deepest importance. But this Company have provoked their hostility without possessing the power to restrain their passions. It has robbed them of the inheritance of their rights as savages, which they claim as descendants from the natives of the soil: it has deprived them of the privileges of British law, which they claim as British subjects and colonists.

In respect to every function of government-the legislative, the executive, the commercial, the financial, the colonial, in whatever light its administration can be regarded, this Corporation exceeded its powers, neglected its duties, violated the law, and disobeyed its Charter.

CHAPTER IX.

VANCOUVER'S ISLAND:-WHAT IT WILL BEWHAT IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN.

THIS work was on the point of going to the press, when an advertisement appeared in the Times, of the 27th January, by which the public were informed that the Charter granting Vancouver's Island to the Hudson's Bay Company had been finally signed on the 13th of that month.

One of the objects contemplated in this publication was a full statement of the reasons why that grant ought not to have been made, under any circumstances, but, especially, not until a complete and impartial investigation into the charges which have been made against the Company, and which are the subject of the foregoing pages, had enabled the Government and Parliament to decide whether the Company could be safely trusted with any additional power whether, in short, the object being to found a colony, it were true or false, that the Company to whom it was proposed to entrust the task, were deserving of such a character as would

effectually prevent any colonists from putting themselves under its sway.

To dwell upon this subject, now that the Charter has finally issued, would be, perhaps, only waste of time. The Hudson's Bay Company are in possession of Vancouver's Island, for a few years, at any rate; unless, indeed, the Parliament should deem the subject of sufficient importance to justify its addressing the Crown with the object of recalling the grant.

However this may be, a few remarks upon the future prospects of this most valuable and important possession, may not be without interest or utility. When, towards the close of the last session of Parliament, the Charter which it was proposed to issue was laid before the Houses of Parliament, there were two objections taken :-first, that the Company were not, under any circumstances, the proper recipients of such a grant; secondly, that, supposing them to have been so, the grant in question was a most unwise one.

The first of these objections remains unchanged; the second still applies, though in a less degree. And if there were wanted any justification for the opposition which was raised against the scheme proposed by the Colonial Office, it would be afforded

by the fact, that some of the worst features which the proposed grant exhibited, have been changed in that which has actually issued. For example: it was originally proposed to vest in the Hudson's Bay Company the property of all the fish in the waters in and about the island. That right the Company have been compelled to abandon, in obedience to public opinion; and the fisheries will now be open to all who may think it worth their while to settle in the new colony, under the auspices of the Company.

Again, it was originally proposed by Earl Grey to leave the administration of justice to the provisions of the Act 1 & 2 Geo. IV., cap. 66, by which all cases of felony, and all civil causes in which the property involved amounts to more than £200, are compelled to be tried in the Canadian Courts.

Although nothing is added to the Charter itself respecting this point, yet, in the proposed scheme of government which appeared in the advertisement mentioned above, a public guarantee is now given that an application shall be made to Parliament to remove the restrictions of the Act of George IV., and to vest the power of administering English law in the local tribunals of the new colony.

Again, in the original grant, there was no guarantee of any kind that the profits arising from the sale of the land, and from the royalty which the Company are permitted to demand from the settlers, for the right of working the mines and minerals, should be expended for the public benefit of the community of colonists. In the actual Charter, however, it appears that a clause has been inserted, by which the Company are bound to expend nine-tenths of such money in the improvement of the colony, reserving to themselves as profit, only ten per cent. of the whole of the revenue derived from these sources.

It is not at all clear, as yet, what the Company are going to do, which will entitle them to the enjoyment of one-tenth of the public funds of the new colony but, at the same time, a great step has been gained in procuring a guarantee that ninetenths shall not swell the dividends of the Company, or be diverted from the objects to which they are justly applicable.

All the three points here noticed are very important changes in the original design of the Charter, as affecting the future prospects of the colonists: they by no means, however, embrace all the objections which were urged against the proposed grant.