in the exercise of our calling by the said enclosure of the said Common of Finchley, humbly petition your Honourable House will be pleased to assign to us such compensation as your Honourable House in its wisdom and justice may think fit.' Gentlemen, I must leave the application to you.'

* Works of the Rev. Sydney Smith. 1840. Second Edition. Vol. iii., p. 116.

3 Vols. 8vo. London.

CHAPTER VI.

OF THE RESULTS OF THE CHARTER OF THE HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY, AS AFFECTING THE INTERESTS OF THE MOTHER COUNTRY.

THE rights, or rather the claims, of the Company have hitherto occupied our attention; but let us now turn to the results which have ensued.

If the reader will take the trouble to trace those results through the following three chapters, in their relation, severally, to this country, to the Indian population, and to the colonists who have settled in the Company's territory, he will probably agree in the conclusions at which we have arrived respecting the misfortune and mischief which may be anticipated, from the proposed extension of the power and influence of the Hudson's Bay Company.

In this chapter we have to trace the effects of the Company's Charter upon our own country. We have to investigate the value of the assertions which have been so pompously made, that England has derived great benefit from the existence of the Company; and, in doing this, we have especially

to bear in mind that, by the Royal Charter itself, the public good was specified as the object with which its privileges were granted to the Company.

We have already seen that the first condition imposed upon the Company, as a duty which they were given to perform, and in return for the expected performance of which their privileges and rights were granted, was, the attempt to discover a North-West passage into the Pacific Ocean.

The Company undertook to attempt this discovery, upon certain advantages being secured to them as an equivalent for their trouble and expense.

This country having suffered them to remain in the enjoyment of their exclusive privileges, now for more than a century and a half, have a fair right to inquire whether they have performed the duties entrusted to them; especially the first duty imposed, viz., that of discovery. And the right to make this inquiry is strengthened by the fact that it is the constant boast of the Company that they have a claim upon our gratitude for the exertions they have made.

Now the facts respecting the discoveries which the Company have made, or attempted, are as follows:

In 1719 they fitted out two vessels, the Albany

frigate, and the Discovery sloop, for the purpose, as we are told, of discovery. This was nearly fifty years after the date of their Charter. It was the first expedition undertaken; and there seems now to be much doubt whether it was, properly speaking, one of discovery at all. Mr. Robson, who writes within thirty years afterwards, says, that the object of the voyage was the discovery of gold or copper mines, of the existence of which Captain Knight, then Governor of the Factory on Churchill River, had heard reports from the Indians who frequented that place :

"Full of these expectations, he came to England to solicit the Company to fit out two vessels, under his command, for the discovery of these rich mines; but the Company, for private reasons, refused to comply. Knight, made more sanguine by an opposition which he could not expect, told them that they were obliged by their Charter to make discoveries, and extend their trade, and particularly to search for a North-West passage by the Straits of Annian, to the South Sea; but that if they would not fit out ships under him and Barlow, for the discovery he came about, he would apply to the Crown, and get others to undertake it; and, accordingly, waited upon one of the Secretaries of State. When the Company perceived him so resolute, and that his troublesome zeal, if left to itself, might actually bring on an inquiry into the legality of their Charter, they thought it necessary to comply, and fitted out the sloop and ship before-mentioned."*

*Robson. App. No. i., p. 36,

It would appear from the above narrative, that the expedition was undertaken not for discovery, but to search for copper; and, moreover, that it was only undertaken at all in self-defence, for fear others should intrude on their privileges.

There seems to have been no further attempt made on the part of the Company to prosecute Arctic discovery, until the year 1769, that is to say, fifty years after their first attempt, and just a century after they undertook the task.

In that year Hearne commenced his expedition for the discovery, not, as it would appear, of the country, or of the long-wished-for passage into the Pacific Ocean, but, again, of the copper mines which were said to exist to the north of Fort Churchill ; and, it is so stated by Hearne himself, in the Introduction to the Narrative. That the discovery of the Arctic Ocean by this meritorious traveller was rather an accident than a settled purpose of his expedition, must be evident to every one who has read his work. What value the Hudson's Bay Company set upon this discovery is best seen by the fact that "Hearne's Narrative" was not published till the year 1795, twenty-six years after the expedition was undertaken, and even then, if we are to credit La Pérouse, only in consequence of a promise