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
Finding their continual petitions to the Lords of Trade ineffectual,
the Company now drew up a more strongly worded one and presented it
to Queen Anne herself. The memorial differed from any other, inasmuch
as the Company now lay stress for the first time on some other feature
of their commerce than furs.
"The said country doth abound with several other commodities (of which
your petitioners have not been able to begin a trade, by reason of the
interruptions they have met with from the French) as of whale-bone,
whale-oil (of which last your subjects now purchase from Holland and
Germany to the value of £26,000 per annum, which may be had in your
own dominions), besides many other valuable commodities, which in time
may be discovered."
If the French, it was argued, came to be entirely possessed of
Hudson's Bay, they would undoubtedly give up whale fishing in those
parts, which will greatly tend to the increase of their navigation and
to their breed of seamen.
When your Majesty, in your high wisdom, shall think fit to give
peace to those enemies whom your victorious arms have so
reduced and humbled, and when your Majesty shall judge it for
your people's good to enter into a treaty of peace with the
French King, your petitioners pray that the said Prince be
obliged by such treaty, to renounce all right and pretensions
to the Bay and Streights of Hudson, to quit and surrender all
posts and settlements erected by the French, or which are now
in their possession, as likewise not to sail any ships or
vessels within the limits of the Company's charter, and to make
restitution of the £108,514, 19s. 8d., of which they robbed and
despoiled your petitioners in times of perfect amity between
the two Kingdoms.
This petition seems actually to have come into the hands of the Queen
and to have engaged her sympathy, for which the Honourable Adventurers
had to thank John Robinson, the Lord Bishop of London. This dignitary,
_persona grata_ in the highest degree to the sovereign, was also a
close personal friend of the Lake family, whose fortunes[46] were long
bound up with the Hudson's Bay Company. The Company was asked to state
what terms it desired to make. In great joy they acceded to the
request.
TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE LORDS COMMISSIONERS OF TRADES AND
PLANTATIONS.
_The Memorandum of the Governor and Company of Adventurers of
England trading into Hudson's Bay:_
That for avoiding all disputes and differences that may, in
time to come, arise between the said Company and the French,
settled in Canada, they humbly represent and conceive it
necessary--
That no wood-runners, either French or Indians, or any other
person whatsoever, be permitted to travel, or seek for trade,
beyond the limits hereinafter mentioned.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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