The Great Company : $b being a history of the honourable company of merchants-adventurers trading into Hudson's BayWillson, Beckles
History
The Great Company : $b being a history of the honourable company of merchants-adventurers trading into Hudson's Bay
Willson, Beckles
Fur trade -- Canada; Hudson's Bay Company; Northwest, Canadian -- History
Some years later the Treaty of Ryswick, in securing to the French the
fruits of Iberville's victory, powerfully affected for ill the
fortunes of the Company. Nevertheless, the whole nation was then in
sympathy with its cause, knowing that but for the continued existence
of the Honourable Adventurers as a body corporate the chances of the
western portion of the Bay reverting to the English were small.
But the Felt-makers were implacable. They would like to have seen the
beaver trade in their own hands. At the expiration of the seven years
for which the confirmation was allowed, they again, as will be shown,
evinced, yet vainly, their enmity.
Because this parliamentary confirmation was limited to so short a
period, some writers have conjectured that at the expiration of that
period the charter ceased to be valid. So absurd a conclusion would
scarcely appear to stand in need of refutation. Could those who
pretend to draw this inference have been ignorant that if some of the
rights conferred by the charter required the sanction of Parliament,
there were other rights conferred by it which required no such
sanction, because they were within the prerogative of the Crown? Even
assuming that at the end of the term for which the act of William and
Mary was passed, such of the provisions of the charter (if there could
be found any such) as derived their efficacy only from parliamentary
support should be considered inefficient, still all the rights similar
to those of the charters for former governments and plantations in
America would continue to exist. That they were so regarded as
existing is made evident by the repeated references to them in various
subsequent international treaties and acts of Parliament. King George
and his advisers completely recognized the Company as proprietors of a
certain domain. In establishing the limits of the newly-acquired
Province of Canada, it was enacted that it should be bounded on the
north by "the territory granted to the Merchants-Adventurers of
England trading into Hudson's Bay," a boundary which by statute was
long to subsist.
Fort Albany did not prove a success in the hands of the French. The
Quebec Company were losing money, and they had no ships. They were,
besides, severely handicapped by physical conditions, owing to the
inaccessibility of the Bay by land and the impracticability of
carrying merchandise by the overland route. It seemed clear that,
after all, the trade of the Bay could only be made profitable by
sea.[23] The French were consequently most anxious to exchange the
forts on James' Bay for Fort Nelson, because they were aware that
better furs were to be had in the north; and because it would enable
them to intercept the tribes who hunted about Lake Nepigon.
[Sidenote: Denonville plans the capture of Fort Nelson.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account