The Great Company Part 44

In the meanwhile Russia had declared that the north Pacific coast down to lat.i.tude 51 belonged to her exclusively. All foreign vessels were prohibited from approaching within a hundred Italian miles of any part of the coast. America protested, and between 1821 and 1824 negotiations were carried on between the two powers.

[Sidenote: Russian claims.]

Russia flatly a.s.serted that the boundary question was one between herself and Great Britain, with which the Americans had no legitimate concern; and offered proofs that the treaty with Spain gave the United States a right only to territory south of 42. A conclusion was, however, reached in the Treaty of 1824, by which the boundary was fixed at 54 40', beyond which neither nation was to found any establishment, or to resort, without permission; while for a period of ten years both nations were to have free access for trade and fishery to each other's territory.

In the following year was concluded a treaty between Russia and Great Britain,[114] by which the former again relinquished her claim not only to the region below lat.i.tude 54 40', but to the vast interior occupied by the Company up to the Frozen Ocean. No objection to this was urged by America, although some of her statesmen sought to take a hand in the matter, and proposed a joint conference. Great Britain's reply to this proposition was to decline to recognize the right of the United States to any interest in the territory in question. The recent promulgation of the Monroe doctrine had given offence not only to her, but to Russia as well, and both were prepared to combat American pretensions.

Although his Majesty's ministers had refused to treat for a joint convention, yet in 1824 negotiations were begun in London, between Great Britain and America, for the owners.h.i.+p of the northern Pacific coast. The British commissioners showed clearly that the Americans had no valid claim to the territory occupied by the Company.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FUR TRAIN FROM THE FAR NORTH.]

[Sidenote: Temporary arrangement between England and the States.]

The mere entrance of a private individual, such as Captain Gray, into a river could not give the States a claim up and down the coast to regions which had been previously explored by officially despatched British expeditions like that of Cook. It was emphatically denied that the restoration of Fort Astoria, under the Treaty of Ghent, had any bearing on the t.i.tle. Nevertheless, Great Britain was willing to accept as a boundary the forty-ninth parallel from the mountains to the Columbia (then known as McGillivray River), and down that river to the sea. But the Americans were obdurate; a deadlock ensued and the convention of 1818 remained in force. The Company repeatedly urged the Government not to abandon one inch of territory rightfully under the Crown, to the United States. Nevertheless, a settlement of the Oregon Question was highly desirable. If in spite of the treaty of 1818 the States should attempt to occupy the territory, war would be inevitable. If on the other hand the treaty should expire without any attempt at American occupation, Great Britain would be, by the law of nations, the party rightfully in possession. A new conference was held in London, in 1827; but it was impossible to agree on a boundary, and the only thing possible was a compromise to the effect that the treaty of joint occupation should be indefinitely renewed subject to abrogation at any time by either party on twelve months' notice. Thus the _statu quo_ was maintained, and the Hudson's Bay Company remained in actual possession of the profits of the fur-trade for many years to come.

In 1828 Governor Simpson believed it advisable to make a general survey of the western posts, with the object of impressing peace and good-will upon the natives, and also to acquire a further knowledge of the needs and abilities of the Company's officers and servants in that quarter. This journey of the Governor, undertaken in considerable state, was from York Factory to the Pacific. He was accompanied by a chief factor, Archibald Macdonald, and a surgeon named Hamlyn.

Fourteen commissioned gentlemen, as the chief factors and chief traders were called, and as many clerks, accompanied the party to the canoes, and amidst great cheering and a salute of seven guns, bade them G.o.d-speed. Simpson entered Peace River on the 15th of August, and reached Fort Vermilion in due course, three hundred and twenty miles from the mouth, which was then in charge of Paul Fraser. From here he proceeded to Fort St. James, the capital of Western Caledonia, and the chief depot for all the region north of the Fraser Forks to the Russian boundary, including the Babine country. Forts Alexandria, Kamloops and Vancouver were visited in due order, and in the following year Simpson returned east by way of the Columbia.

