CHAPTER I. A STATEMENT OF SOME RECENT OCCURRENCES COM DURING the last Session of Parliament, rumours went about that it was the intention of Her Majesty's Government to grant Vancouver's Island to the Hudson's Bay Company, with a view to founding a colony there. There were several public men who doubted whether such a Corporation as the Hudson's Bay Company were likely to colonize effectually; whether the very nature of their constitution, and the character of their operations, would not forbid their doing so; and, more than this, whether they have not a direct interest in preventing Colonization, from the fear that the peculiar monopoly of the fur trade, which they possess, might be practically endangered by a colony in any part of the country;-because the collection of the natives into villages, which would be the tendency of a colony, and the communication to them of agricultural B tastes and habits, in however small a degree, would interfere with their occupation as hunters and trappers;-in fine, whether it were common sense to expect that the task of civilizing and settling a country, should be entrusted to those whose obvious interest it is to keep it wild and uncultivated. But, besides this, it was within the recollection of those who had taken any interest in the matter, that the colonists of the Red River settlement, the only colony within the dominions of the Hudson's Bay Company, and which is entirely under its government, had, not very long before, expressed great dissatisfaction at the rule to which they were subject; and that they had sent over a petition, signed by almost all the adult male population of the settlement, praying that Her Majesty would be pleased to inquire into the nature of the government exercised over them, and stating many grievances to which they were subject, and from which they prayed to be relieved. The charges made by the settlers of the Red River against the Hudson's Bay Company, were referred by the Colonial Office to the Governor of the Company for a report thereon. That Report was considered by Earl Grey to be so far from satisfactory, that the matter was referred to Lord Elgin, the Governor of Canada. What Lord Elgin's answer was, is a mystery. That one sentence in his Lordship's despatch was favourable to the Hudson's Bay Company, we know, because Lord Grey and Mr. Hawes traded upon it to the utmost in Parliamentary debates respecting this question; but what was the whole tenor and bearing of Lord Elgin's opinion, it is impossible to when the Colonial Minister has declared it to be a principle of his administration to quote only such parts of documents in his possession as make out his own case. say, But whatever Lord Elgin's opinion may be, the Colonial Office do not appear to have been satisfied with it for a commission was appointed to inquire, on the spot, into the charges made against the government of the Hudson's Bay Company. But, as if in utter mockery of all common sense and common decency, the person appointed to make the inquiry was appointed, at the same time, LieutenantGovernor of the Colony, and thus became a paid officer of the Corporation into whose administration he was to make an inquiry. These being the facts of the case, the question was put in the House of Commons, by Lord Lin |