But Adventurers on booty bound would sail over the edge of the earth if it were flat, and when the Hudson’s Bay Company found, instead of a passage to the fabulous South Sea, a continental watershed whence mighty rivers rolled north, east, south, over vaster lands than those island Adventurers had ever dreamed—was it to turn back because these countries didn’t precisely border on Hudson’s Bay? The Company had been chartered as Lords of the Outer Marches, and what were Outer Marches for, but to march forward? For a hundred years, the world heard very little of these wilderness Adventurers except that they were fighting for dear life against the French raiders, but when Canada passed to the English, Hudson’s Bay canoes were threading the labyrinthine waterways of lake and swamp and river up the Saskatchewan, down the Athabasca, over the mountain passes to the Columbia. Hudson’s Bay fur brigades were sweeping up the Ottawa to Abbittibbi, to the Assiniboine, to MacKenzie River, to the Arctic Circle. Hudson’s Bay buffalo runners hunted the plains from the Red River to the Missouri. Hudson’s Bay Rocky Mountain brigades—one, two, three hundred horsemen, followed by a ragged rabble of Indian retainers—yearly scoured every valley between Alaska and Mexico in regular platoons, so much territory assigned to each leader—Oregon to McLoughlin, the Snake Country to Ogden, the Umpqua to Black or McLeod, the Buffalo Country to Ross or some other, with instructions not to leave a beaver alive on the trail wherever there were rival American traders. Hudson’s Bay vessels coasted from the Columbia to Alaska. The Adventurers could not dislodge Baranoff from Sitka, but they explored the Yukon and the Pelly, and the official books show record of a farm where San Francisco now stands. Beginning with a score of men, the Company to-day numbers as many servants as the volunteer army of Canada. Railroads to Eastern ports now do the work of the four or five armed frigates that used yearly to come for the furs, but two company ships still carry provisions through the ice floes of Hudson’s Bay, and on every navigable river of the inland North, floats the flag of the Company’s steamers. The brigades of fur canoes can yet be seen at remote posts like Abbittibbi; and the dog trains still tinkle across the white wastes bringing down the midwinter furs from the North.
The old Company has the unique distinction of being the only instance of feudalism transplanted from Europe to America, which has flourished in the new soil. Other royal companies of Virginia, of Maryland, of Quebec, became part of the new democracy. Only the Hudson’s Bay Company remains. The charter which by “the Grace of God” and the stroke of a pen gave away three-quarters of America—was, itself, pure feudalism. Oaths of secrecy, implicit obedience of every servant to the man immediately above him—the canoemen to the steersman, the trader to the chief factor, the chief factor to the governor, the governor to the king—dependence of the Company on the favor of the royal will—all these were pure feudalism. Prince Rupert was the first governor. The Duke of York, afterwards King James, was second. Marlborough, the great general, came third; and Lord Strathcona, the present governor, as High Commissioner for Canada, stands in the relation of ambassador from the colony to the mother country. Always the Company has been under the favor of the court.
Formerly, every shareholder had to make solemn oath: “I doe sweare to bee True & faithfull to ye Govern’r & Comp’y of Adventurers of England Trading into Hudson’s Bay & to my power will support and maintain the said comp’y & the privileges of ye same; all bye laws and orders not repeated which have been or shall be made by ye said Govern’r & Company I will to my best knowledge truly observe and keepe: ye secrets of ye said company, which shall be given me in charge to conceale, I will not disclose; and during the joint stock of ye said comp’y I will not directly nor indirectly trade to ye limitts of ye said company’s charter without leave of the Govern’r, the Deputy Govern’r and committee, So help me God.”
A similar oath was required from the governor. Once a year, usually in November, the shareholders met in a general session called the General Court, to elect officers—a governor, a deputy governor, and a committee which was to transact details of business as occasion required. Each officer was required to take oath of secrecy and fidelity. This committee, it was, that appointed the captains to the vessels, the men of the crews, the local governors for the fur posts on the bay, and the chief traders, who were to go inland to barter. From all of these, oaths and bonds of fidelity were required. He, who violated his oath, was liable to forfeiture of wages and stock in the Company. In all the minute books for two-and-a-half centuries, both of the committee and the General Court which I examined, there were records of only one director dismissed for breaking his oath, and two captains discharged for illicit trade. Compared to the cut-throat methods of modern business, whose promise is not worth the breath that utters it and whose perjuries having become so common, people have ceased to blush, the old, slow-going Company has no need to be ashamed.
Each officer in his own sphere was as despotic as a czar, but the despotism was founded on good will. When my Lord Preston did the Company a good turn by sending Radisson back from Paris to London, the committee of 1684 orders the warehouse keeper “to deliver the furrier as many black beaver skins as will make my lord a fine covering for his bedd”—not a bribe before the good turn, but a token of good will afterwards. When Mr. Randolph of New England arrests Ben Gillam for poaching on the Company’s preserve up on Hudson Bay, the committee orders a piece of plate to the value of £10 for Mr. Randolph. When King Charles and the Duke of York interceded with France to forbid interlopers, “two pair of beaver stockings are ordered for the King and the Duke of York;” and the committee of April, 1684, instructs “Sir James Hayes do attend His Royal Highness at Windsor and present him his dividend in gold in a faire embroidered purse.” For whipping “those vermin, those enemies of all mankind, the French,” the Right Honorable Earl John Churchill (Marlborough) is presented with a cat-skin counterpane.
The General Court and weekly committee meetings were held at the very high altars of feudalism—in the White Tower built by William the Conqueror, or at Whitehall where lived the Stuarts, or at the Jerusalem Coffee House, where scions of nobility met the money lenders and where the Company seems to have arranged advances on the subscribed stock to outfit each year’s ships. Often, the committee meetings wound up with orders for the secretary “to bespeake a cask of canary for ye governor,” or “a hogshead of claret for ye captains sailing from Gravesend,” to whom “ye committee wished a God Speed, a good wind and a faire saile.”
When the Stuart line gave place to a new régime, the Company hastened to King William at Kensington, and as the minutes of Oct. 1, 1690, record—“having the Honour to be introduced into His Majesty’s clossett ... the Deputy-Governor Sir Edward Dering delivered himself in these words.... May it Please your Majesty—Your Majesty’s most loyal and dutifull subjects, the Hudson’s Bay Company begg leave most humbly to congratulate your Majesty’s Happy Returne home with honours and safety. And wee doo daily pray to Heaven (that Hath God wonderfully preserved your Royall person) that in all your undertakings, your Majesty may bee as victorious as Caesar, as Beloved as Titus, and (after all) have the glorious long reign and peacefull end of Augustus.... We doo desire also most humbly to present to your Majesty a dividend of three hundred guineas upon three hundred pounds stock in the Hudson’s Bay Company now Rightfully devolved to your Majesty. And altho we have been the greatest sufferers of any Company, from these common enemies off all mankind, the French, yet when your Majesty’s just arms shall have given repose to all Christendom, wee also shall enjoy our share of those great Benefitts and doo not doubt but to appeare often with this golden fruit in our hands—And the Deputy-Governor upon his knees humbly presented to his Majesty, the purse of gold ... and then the Deputy-Governor and all the rest had the honour to kiss His Majesty’s Hand.”