the Indian tribes to murder the servants of their rivals, this was a strange sight. And to see gentlemen who had publicly denied the validity of the Company's Charter; who had taken the opinion of the leading counsel of the day against it; who had tried every means, lawful and unlawful, to overthrow it; to see these same men range themselves under its protection, and, asserting all that they had before denied, proclaim its validity as soon as they were admitted to share its advantages: who, without its pale, asserted the rights of British subjects against its monopoly; and within its pale, asserted its monopoly against the rights of British subjects— this too was a strange sight. Yet to all this did the Hudson's Bay Company submit rather than subject their Charter and their claims to the investigation of a Court of Law.

These are the grounds, then, upon which are founded the claims of a Company who exercise a vast and uncontrolable power. I think there are few, who will take the trouble to read this chapter, who will not arrive at the conclusion, that the claim of the Hudson's Bay Company to a territory many times greater than Great Britain, is altogether fictitious: and yet I am certain,

a perusal of the other three chapters respecting the Company's privileges, will leave a conviction on the mind, that, of all their claims, that to territorial property is by no means the one most contrary to law.

CHAPTER III.

OF THE CHARTER OF THE HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY,

IN RESPECT TO THE VALIDITY OF THE GRANT OF THE RIGHT OF EXCLUSIVE TRADE WITH RUPERT'S LAND.

THE second privilege granted by their Charter to the Hudson's Bay Company is that of the exclusive trade over the territories called Rupert's Land. This is a grant of an entirely different kind from the former, and must be discussed on different grounds. It has been said that the claims of the Company to territorial property are the least illegal of all which they assert; for, however the Crown may have possessed the right, by the law of England, to grant away the waste lands of the Colonies, the Crown never did possess the right to grant privileges of exclusive trade.

The privilege of exclusive trade, in the present case, is asserted against three parties: first, against any other merchants in this country, who are thereby forbidden to trade to the country in question; secondly, against the native population, who are

prevented from selling their furs to any but privileged dealers; and, thirdly, against any British subjects who may settle as colonists in the countries included within the limits of the Charter, and who are debarred from trading, either with the native population, or with the mother country.

Now there is only one case recorded in which it was ever suggested that the King's licence was necessary in order to allow a trade with infidels: it is the case of the "East India Company v. Sandys ;" and that opinion has since been declared not to be law but as to the first and third of the above mentioned modes in which the claims of the Hudson's Bay Company are exercised, they are absolutely against the most explicit and distinct declarations of the law.

Let us understand distinctly what it is which the Hudson's Bay Company claim under their Charter. They claim that they alone shall import any manufactured goods into Rupert's Land. They will not permit any ships except their own, to sail into Hudson's Bay: consequently, the whole import of goods of all kinds, for the use of the settlers at the Red River, which they assert is within the limits of Rupert's Land, is a strict and complete monopoly in the hands of the Company. It is true they allow

others to import some goods; but then they insist on a licence being first obtained from the Company; and they only grant that licence to those who do not interfere with their interest in the fur trade: they allow such goods to be imported only in their own ships; and they never permit more than a limited quantity to be imported by private individuals. Besides this, they subject all such imported goods to duties, the amount of which is regulated by the sole authority of the Company, and is limited only by the capacity of the settlers to satisfy its demands.

Now the Company assert that their traffic is not a monopoly, because they have to compete with the Russian and the American fur traders in the London market. Their trade is a monopoly even against the British merchants, so far as this,-that the merchants can buy furs from no English fur trader except the Company; but it is a perfect monopoly against the settlers of the Red River, who are equally British subjects with any one in England, and are equally entitled to the privileges of British law.

It is laid down in Stephens's Blackstone, as the law of England, with respect to Colonies, that "in conquered or ceded Countries, that have already laws of their own, these laws remain in force until changed by competent authority; while, on the