stands to-day, the English Adventurers once owned a thousand-acre farm. By a bold stroke of statecraft, they had hoped to buy up Mexico’s bad debts and trade those debts for proprietary rights in California. The story of why they failed is theme for novelist or poet rather than historian. Suffice to say, their Southern Brigades, disguised as Spanish horsemen, often went south as far as Monterey. _Yet more!_ The Hudson’s Bay Adventurers had a station half way across the Pacific in Hawaii. In all, how large was their fur empire? Larger, by actual measurement, much larger, than Europe. Now what person would risk reputation by saying no complete account had yet been written of all Europe? The thing is so manifestly impossible, it is absurd. Not one complete account, but hundreds of volumes on different episodes will go to the making of such a complete history. So is it of the vast area ruled by the Hudson’s Bay Company. The time will come when each district will demand as separate treatment as a Germany, or a France or an Italy in its history. All that can be attempted in one volume or one series of volumes is the portrayal of a single movement, or a single episode, or a single character. In this account, I have attempted to tell the story of the Company only as adventurer, pathfinder, empire-builder, from Rupert’s Land to California—feudal lord beaten off the field by democracy. Where the empire-builder merges with the colonizer and pioneer, I have stopped in each case. In Manitoba, the passing of the Company was marked by the Riel Rebellion; in British Columbia, by the mad gold stampede; in Oregon, by the terrible Whitman massacres; in California, by the fall of Spanish power. All these are dramas in themselves worthy of poet or novelist; but they are not germane to the Adventurers. Therefore, they are not given here. Who takes up the story where I leave off, must hang the narrative on these pegs. Another intentional omission. From the time the Adventurers wrote off £100,000 loss for search of the North-West Passage, Arctic Exploration has no part in this story. In itself, it is an enthralling story; but to give even the most scrappy reference to it here would necessitate crowding out essential parts of the Adventurers’ record—such as McLoughlin’s transmontane empire, or the account of the South Bound Brigades. Therefore, latter day Arctic work has no mention here. For the same reason, I have been compelled to omit the dramatic story of the early missions. These merit a book to themselves. * * * * *