In an attempt to enter the Columbia River in 1829, the Company's s.h.i.+p from London, _William and Ann_, was wrecked on Land Island. Several of the crew escaped and landed on Clatsop Point, where they were immediately murdered by the natives, in order that the plunder of the vessel might be accomplished without interruption. News of the disaster was carried to Fort Vancouver, where the officer in charge, McLaughlin, sent messengers demanding a restoration of the stolen cargo. In response to this request, an old broom was despatched to the fort, with the intelligence that this was all the rest.i.tution the Clatsops contemplated. The schooner _Colbore_ was therefore sent on a punitive expedition. Several of the tribe were wounded and a chief shot, after which the Clatsops entered into a better frame of mind, and expressed contrition for their behaviour.

Under the Anglo-Russian Treaty of 1825, the Company possessed the free navigation of streams which, having their rise in British territory, crossed Russian territory in their course to the sea. The Company were not long in availing themselves of this privilege. Posts were successively erected, as far as the Stickeen River; but seven years afterwards there was yet no permanent post on that stream. It was, therefore, decided to establish one, and a brig, the _Dryad_, was accordingly fitted out and despatched from Fort Vancouver. But in that year, 1833, the Russian Government had received the pet.i.tion of its subjects to rescind the proviso in the treaty favourable to the British. The Company's enterprise in thus encroaching on Russian territory had alarmed Wrangel, who was then in charge of the Russian establishment[115] at Sitka, and he wrote to his superiors urging them to memorialize the Emperor. He alleged that the Hudson's Bay Company had violated its agreement to refrain from selling fire-arms or spirituous liquors to the natives--an allegation which was not founded on fact.

[Sidenote: The _Dryad_ appears.]

Believing that the situation called for instant action, Wrangel did not wait to learn what course his Government would take in the matter, but at once despatched two armed vessels to the entrance of Stickeen River. A fort was hastily built on the site of an Indian village, guns were mounted, and the Company's expedition awaited. All unconscious the _Dryad_ force approached. Suddenly a puff of smoke and a loud report arrested them, and several shots came from two vessels. .h.i.therto concealed in the offing. While the astonished captain and crew put the brig about, with a design to anchor out of range, a boat reached them from the sh.o.r.e, bearing an officer in Russian uniform. He protested in the name of the Emperor and the Governor of the Russian-American possessions, against the entrance of a British vessel into a river appertaining to those powers. The Company's agent attempted to argue the matter, but his representations went unheeded. The Russian was obdurate; they were all threatened with peril to their lives, and their vessel, if the _Dryad_ did not immediately weigh anchor. There was consequently nothing to do but to return.

The Company was indignant at this outrage. The forts it had already built, together with the cost of fitting out the _Dryad_ and other vessels, besides a vast quant.i.ty of provisions and perishable merchandise sent into that country, had amounted to 20,000 sterling.

The Emperor had granted the pet.i.tion of the Russian Company; and both the British and the American Governments received notification that the clause in the treaty would terminate at twelve months' notice. But the _Dryad_ affair took place before this decision was made public.

The British Government very properly demanded immediate satisfaction, and for a time public interest was keenly aroused. The Russian Government merely consented to disavow the act of its officer; and issued instructions prohibiting further hindrance to the trading limits previously agreed upon.

The matter did not, however, receive settlement until 1839, in which year a convention was held in London to arrange the points long in dispute between the two companies. The matter was settled with despatch. The Hudson's Bay Company's claim for compensation was waived in return for a lease from the Russian Company of all their territory on the mainland lying between Cape Spencer and lat.i.tude 54 40'. For this lease the Company agreed to pay an annual rental of two thousand land-otter skins, and also to supply the Russians with provisions at moderate rates.

In the last chapter, the expedition in 1819-20 of Lieutenant (afterwards Sir John) Franklin, was alluded to.

Franklin and his party reached Fort Chippewyan on the 26th March, after having travelled on foot eight hundred and fifty-six miles, with the weather so intensely cold that the mercury continually froze in the bulb. In July, 1820, they journeyed five hundred miles more to Fort Enterprise, where the party wintered, Back returning to Fort Chippewyan to procure supplies for the next season's operations. He was eagerly awaited, and when he arrived, in March, 1821, he had a tale of great hards.h.i.+p to relate. He had travelled over one thousand one hundred miles, sometimes going two or three days without food, with no covering at night but a blanket and deerskins to protect him from the fearful rigours of fifty-seven degrees below zero. In June the party started out from the Coppermine to reach the sea, which they did in eighteen days. Their subsequent sufferings were of the most dreadful description. When the survivors returned to York Factory, they had travelled five thousand five hundred and fifty miles by land and water; but their object was still unaccomplished.[116]

In 1825, Franklin entered upon a second journey to the sh.o.r.es of the Polar Sea, again accompanied by Lieutenant Back and Peter Dease, one of the Company's chief traders.

