The Great Company Part 29

[Sidenote: Case of Capt. Coats.]

Coats at first endeavoured to excuse himself, but finding the proofs contained in the letter papers (many of which were in his own handwriting and signature) so strong in evidence against him, at last owned he was guilty of the offence he was accused of and submitted himself to the Company, and he was ordered to withdraw while his case was considered. At the expiration of two hours the culprit was called in and acquainted with his sentence, which was dismissal from the service. He was ordered to deliver up the keys of the _King George_, of which he was commander, together with the stores and the keys of such stores in the warehouse in his custody belonging to the Company.

The disgraced captain went home, and after a miserable existence of some weeks, ended his life by his own hand. On the 20th of February, there is a letter to the Company from his widow, Mary Coats, which was read out to the Adventurers a.s.sembled. It prayed that the Committee would "indulge her so far as to order the balance that shall appear upon her late husband's account to be paid, and to permit her to have the stores brought home, still remaining in the _King George_; the profit of these, urged the widow, had always been enjoyed by every master in the Company's services." Moved by the appeal, Widow Coats was called in and informed that provided she delivered up to the Company all the books, papers, charts or drafts belonging to her late husband and now in her custody, she might expect to meet with the favour of the Company. "For which she returned thanks and promised to comply therewith." But the Hakluyt Society's publication of Coats'

journal is sufficient to show that his widow did not keep to the strict letter of her word.

FOOTNOTES:

[62] The number of the Adventurers was, before the enquiry of 1749, a mystery. By many it was charged that they were not above a dozen or fifteen.

[63] Dobbs's "Hudson's Bay," a hysterical work, which was throughout an attack on Captain Christopher Middleton.

[64] 1720

[65] On June 28th, 1749, at a Company's meeting, an account was made of the cost of defending the Company's charter, upon the motion made in the House of Commons. It amounted in the whole to only 755 5s.

10d., exclusive of Sharpe, the Company solicitor's services.

[66] In refusing to advise the granting of a charter to the Company's enemies, the Attorney-General, Sir Dudley Ryder, and the Solicitor-General, Sir William Murray--afterwards Lord Mansfield--drew up a lengthy and important paper, reviewing the charges against the Company. Their conclusion was that either the charges were "not sufficiently supported in point of fact, or were in great measure accounted for from the nature and circ.u.mstances of the case." They deemed the charter valid for all practical purposes.

[67] "The Company being apprehensive that Mr. Secretary Pitts'

indisposition should deprive them of an opportunity of conferring with him in due time, with respect to the Company's claim on the French nation for depredations in times of peace before the Treaty of Utrecht, resolved that a pet.i.tion should be drawn up to his Majesty, humbly representing such losses and damages, reciting the tenth and eleventh article of the said treaty, and praying that his Majesty will give his plenipotentiaries at the approaching congress for a treaty of peace, such directions as will suffice for justice being done to the Company by compensation for such losses. Also that the boundaries of Hudson's Bay may be settled."--_Minute Book_, May 20th, 1761.

CHAPTER XXIV.

1763-1770.

Effect of the Conquest on the Fur-trade of the French -- Indians again Seek the Company's Factories -- Influx of Highlanders into Canada -- Alexander Henry -- Mystery Surrounding the _Albany_ Cleared Up -- Astronomers Visit Prince of Wales' Fort -- Strike of Sailors -- Seizure of Furs -- Measures to Discourage Clandestine Trade.

[Sidenote: Effect of the Conquest.]

The conquest of Canada by the English in 1760[68] had an almost instantaneous effect upon the fur-trade of the French. The system of licenses was swept away with the _regime_ of Intendants of New France.

The posts which, established chiefly for purposes of trade, were yet military, came to be abandoned, and the officers who directed them turned their disconsolate faces towards France, or to other lands where the flag of the lily still waved. The English colonies were not devoid of diligent traders ready to pursue their calling advantageously: but they shrank from penetrating a country where the enemy might yet lurk, a country of whose approaches, and of whose aspect or inhabitants they knew nothing and feared everything. As for the Indians themselves, they, for a time, awaited patiently the advent of the French trader. Spring came and found them at the deserted posts. They sought but they could not find; "their braves called loudly, but the sighing trees alone answered their call." Despair at first filled the bosoms of the Red men when they found that all their winter's toil and hards.h.i.+ps in the forest and over the trail had been in vain. They waited all summer, and then, as the white trader came not, wearily they took up their burdens and began their journey anew.

For a wise Indian had appeared amongst them, and he had said: "Fools, why do you trust these white traders who come amongst you with beads, and fire-water and crucifixes? They are but as the crows that come and are gone. But there are traders on the banks of the great lake yonder who are never absent, neither in our time nor in the time of our grandfathers and great-grandfathers. They are like the rock which cannot be moved, and they give good goods and plenty, and always the same. If you are wise you will go hence and deal with them, and never trust more the traders who are like fleas and gra.s.shoppers--here one minute and flown away the next."

