But the most powerful rival of the North West Company was to be found in the person of Lord Selkirk, who had bought two-fifths of the stock of the Hudson’s Bay Company. In May, 1811, he prevailed on the directors to grant him 160,000 square miles of territory in fee simple on condition he should establish a colony and furnish from the settlers men required by the company at a certain rate. In 1811 ninety persons, mostly Highland cotters from Sutherlandshire, with some emigrants from the west of Ireland, reached Hudson’s Bay, sent by Selkirk. Others followed in subsequent years. This may be regarded as the beginning of the North West Red River settlement. Its history was one of bitter rivalry for the Montreal company. This was felt all the more since Lord Selkirk, being a Douglas and a Scot, had after the failure of this first settlement in Canada at Buldoon received much hospitality and attention at Montreal from the Scottish merchants of the company, who had given him so much inside information on the subject of the fur trade industry that he had turned his thoughts to the Hudson’s Bay Company and become for many years the most determined opponent of his hosts. This opposition, to the extent of bloodshed, did not cease till the union of the two bodies as the reestablished Hudson’s Bay Company in 1821. But the competition with Selkirk’s Hudson’s Bay party had brought sorry losses to both; no dividends were able to be paid by the North West and there was a loss of men on either side in the sanguinary incursions into one another’s territories. The amalgamation of 1821 was therefore not too soon. The union was followed by the gift of the government to the impoverished companies of the exclusive trade of the territory which, under the names of the Hudson’s Bay and North West territories, extended from Labrador to the Pacific and from Red River to the Arctic Ocean. The Hudson’s Bay Company, as the amalgamated company was called, held Rupert’s Land by perpetual charter and the rest of the territory, including Vancouver Island, granted to it in 1848 by special license till 1859, maintaining under its supreme rule about four million square miles. In 1860 it employed five surgeons, eighty-seven clerks, sixty-seven postmasters, 1,200 permanent servants and 500 voyageurs, making with temporary employees about three thousand men on its payroll, while about one hundred thousand Indians were actively engaged in supplying it with furs. Its profits were enormous, being from May 31, 1852, to May 31, 1862, an annual average of £81,000 on a paid-up capital of £400,000. In 1863 the company was reorganized with a capital of £2,000,000, with Sir Edmund Head as governor. After confederation the northwestern territories and Manitoba were joined to the Dominion on the indemnification of £3,000,000. This will be told in its place. Henceforth the old company, no longer a feudal government, is to play its part as one of the mercantile