"The Governor and Committee took," says Franklin, "a most lively interest in the objects of the expedition, promised their utmost support to it, and forthwith sent injunctions to their officers in the fur countries to provide the necessary depots of provisions at the places which I pointed out, and to give every other aid in their power."

Franklin descended the Mackenzie and traced the coast line through thirty-seven degrees of longitude from the mouth of the Coppermine River, where his former survey began, to near the one hundred and fiftieth meridian, and coming within one hundred and sixty miles of the most easterly point reached by Captain Beechy, who was exploring from Bering's Strait.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SIR GEORGE BACK, R.N.]

In 1832 the protracted absence of Captain (afterwards Sir John) Ross, who had sailed three years before for the Polar regions, became cause for anxiety. It was decided to send an expedition, commanded by Captain Back, in search of this explorer, and the Government granted 2,000 towards the expense, "it being understood that the Hudson's Bay Company will furnish the supplies and canoes free of charge, and that the remainder of the expense, which is estimated at 3,000, will be contributed by Captain Ross's friends." The expedition sailed, but after it had been absent one year, news reached them[117] that Ross had returned safe and sound in England; and Captain Back was ordered to attempt a completion of the coast line of the north-eastern extremity of North America. The Company, through Sir George Simpson, nominated four officers, in its service, to be placed under Back's command.

In 1834 there was witnessed a confirmation of the Deed Poll of 1821, with a more definite prescription of the duties and emoluments of the Company's servants.

It was not until the year 1835 that Lord Selkirk's heirs determined to give up their control of the Red River colony, and to surrender the territories granted in 1811. The expenses incurred by the Earl in his expeditions, and in his costly law suits, were estimated at a large amount, and this the Company agreed to a.s.sume.

In 1839 a powerful blow was dealt at the prosperity of the Company by the successful subst.i.tution of silk for beaver fur in the manufacture of hats. The price of beaver almost instantly fell, and continued to fall thenceforward for many years, inflicting great loss upon the Company which was fortunately atoned for in other directions.

In this same year the Company, at the suggestion of Chief Factor McLaughlin, demanded and obtained of the Russian Fur Company a ten years' lease for trading purposes of a strip of land ten leagues wide, extending north from lat.i.tude 50 40', and lying between British territory and the ocean, paying therefor two thousand east side land otter, worth thirty-two s.h.i.+llings and sixpence each. Statesmen in England marvelled at this arrangement, wondering why the Company sought these ten leagues of Russian seaboard. But traffic with the natives was only one of the objects of the Company, for they also contemplated making a customer of the Russians for European goods, as well as for those products of the soil which the inclemency of the more northern regions prevented their rivals from raising.

Acting upon this arrangement, a party was organized at Montreal in 1839 to take possession of the leased territory. They set out from York Factory in July, and travelled from thence by way of Edmonton, Jasper House and Walla Walla to Fort Vancouver. In the following year they proceeded to the Redoubt St. Dionysius, or as it was thereafter called, Fort Stickine, the Russian post at the mouth of the Stickine River, which was to be the British headquarters in the leased territory. In charge of the fort they found a Russian officer with fifty men, guarded by a brig of thirty-two guns. The officer was informed by the Company's pioneers that they would remain with eighteen men, at which the Russians expressed astonishment. They informed young McLaughlin and W. G. Rae, who had been appointed to the new post, that the savages were troublesome, that the chief had many slaves skilled in a.s.sa.s.sination and accustomed to obey his murderous orders. To which the Company's men replied, "Other forts we rule with twenty men, and we will hold Stickine."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THOMAS SIMPSON.]

