In former times for trading purposes the unit of value was the beaver skin. The price of everything was calculated at so many skins, and they were the sole medium of exchange. In return for the skins the Indians received pieces of stick prepared in a special manner, each representing a beaver skin, and with these they were able to purchase anything they wanted at the Company's stores. Later on, about 1825, the Company established a paper currency. The highest note was for £1, the next for 5s., and the lowest for 1s. They were known as "Hudson's Bay Blankets," and no fears were ever entertained as to the soundness of the bank. It has been urged against the Hudson's Bay Company that it obstructed the development of the great North-West. On the contrary, it was engaged for two centuries in important pioneer work. Any corporation of the kind with exclusive privileges and rights was bound to make enemies; but no single province of Canada could have undertaken the administration or development of the country before confederation, and neither men nor money were available locally to permit of its blossoming out separately as a Colony or as a series of provinces. Whatever may have been the faults of the Company, history will record that its work was for the advantage of the Empire. The Company explored this vast territory, prepared the way for settlement and colonisation, fulfilled an important rôle in the history of Canada, and had not a little to do with the consolidation of the Dominion, and with the development the western country has witnessed in the last thirty years. 48. RED RIVER REBELLION (1870): ARRIVAL OF THE ENGLISH TROOPS. =Source.=--_The Story of a Soldier's Life_, by Field-Marshal Viscount Wolseley. Constable, 1903. We had looked forward to at least a pretty little field day when our line of skirmishers should enclose Fort Garry and its rebel garrison as in a net. But by early dawn next morning the whole country far and near was a sea of deep and clinging mud. There was then nothing approaching a road in the whole territory, so I had to forgo all pomp and circumstance of war in my final advance and had once more to take to our boats and the dreary oar. We were all wet through, very cold and extremely cross and hungry. A cup of hot tea and a biscuit swallowed quickly for breakfast, and all were again at the oar by 6 a.m., August 24, 1870. The rain poured "in buckets" upon us, and at places the country was under water....