In brief, Lord Selkirk’s scheme is that the Company grant him a region for colonizing on Red River, in area now known to have been larger than the British Isles, and to have extended south of modern Manitoba to include half Minnesota. In return, Lord Selkirk binds himself to supply the Hudson’s Bay Company with two hundred servants a year for ten years--whether over and above that colony or out of that colony is not stated. Their wages are to be paid by the Company. Selkirk guarantees that the colony shall not interfere with the Hudson’s Bay fur trade. Other details are given--how the colonists are to reach their country, how much they are to be charged for passage, how much for duty. The main point is my Lord Selkirk owning £40,000 out of £105,000 capital and controlling another £20,000 through his friends--asks for an enormous grant of land larger than the modern province of Manitoba--the very region that Colin Robertson had described to him as a seat of empire--the stamping ground of the great fur traders. Promptly, the Nor’Westers present rise and lay on the table a protest against the grant. The protest sets forth that Lord Selkirk is giving no adequate returns for such an enormous gift--which was very true and might have been added of the entire territory granted the Hudson’s Bay Company by Charles II. If it was to the interests of the Hudson’s Bay Company to sell such valuable territory, it should have been done by public sale. Then there are no penalties attached to compel Selkirk to form a settlement. Also, the grant gives to the Earl of Selkirk without any adequate return “an immensely valuable landed estate.” And, “in event of settlement, colonization is at all times unfavorable to the fur trade.” Other reasons the memorialists give, but the main one is the reason they do not give--that if Selkirk owns the central region of the fur country, he may exclude the Nor’Westers. The protest is tabled and ignored. Sir Alexander MacKenzie is so angry he cannot speak. This does not mean the grand monopoly of the fur trade which he had planned. It means the smashing of the fur trade forever. Ellice, son of the Montreal potentate, sees the wealth of that city crumbling to ruins for the sake of a blind enthusiast’s philanthropic scheme. Some one asks what the Hudson’s Bay Company is to receive for their gift in perpetuity to the Earl. Two hundred servants a year for ten years! But--interjects a Nor’Wester--Selkirk doesn’t pay those servants. That comes out of the Company. To that, the Company, being Selkirk himself, has no answer.