Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the numerous original illustrations. See 42279-h.htm or 42279-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/42279/42279-h/42279-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/42279/42279-h.zip) Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/cu31924028902216 Transcriber's note: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). A list of corrections will be found at the end of the e-book. [Illustration: LORD STRATHCONA AND MOUNT ROYAL _Present Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company_.] THE GREAT COMPANY Being a History of the Honourable Company of Merchants-Adventurers Trading into Hudson's Bay by BECKLES WILLSON With an Introduction by Lord Strathcona And Mount Royal Present Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company With Original Drawings by Arthur Heming and Maps, Plans and Illustrations New York Dodd, Mead & Company 1900 Entered according to Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the year one thousand eight hundred and ninety-nine, by the Copp, Clark Company, Limited, Toronto, in the Office of the Minister of Agriculture. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE SIR WILFRID LAURIER, G.C.M.G., TO WHOSE GENEROUS SUGGESTION AND CONTINUED ENCOURAGEMENT IS SO LARGELY DUE THE COMPILATION OF THESE ANNALS. PREFACE. Praiseworthy as the task is of unifying the scattered elements of our Canadian story, yet it will hardly be maintained that such historical studies ought not to be preceded by others of a more elementary character. Herein, then, are chronicled the annals of an institution coherent and compact--an isolated unit. The Hudson's Bay Company witnessed the French dominion in Northamerica rise to its extreme height, decline and disappear; it saw new colonies planted by Britain; it saw them quarrel with the parent State, and themselves become transformed into States. Wars came and passed--European Powers on this continent waxed and waned, rose and faded away; remote forests were invaded by loyal subjects who erected the wilderness into opulent provinces. Change, unceasing, never-ending change, has marked the history of this hemisphere of ours; yet there is one force, one institution, which survived nearly all conditions and all _régimes_. For two full centuries the Hudson's Bay Company existed, unshorn of its greatness, and endures still--the one enduring pillar in the New World mansion.