It will be seen that the United States was vested in all the rights held over Oregon by every other power except one, that of Great Britain. Her claim rested, as we have seen, in the fact that "Captain Gray only discovered the mouth of the river," but did not survey it to the extent that the English Captain Vancouver did, after being told by Gray of his discovery. They also made claims of settlement by their Fur Company, just as the United States did by the settlement made by Astor and others. As the Hudson Bay Company and the Northwest Fur Company of Montreal figure so extensively in the contest for English ownership of Oregon, it is well to have a clear idea of their origin and power. The Hudson Bay Company was organized in 1670 by Charles II., with Prince Rupert, the King's cousin, at its head, with other favorites of his Court. They were invested with remarkable powers, such as had never before, nor have since, been granted to a corporation. They were granted absolute proprietorship, with subordinate sovereignty, over all that country known by name of "Rupert's Land" including all regions "discovered or undiscovered within the entrance to Hudson Strait." It was by far the largest of all English dependencies at that time. For more than a century the company confined its active operations to a coast traffic. The original stock of this company was $50,820. During the first fifty years the capital stock was increased to $457,000 wholly out of the profits, besides paying dividends. During the last half of the 17th century the Northwest Fur Company became a formidable opponent to the Hudson Bay Company, and the rivalry and great wealth of both companies served to stimulate them to reach out toward the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. After Canada had become an English dependency and the competition had grown into such proportions as to interfere with the great monopoly, in the year 1821, there was a coalition between the Northwest and the Hudson Bay Companies on a basis of equal value, and the consolidated stock was marked at $1,916,000, every dollar of which was profits, as was shown at the time, except the original stock of both companies, which amounted to about $135,000. And yet during all this period there had been made an unusual dividend to stockholders of 10 per cent. Single vessels from headquarters carried furs to London valued at from three to four hundred thousand dollars. It is not at all strange that a company which was so rolling in wealth and which was in supreme control of a territory reaching through seventy-five degrees of longitude, from Davis Strait to Mt. Saint Elias, and through twenty-eight degrees of latitude, from the mouth of the Mackenzie to the California border, should hold tenaciously to its privileges.