To this period belong the adventures and the tragic end of Thomas Simpson, the Arctic explorer. As a youth, Simpson had shown great scholastic promise, and seemed destined for medicine, when fortune tempted him to try the service of the Company. His cousin, George Simpson, was then Governor of the Company's territories, and repeated offers of a position decided the brilliant student to embark in the fur-trade. He began work as secretary to Governor Simpson, with whom he travelled from post to post for some time, until he settled down as accountant at Fort Garry. But soon the Company had a duty for him to perform. In order to strengthen their hand when applying for a renewal of their general trading license, the Honourable Adventurers decided to spend some money in exploring the Arctic coast. Young Simpson was requested to undertake this arduous task. Exploration from the Atlantic showed a defined coast line to within seven degrees of the Great Fish River, and it was to devolve upon Simpson to explore the intervening gap. The important duty was laid upon him of completing the discovery of the northern coast of North America, and in accomplis.h.i.+ng this it was thought that the long-looked for North-West pa.s.sage would be brought to light. Simpson set out from Fort Garry in the winter of 1836-37 and travelled on foot the whole distance to Lake Athabasca, a matter of one thousand two hundred miles, where he encountered Dease, the chief factor, who was nominally at the head of the expedition. In the spring the party descended the Mackenzie in open boats, coasting along to the westward until they attained the farthest point attained by Franklin. From here a successful journey was made to within a short distance of Point Barrow, when their progress was arrested by the ice. After wintering at Great Bear Lake, in the spring of 1838 the expedition again started for the coast, crossing the Coppermine River and descending that stream to its mouth.

But to their great disappointment they found the coast ice-bound. In the following spring they were more fortunate, finding the sea comparatively open, and as before, Simpson struck off along the coast on foot. The expedition returned by way of the Coppermine and Great Bear Lake to the Mackenzie River, and here Simpson wrote a narrative of the expedition while waiting for the freezing up of that stream. He departed from Fort Simpson on the 2nd December, and reached Fort Garry on 1st of February, covering a distance of one thousand nine hundred and ten miles in sixty-one days, many of which were spent in enforced delays at the Company's forts on the way. Simpson was greatly disappointed to find on his arrival at Red River no letters from the Company in London, inasmuch as he had offered to make another expedition to complete the seven degrees still remaining of unexplored coast. The Company had accepted his offer, and wrote to that effect, but the letter arrived too late. The same mail also contained the news that the Royal Geographical Society, in view of the success which had attended his first expedition, had awarded him its gold medal; while the British Government had bestowed on him a pension of 100 sterling per annum. Simpson's later discoveries far excelled those he had made in 1837, and no doubt the honours accorded him would have been very great; but in 1840, while travelling, about three days' journey from Fort Garry, in what is now Dakota, a tragedy took place, the details of which are still wrapt in mystery. It appears that the party of which Simpson was a member were arranging their camp for the night.

Their horses were grazing hard by. All were armed with guns and pistols, for the Sioux were on the warpath. One of the party was helping to pitch the tent when he heard the report of a gun. On turning around he beheld Simpson in the act of shooting, first, John Bird and then Antoine Legros, the former of whom fell dead, while the latter had time to give his son a last embrace. According to this witness, Simpson then spoke for the first time, demanding if he knew of any plot to rob him of his papers. This was the last seen alive of the Arctic explorer; next morning his dead body was found lying beside the others he had slain. There is little doubt that he was the victim of a fit of insanity, superinduced by the fear that one of his fellow-travellers might report the results of the expedition to the Company in England before him. His death removed an able and distinguished explorer, who rendered good service to the Company.

In 1842 Lord Ashburton arrived in the United States, equipped with instructions and powers for the settlement of certain questions long pending between Britain and America. It was expected that the Oregon boundary matter would be one of these, but this was not the case.[118]

Meanwhile the utmost excitement prevailed in Oregon, the settlers of both nationalities claiming possession. Political meetings were held on the part of the British, at which old Hudson's Bay Company servants and ignorant voyageurs were nominated for office, the latter men, "whose ideas of government," says McKay, "were little above those of a grisly bear."

Travelling along the middle Columbia at this time was by no means devoid of danger, owing to the animosity of the natives towards the Americans. Their faith in the Company remained unshaken; but they were subject to fits of suspicion and ill-temper, which were occasionally fraught with considerable inconvenience for the Hudson's Bay servants.

In 1844, when J. W. McKay first came to Fort Vancouver, he found that many of the Indians along the route were not to be trusted. Early in 1846 McKay was dispatched to California to ascertain what arrangements might be made for securing certain supplies nearer than England, in case the Company's farming establishment on the Columbia should be surrendered to the United States.