More than one factor of the Company heard and told of this oft-spoken harangue, and many there lived to testify to its effect upon the a.s.sembled Indians. Not even was it forgotten or disregarded years afterwards in the height of the prosperity of the Northmen, whose arts of suasion were exercised in vain to induce the Red man to forego his journey to York, Churchill or c.u.mberland.

"No," they would say, "we trade with our friends, as our grandfathers did. Our fathers once waited for the French and Bostonians to come to their forts, and they lay down and died, and their squaws devoured them, waiting still. You are here to-day, but will you be here to-morrow? No, we are going to trade with the Company."

And so they pressed on, resisting temptation, wayward, though loyal, enduring a long and rough journey that they might deal with their friends.

[Sidenote: The "coureurs de bois."]

Thus for some years the Company prospered, and did a more thriving business than ever. But before, however, dealing with the new _regime_, let us turn for a moment to the Canadian bushrangers and voyageurs thus cut off from their homes and abandoned by their officers and employers. Their occupation was gone--whither did they drift? Too long had they led the untrammelled life of the wilderness to adjust again the fetters of a civilized life in Montreal or Quebec; they were attached to their brave and careless masters; these in many instances they were permitted to follow; but large numbers dispersed themselves amongst the Indians. Without capital they could no longer follow the fur-trade; they were fond of hunting and fis.h.i.+ng; and so by allying themselves with Indian wives, and by following the pursuits and adopting the customs of the Red men, themselves became virtually savages, completely severed from their white fellows.

But an influx of Scotch Highlanders had been taking place in Canada ever since 1745, and some of these bold spirits were quick to see the advantages of prosecuting, without legal penalty, a private trade in furs. To these were added English soldiers, who were discharged at the peace, or had previously deserted. How many of these were slain by the aborigines, and never more heard of, can never be computed; but it is certain that many more embarked in the fur-trade and fell victims to the tomahawk, torch, hunger and disease than there is any record of.

[Sidenote: Hostility of the Indians to the English.]

It is certain, also, that the hostility of the tribes, chief amongst them the Iroquois, to the English, was very great, and this hostility was nourished for some years by the discontented bushrangers and voyageurs. In the action of Pontiac at Detroit, and the surprise and capture of Michilimackinac with its attendant horrors, there is ample proof, both of the spirit animating the Indians, and the danger which went hand in hand with the new trade in furs.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A BLACKFOOT BRAVE.

(_Drawn by Edmund Morris, after photo._)]

The first of these English traders at Michilimackinac to penetrate into the west, where the French had gone, is said to be Thomas Curry.

This man, having by shrewdness and ability procured sufficient capital for the purpose, engaged guides and interpreters, purchased a stock of goods and provisions, and with four canoes reached Fort Bourbon, which was situated at the western extremity of Cedar Lake, on the waters of the Saskatchewan. His venture was successful, and he returned to Montreal with his canoes loaded with fine furs. But he never expressed a desire to repeat the performance, although it was not long before his example was followed by many others. James Finlay was the first of these; he penetrated to Nipawee, the last of the French posts on the Saskatchewan, in lat.i.tude 53, and longitude 103. This trader was equally successful.

[Sidenote: Henry's expedition.]

After a career of some years in the vicinity of Michilimackinac, of a general character, identical with that pursued a hundred years before by Groseilliers, another intrepid trader, Alexander Henry, decided to strike off into the North-West. He left "the Sault," as Sault Ste.

Marie was called, on the 10th of June, 1775, with goods and provisions to the value of 3,000 sterling, on board twelve small canoes and four larger ones. Each small canoe was navigated by three men, and each larger one by four. On the 20th they encamped at the mouth of the Pijitic. It was by this river, he tells us, that the French ascended in 1750, when they plundered one of the Company's factories in the bay, and carried off the two small pieces of bra.s.s cannon, which fell again into English hands at Michilimackinac. But here Henry fell into error; for it was by the River Michipicoten that the French went, and the factory plundered of its adornments was Moose, not Churchill, and the year 1756, not 1750.

Henry himself was going on a sort of plundering expedition against the Company, which was to be far more effective in setting an example to others, than any the French had yet carried through. Everywhere as he pa.s.sed along there were evidences of the recent French occupation.

To return to 1767, this year had witnessed a clearing up of the mystery surrounding the fate of the _Albany_, the first of the vessels sent by the Company to search for a north-west pa.s.sage.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ALEXANDER HENRY.]

[Sidenote: Fate of the "Albany."]

The Company was at that time carrying on a black whale fishery, and Marble Island was made the rendezvous, not merely on account of the commodious harbour, but because of the greater abundance of whales there. Under these circ.u.mstances the boats, when on the lookout for fish, had frequent occasion to row close to the island, which led to the discovery, at the easternmost extremity, of a new harbour.[69]

Upon landing at this place, the crews made a startling discovery. They found English guns, anchors, cables, bricks, a smith's anvil, and many other articles lying on the ground, which, though they were very old, had not been defaced by the hand of time, and which having been apparently without use to the native Esquimaux, and too heavy to be removed by them, had not been removed from the spot where they had originally been laid a little farther inland. The whalers beheld the remains of a frame house,[70] which, though half destroyed by the Esquimaux for the wood and iron, yet could plainly be seen at a distance. Lastly, when the tide ebbed in the harbour there became visible the hulls of two craft, lying sunk in five fathoms of water.

