The Hudson Bay Company's agents were not the first hunters and fur-traders in British America, ancient as was their foundation. The French, from the Canadas, preceded them no one knows how many years, though it is said that it was as early as 1627 that Louis XIII. chartered a company of the same sort and for the same aims as the English company. Whatever came of that corporation I do not know, but by the time the Englishmen established themselves on Hudson Bay, individual Frenchmen and half-breeds had penetrated the country still farther west. They were of hardy, adventurous stock, and they loved the free roving life of the trapper and hunter. Fitted out by the merchants of Canada, they would pursue the waterways which there cut up the wilderness in every direction, their canoes laden with goods to tempt the savages, and their guns or traps forming part of their burden. They would be gone the greater part of a year, and always returned with a store of furs to be converted into money, which was, in turn, dissipated in the cities with devil-may-care jollity. These were the _coureurs du bois_, and theirs was the stock from which came the _voyageurs_ of the next era, and the half-breeds, who joined the service of the rival fur companies, and who, by-the-way, reddened the history of the North-west territories with the little bloodshed that mars it. Charles II. of England was made to believe that wonders in the way of discovery and trade would result from a grant of the Hudson Bay territory to certain friends and petitioners. An experimental voyage was made with good results in 1668, and in 1670 the King granted the charter to what he styled "the Governor and Company of Adventurers of England trading into Hudson's Bay, one body corporate and politique, in deed and in name, really and fully forever, for Us, Our heirs, and Successors." It was indeed a royal and a wholesale charter, for the King declared, "We have given, granted, and confirmed unto said Governor and Company sole trade and commerce of those Seas, Streights, Bays, Rivers, Lakes, Creeks, and Sounds, in whatsoever latitude they shall be, that lie within the entrance of the Streights commonly called Hudson's, together with all the Lands, Countries, and Territories upon the coasts and confines of the Seas, etc., . . . not already actually possessed by or granted to any of our subjects, or possessed by the subjects of any other Christian Prince or State, with the fishing of all sorts of Fish, Whales, Sturgeons, and all other Royal Fishes, . . . . together with the Royalty of the Sea upon the Coasts within the limits aforesaid, and all Mines Royal, as well discovered as not discovered, of Gold, Silver, Gems, and Precious Stones, . . . . and that the said lands be henceforth reckoned and reputed as one of Our Plantations or Colonies in America called Rupert's Land." For this gift of an empire the corporation was to pay yearly to the king, his heirs and successors, two elks and two black