In 1846 Joseph McKay was given the general supervision of the Pacific establishments, in succession to James Douglas. Taking pa.s.sage northward in the _Beaver_ in October, according to the custom of the general agent, he visited the several stations and made such changes and left such instructions as he deemed advisable. The Russians he found "affable and polite, but tricky." In August, 1847, he mentions meeting a chief of the Stickine Indians, whom he had reason to believe perfectly trustworthy. "He told me that he had been approached by a Russian officer with presents of beads and tobacco, and that he was told that if he would get up a war with the English in that vicinity and compel them to withdraw, he should receive a.s.sistance in the shape of arms and ammunition; and in case of success he would receive a medal from the Russian Emperor, a splendid uniform, and anything else he might desire, while his people should always be paid the highest prices for their peltries."

In the East as in the West, at Red River, at Edmonton, and on the Pacific, the old policy of procuring provisions and the necessaries of life from England had been abandoned. The Company now raised horses, horned cattle, sheep, and other farm stock. It owned large farms in different parts of the country, grist mills, saw mills, tanneries, fisheries, etc. From its posts on the Pacific it exported flour, grain, beef, pork, and b.u.t.ter, to the Russian settlements; lumber and fish to the Sandwich Islands; hides and wool to England. It opened the coal mines at Nanaimo, after an unremunerative expenditure of 25,000 in seeking coal at Fort Rupert.

[Sidenote: Agricultural and mercantile enterprise.]

On the Pacific Coast, as many of the Company's men who could be spared from the business of the fort, as well as such natives as had a leaning towards civilization, were employed in clearing lands and establis.h.i.+ng farms. It was not difficult to convince these Indians that they were pursuing the best policy, and they set to with a will to help the white men and half-breeds, "becoming good bullock-drivers and better ploughmen than the Canadians or Ranakes," to whom, nevertheless, they gave freely of their women as wives, a circ.u.mstance which tended to promote good behaviour amongst the medley throng of Company's servants. Such natives were treated with all fairness, and paid wages as high as the other labourers, usually from 17 to 25 per annum.

The Company became banker for the thousands who thrived by hunting, trading, tilling or mining, within its domains. It issued notes, and so valid were they that it has been said "the Hudson's Bay Company's note was taken everywhere over the northern continent when the 's.h.i.+n plasters' of banks in the United States and Canada were refused."[119]

[Ill.u.s.tration: HUDSON'S BAY CO., TRADE TOKENS.]

FOOTNOTES:

[110] In March, 1821, Wentzel, one of the North-West partners, wrote: "The Hudson's Bay Company have apparently relaxed in the extravagance of their measures; last autumn they came in the [Athabasca] Department with fifteen canoes only, containing each about fifteen pieces. Mr.

Simpson, a gentleman from England last spring, superintends their business. His being a strange, and reputedly gentlemanly, man, will not create much alarm, nor do I presume him formidable as an Indian trader."

[111] May 30th, 1838.

[112] "Such is the spirit and avidity exhibited by the Council," wrote one of the Company's factors, in 1823, "that it is believed these discoveries will be extended as far as the Russian settlements on the Pacific Ocean."

[113] On motion of Mr. Congressman Floyd, a committee was appointed in December, 1820, "to enquire into the situation of the settlements upon the Pacific Ocean, and the expediency of occupying the Columbia River."

[114] See Appendix for copy of this Treaty.

[115] The Russian Company was incorporated under the patronage of the Crown with a capital of two hundred and sixty thousand pounds sterling. It had a large commerce with Northern China which did not deal with Canton; and it was in the northern part of the empire that the consumption of furs was greatest. Canton was merely the _entrepot_ where furs were received for distribution throughout China.

[116] From Joseph Berens, Esq., the Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company and the gentlemen of the Committee, I received all kinds of a.s.sistance and information, communicated in the most friendly manner previous to my leaving England; and I had the gratification of perusing the orders to their agents and servants in North America, containing the fullest directions to promote by every means the progress of the expedition.--_Sir John Franklin._

[117] "The extraordinary expedition with which this despatch was transmitted by the Hudson's Bay Company," says Back, "is worthy of being recorded."