The figurehead of one of these vessels, together with the guns and other implements, was shortly afterwards carried to England. The hypothesis of Governor Norton was instantly and only too correctly espoused by the Company. On this inhospitable island, where neither stick nor stump was, nor is to be seen, and which lies sixteen miles from a mainland, no less inhospitable, perished Knight, Barlow, and the other members of the exploring expedition of 1719. Thus was a fate nearly half a century in the balance ascertained at last.

Two years later some members of a whaling party landed at this same harbour, and one of their number, perceiving some aged Esquimaux, determined to question them on the matter.

"This," says the narrator, "we were the better enabled to do by the a.s.sistance of an Esquimau, who was then in the Company's service as a linguist, and annually sailed in one of their vessels in that character. The account received from these aged natives was 'full, clear and unreserved,' and its purport was in this wise:

"When the doomed vessels arrived at Marble Island, it was late in the autumn of 1719, and in making the harbour through the ice, the larger was considerably damaged. The party landed safely, however, and at once set about building the house. As soon as the ice permitted, in the following summer, the Esquimaux paid them a further visit, and observed that the white strangers were largely reduced in number and that the survivors were very unhealthy in appearance. According to the account given by these Esquimaux, these were very busily employed, but the nature of their employment they could not easily describe. It is probable they were lengthening the long-boat or repairing the s.h.i.+p, and to support this conjecture, forty-eight years later there lay, at a little distance from the house, a quant.i.ty of oak chips, 'most a.s.suredly made by carpenters.'"

Much havoc must have been thenceforward wrought among the explorers, who could not repair their s.h.i.+p, which even may by this time have been sunk; and by the second winter, only twenty souls out of fifty remained.

[Sidenote: Wretched death of Knight and his men.]

That same winter, some of the Esquimaux had taken up their abode on the opposite side of the harbour to the English, and frequently supplied them with such provisions as they had, which consisted chiefly of whale's blubber, seal's flesh and train oil. When the spring advanced, the natives crossed over to the mainland, and upon visiting Marble Island in the summer of 1721 found only five of the white men alive, and those in such distress that they instantly seized upon and devoured the seal's flesh and whale blubber, given them in trade by their visitors, in a raw state. This occasioned a severe physical disorder which destroyed three of the five; and the other two, though very weak made s.h.i.+ft to bury their dead comrades. These two survivors eked out a wretched existence for many weeks, frequently resorting to the summit of an adjacent rock, in the vain hope of being seen by some relief party. But alas, they were doomed to a daily disappointment; the Esquimaux themselves had little to offer them; and at last they were seen by the wandering natives to crouch down close together and cry aloud like children, the tears rolling down their cheeks. First one of the pair died, and then the other, in an attempt to dig a grave for his fellow. The Esquimau who told the story, led the whalers to the spot and showed them the skulls and the larger bones of the luckless pair, then lying above ground not a great distance from the dwelling. It is believed that the last survivor must have been the armourer or smith of the expedition, because according to the account given by the aborigines, he was always employed in working iron into implements for them, some of which they could still show.

There flourished in 1768 the body known as the "Royal Society for Improving Natural Knowledge." This society wrote to the Company, requesting that two persons might be conveyed to and from Fort Churchill in Hudson's Bay, in some of the Company's s.h.i.+ps, "to observe the pa.s.sage of Venus over the sun, which will happen on the 3rd of June, 1769." It was desired that these persons might be maintained by the Company, and furnished with all necessary articles while on board and on sh.o.r.e. The Company was asked to furnish them with materials and the a.s.sistance of servants to erect an observatory; the Society engaging to recoup the Company's whole charge, and desiring an estimate of the expense.

[Sidenote: Astronomers at Hudson's Bay, 1769.]

The Company expressed itself as "ready to convey the persons desired, with their baggage and instruments, to and from Fort Churchill, and to provide them with lodging and medicine while there, _gratis_, they to find their own bedding." The Company demanded 250 for diet during the absence of the astronomers from England, which would be about eighteen months. The Adventurers recommended the Society to send the intended building in frame, with all necessary implements, tools, etc., which "will be conveyed upon freight, the Royal Society likewise paying for any clothing that may be supplied the observers during their residence in Hudson's Bay."

It is interesting to record that the expedition was entirely successful. The two astronomers went out to Prince of Wales' Fort, and returned in the _Prince Rupert_, after having witnessed the transit of Venus on the 3rd of June, 1769.

Towards the middle of the century there had grown up a deep prejudice and opposition towards the Hudson's Bay Company from the sailors and watermen who frequented the Thames.