King did exercise his prerogative of making similar grants to his people, and while the English adventurers rested upon the shore of Hudson's Bay, and slept upon their prospective rights, the French boldly pressed forward and took possession of the interior, and held it for eighty years, when it was ceded to England by the Treaty of Paris. France had possession of the country to the Rocky Mountains at the time of the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, but no complaint was made by the English that she had encroached upon British territory. The truth is, that the whole country drained by the Red and the Saskatch

* As in the cases of the two Patents by Henry VII. to John Cabot. Biddle's Memoir of Sebastian Cabot, p. 75; Hakluyt, vol. 3, pp. 30, 31; the Patent by Elizabeth to Sir Humprey Gilbert, 1578; Hakluyt, vol. 3, 174-176; Charters to noblemen, &c., of London, and knights, &c., of the west, 1606; Hazard's Hist. Col. vol. 1; pp. 51-58; and many others of a prospective character. To assume that the lands granted were actually claimed by the Crown at the time is a mistake. It was by the act of the adventurers that the Crown expected to acquire a title.

ewan rivers, was to the British Government and people. an unknown land, and the maps of that country, published by British Geographers, were simply copied from the maps of the French. Had the Hudson's Bay Company acquired the possession of the North-West country, by establishing forts and trading posts there, before the country was in the actual possession of the Canadians, they might have claimed it with some reason under their charter. They did not do so. There had been no act, formal or informal, of any Englishman, which gave to the Crown of England any basis upon which it could found a claim to the sovereignty of the North-West. The company rested upon the rights which a contested claim to the exclusive possession of the bay itself, gave; and while they did so, another people, against whom the rights conferred by their charter had no force, in fact, or in law, occupied the interior. No discoveries were made by the company until the time of Hearne, nine years after Canada became a Province of Great Britain.

Before concluding this part of my report, I would invite your attention to the maps published by British Geographers during the period which elapsed between the Quebec Act of 1774, and the treaty of peace with the United States in 1783, in all of which, the Mississippi river is marked as the western boundary of the Province, from its junction with the Ohio to its source.† Nor can I omit all allusion to the position uniformly taken by the Government of the Province of Canada upon the subject of the western boundary, as set forth in several public documents and acts of the executive. I have appended to this report the memorandum submitted to the House of Assembly in 1857, on the rights of Upper Canada to the North-West territory, by the then Commissioner of Crown Lands; the memorandum and papers submitted to a

* See statement of Jeffries' in his geography, p 19. See also a letter from C. Colden, Surveyor General, colony of New York, to Governor Clarke. New York. Col. Doc. vol. 4, p 177.

+ See Governor Pownall's Map in 'Appendix of Maps.

Committee of the House of Commons, appointed to enquire into the affairs of the Hudson's Bay Company, in May, 1857, by Chief Justice Draper, the Commissioner of the Canadian Government, and to the treaty made with the Indians west of Fort William for the extinguishment of their title. I would also call your attention to the fact, that the Crown Lands Department laid out townships and granted lands west of the limits which it is now sought to assign to the Province of Ontario; that a part of the District of Algoma, which returns a representative from the Province of Ontario to the House of Commons, lies in the disputed territory; and that the present limits of that district were assigned to it by those who now maintain that it includes territory which forms no part of this Province.* I have also appended two official letters, addressed by Sir George Cartier and the Hon. William McDougal, to Sir F. Rogers, bearing date the 16th of January and the 8th of February, 1869, respectively.

From the facts which I have stated in the foregoing pages, it is clear that New France extended westward to the Rocky Mountains, if not to the Pacific ocean; that, of this territory, the Province of Quebec included all eastward of the Mississippi to its head waters, and from thence to the Hudson's Bay territories, it included all eastward of a line drawn from the source of the Mississippi sufficiently far to the westward to embrace all the French settlements and posts in the NorthWest, that is, to the forks of the Saskatchewan river; that by the Order in Council of 1791, all that part of Canada, to its utmost limits, west of the boundary between Upper and Lower Canada, is declared to be included in Upper Canada. This would extend the boundary on the west to the Rocky Mountains. It would carry the boundary of the Province wertward beyond the limits of Quebec under the Act of 1774; and where that Order in Council placed the boundary, it, in my opinion, still remains. The commission to Lord Dorchester

**The decision of the Court in de Reinhard's case was not then so much regarded by the Premier of Canada as it is now.

extended his authority over so much of Upper Canada as was included in the Province of Quebec as altered by the treaty of 1783, and the limits of which are set forth in the commission of 1786. I have no doubt but that the Province of Manitoba has been formed within the legal limits of Ontario. It is to be regretted that no protest was made by the Government of Ontario at the time that Manitoba was being established.

It would have been to the advantage of this Province had her just claims to the North-West been asserted while the negotiations between the Imperial and Canadian Governments, for the transfer of Prince Rupert's land and the Indian ter

ritories, were pending. This was not done. I will not say

that the rights of the Province to the territories west of Manitoba have been greatly prejudiced by the failure of a former Government to assert them. The difficulty of procuring an equitable arrangement has certainly been increased. The Province of Manitoba exists by the sanction of the Imperial Parliament. The British North America Act of 1871 recognizes and sanctions the establishment of that Province. The claims of Ontario to the country which is included within its boundaries, having regard to existing facts, can now be met only by adequate compensation.