Commissioners, to conduct the emigration of labour to Vancouver's Island in the same manner as to the other British colonies to which free emigration is carried on.

"You will also receive the assurance of Her Majesty's Government, that, as soon as a sufficient number of colonists shall have settled in the island, to afford a reasonable prospect of the success of the colony, and a satisfactory representation is made that such a course would meet the wishes of the colonists themselves, Her Majesty will grant a Charter of Incorporation to the colony, by which a free Representative Government will be secured to it; and Her Majesty's Government will not fail to apply to Parliament for all the powers that may be necessary in order to carry its intentions into full effect.

"The rights of exclusive trade, which are at present enjoyed by the Hudson's Bay Company, will be recalled, as far as they extend to Vancouver's Island, in pursuance of the clause in the Licence of exclusive Trade over the Indian Territories, provided for that purpose.

“In order that the views of Her Majesty's Government may be known as extensively as possible, I shall have much pleasure in putting you in com

munication with all the parties who have applied to this Office with a similar object to that which was the subject of your communication.

"In case a small party of emigrants should be desirous of sailing at once upon the terms specified in this letter, it will be advisable to invest one or more of the leaders of the party, with magisterial authority for the administration of the law until a regular government is established.

"I have the honour to be,

&c. &c. &c."

I suppose, if a Colonial Minister were to write such a letter as that, he would be put into a straight waistcoat; he would have puzzled nobody-in itself a great crime-and I verily believe he would have founded a colony.

CONCLUSION.

LET us, in conclusion, take a brief review of what it has been the object of this book to bring before the public.

The question at issue is a serious one-whether a valuable territory shall be given up to an irresponsible Corporation, to be colonized or not, as it may suit their convenience; or whether that colonization shall be conducted in accordance with any principles which are recognised as sound and right?

The foregoing exposure of the character and conduct of the Company has heen provoked. When doubts were expressed whether the Company were qualified for fulfilling the tasks assigned to them by the Colonial Minister, and when they appealed to their character and history, it became right that their history should be examined, and their character exposed.

The investigation thus provoked has resulted in the discovery that their authority is fictitious, and their claims invalid. As their power is illegal, so the exercise of it has been mischievous: it has been

mischievous to Great Britain, leaving her to accomplish, at a vast national expense, discoveries which the Company undertook, and were paid, to perform ; and because our trade has been contracted and crippled, without any advantage, political or other, having been obtained in return: it has been mischievous to the native Indians, cutting them off from all communication with the rest of the civilized world, depriving them of the fair value of their labour, keeping them in a condition of slavery, and leaving them in the same state of poverty, misery, crime, and paganism, in which it originally found them it has been mischievous to the settlers and colonists under its influence, depriving them of their liberties as British subjects, frustrating, by exactions and arbitrary regulations, their efforts to advance ; and, above all, undermining their loyalty and attachment to the mother country, and fostering, by bad government, a spirit of discontent with their own, and sympathy with foreign institutions.

This is the Company whose power is now to be strengthened and consolidated;-to whose dominions is to be added the most important post which Great Britain possesses in the Pacific; and to whom the formation of a new colony is to be entrusted.

There has been no intention in the foregoing

pages to censure, indiscriminately, all the servants in the employment of the Hudson's Bay Company. No doubt, many of that body are generous and humane, as well as enterprising and intelligent. I have spoken of a system, and of its natural and necessary consequences, with no other desire than that the truth should be ascertained.

The possession of a portion of the earth as large as Europe, peopled by tribes of human beings, whom it has been committed to us to regenerate or to annihilate, must ever be a very solemn consideration.

And when we ask, Are we doing what is right and honest by these wandering savages, whose keepers we are? it is not the sort of answer we should receive,-"These tribes are predestinated savages; they do not improve, because they cannot improve it is very well for them that they are not utterly exterminated; as to their country, it is not worth your curiosity; it is uninhabitable; it is only fit for us to hunt furs in!" There is something suspicious and painful in this sort of reply; something this country will not be satisfied

with.

Of all the savage races with whom we have come in contact, the North American Indian has, perhaps, the largest claim upon our sympathy.