powers the Crown to grant to one person what the Crown had by its own authority granted to another person.

Now, for this reason, it is asserted that it is illegal for the Company at this moment to exercise the privilege of exclusive trade in Rupert's Land, supposing such a place to exist. Supposing, for a moment, that the original grant of the country be not altogether invalid in law; still the grant of a monopoly of the trade without the sanction of Parliament, being illegal, and Rupert's Land being excluded from the operation of the Act of Parliament which empowers the Crown to grant the right of exclusive trade over "the Indian Territories," there remains no right on earth to prevent any of the inhabitants of any place within what may be decided to be the legal limits of Rupert's Land, from trafficking in furs and peltries as much as they please. Nor could the settlers at the Red River do better than to organise themselves into a Company for the traffic of furs, sending their produce down, as the North-West Company did of old, by the Lake of the Woods, and Lake Superior, into Canada. The Hudson's Bay Company would not now dare to resort to violence to put an end to this general

movement on the part of the colonists; and the least attempt to suppress the trade by force would result in a trial at law.

Sufficient has now been said as to the sanction upon which the Hudson's Bay Company still continues to exercise its despotic power. Some of its claims, it has been shewn, are altogether invalid; some have been utterly set aside by Parliament; and there are others so grossly illegal, that the Company have not, in late years at any rate, ventured to enforce them openly; such as the right to seize, imprison, and fine those who infringe the privileges of their Charter.

Whatever may be the result of the present scrutiny which the grasping conduct of the Company has provoked, there seems to be no probability of "the Indian Territories" being emancipated from their sway until the expiration of their Licence of Trade in 1859.

The Company are fully aware that their prospect of obtaining a renewal of that licence is very small; but the possession of a property on the coast of the Pacific will be the best argument in their favour. Hence their anxiety to obtain a territorial footing in Vaucouver's Island: hence the deter

mination of all who are not blind to the interests of this country, and to the extension of the British power and race, to oppose to the last so fatal and mischievous a proposition.

CHAPTER V.

OF THE CHARTER OF THE HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY, IN RESPECT OF THE RECOGNITION WHICH IT HAS RECEIVED FROM ACTS OF PARLIAMENT AND FROM OTHER PUBLIC DOCUMENTS.

BEFORE leaving the question of the Charter of the Hudson's Bay Company, it is necessary to examine some assertions which have been made, to the effect that its validity has been recognised by successive Sovereigns, by Acts of Parliament, and by Treaties with Foreign Powers. These assertions have been made by Mr. M. Martin, in page 45 of his book. That gentleman says, in the loose style of assertion for which his work is remarkable,-"The lawfulness of the Charter, or of the Company founded on the Charter, have never been questioned by the Crown or by Parliament; on the contrary, there has been a full recognition in various public documents."

No one ever doubted "the lawfulness of the Company founded on the Charter." Unless indeed it should be held in law, that a Charter granting what the Crown had not the power to grant, is null and

void altogether to use this language, therefore, is to conceal the real question. The question at issue is, Are the powers granted by the Charter legal or illegal? And have those powers ever been recognised in any way, or their legality ever been asserted, by any Act of Parliament?

It is necessary to refer to the various occasions on which the Hudson's Bay Company's Charter has been noticed by the Parliament and by the Crown.

The first time Parliament interfered was in 1690, when an Act was passed confirming the Charter, Mr. M. Martin says, "for ever." He puts these words in italics, and would leave readers who do not refer to notes at the foot of a page, in small type, with the belief that the Charter of the Hudson's Bay Company was confirmed by Parliament for ever. There cannot be anything more grossly untrue. And Mr. Martin, in order to save his conscience, puts the remainder, or rather a part of the remainder, of the story into a note.

The real story, however, is this. The Company found their Charter ineffectual to keep out interlopers from sharing the profits of the rising fur trade, so they themselves petitioned Parliament for an Act. Now, if they thought their Charter valid, what was the use of an Act of Parliament? They did so,