Holding its privilege by virtue of royal favor, the Company was expected to advance British dominion abroad and resist all enemies. For exactly one hundred years (1682-1782) it fought the ground inch by inch against the French. From 1698, agents were kept in Russia and Holland and Germany to watch the fur markets there, and when the question of designating the bounds between Russian Alaska and British Columbia, came up between England and Russia, it was on the Hudson’s Bay Company that the British Government relied for the defense of its case. Similarly, when the United States took over Louisiana, the British Government called on the Company in 1807 to state what the limits ought to be between Louisiana and British America. But perhaps the most notoriously absurd part the Company ever played internationally was in connection with what is known as “the Oregon question.” The bad feeling over that imbroglio need not be recalled. The modern Washington and Oregon—broadly speaking, regions of greater wealth than France—were at stake. The astonishing thing, the untold inside history of the whole episode was that after insisting on joint occupancy for years and refusing to give up her claims, England suddenly kow-towed flat without rhyme or reason. The friendship of the Company’s chief factor, McLoughlin, for the incoming American settlers of Oregon, has usually been given as the explanation. Some truth there may be in this, for the settlers’ tented wagon was always the herald of the hunter’s end, but the real reason is good enough to be registered as melodrama to the everlasting glory of a martinet officer’s ignorance. Aberdeen was the British minister who had the matter in hand. His brother, Captain Gordon in the Pacific Squadron was ordered to take a look over the disputed territory. In vain the fur traders of Oregon and Vancouver Island spread the choicest game on his table. He could not have his English bath. He could not have the comforts of his English bed. He had bad luck deerstalking and worse luck fishing. Asked if he did not think the mountains magnificent, his response was that he would not give the bleakest hill in Scotland for all these mountains in a heap. Meanwhile, the Hudson’s Bay Company was wasting candle light in London preparing the British case for the retention of Oregon. Matters hung fire. Should it be joint occupancy, “fifty-four-forty or fight,” or compromise? Aberdeen’s brother on leave home was called in.
“Oregon? Oregon?” Yes, Gordon remembered Oregon. Been there fishing last year, and “the fish wouldn’t rise to the fly worth a d——! Let the old country go!” This, in a country where fish might be scooped out in tubfuls without either fly or line!
The committeemen meeting to transact the details of business were, of course, paid a small amount, but coming together in the court, itself, or in the jolly chambers of a gay gallant like Prince Rupert, or at the Three Tunns, or at the Golden Anchor, great difficulty was experienced in calling the gentlemen to order, and the law was early passed, “yt whensoever the committee shall be summoned, yt one hour after ye Deputy-Governor turns up ye glass, whosoever does not appear before the glass runs out, shall lose his committee money.” The “glass,” it may be explained, was the hourglass, not the one for the “cask of canary.” Later on, fines were imposed to be put in the Poor Box, which was established as the minutes explain, “a token of gratitude for God’s great blessing to the company,” the proceeds to go to old pensioners, to those wounded in service, or to wives and children of the dead.
The great events of the year to the committee were the dispatching of the boats, the home-coming of the cargoes and the public sales of the furs. Between these events, long recesses were taken without any evidence that the Company existed but a quiet distribution of dividends, or a courier spurring post-haste from Southampton with word that one of the Company’s ships had been captured by the French, the Company’s cargo sold, the Company’s ship sunk, the Company’s servants left rotting in some dungeon waiting for ransom. From January to April, all was bustle preparing the ships, two in the first years, later three and four and five armed frigates, to sail to the bay. Only good ice-goers were chosen, built of staunchest oak or ironwood, high and narrow at the prow to ride the ice and cut the floes by sheer weight. Then captains and crews were hired, some captains sailing for the Company as long as forty years. Goods for trade were stowed in the hold, traps, powder, guns, hatchets, blankets, beads, rope; and the committee orders the secretary “to bespeake a good rat catcher to kill the vermin that injure our beaver,” though whether this member of the crew was biped or quadruped does not appear. A surgeon accompanied each ship. The secret signals left in duplicate with the posts on the bay the year before were then given to the captains, for if any ship approached the bay without these signals the forts had orders to fire their cannon at the intruder, cut the harbor buoys, put out all lights and do all they could to cause the interlopers’ wreck. If taken by pirates, all signals were to be thrown overboard, and the captains were secretly instructed how high a ransom they might in the name of the Company offer their captors. On the day of sailing, usually in early June, the Committee went down on horse-back to Gravesend. Lockers were searched for goods that might be hidden for clandestine trade, for independent trade, even to the extent of one muskrat, the Company would no more tolerate than diamond miners will allow a private deal in their mine. These searchers examined the ships for hidden furs when she came home, just as rigorously as the customs officers examine modern baggage on any Atlantic liner. The same system of search was exercised among the workers on the furs of the Company’s warehouses, the men being examined when they entered in the morning, and when they left at night. For this, the necessity was and is yet plain. Rare silver fox skins have been sold at auction for £200, £300, £400, even higher for a fancy skin. Half a dozen such could be concealed in a winter overcoat. That the searchers could no more prevent clandestine trade than the customs can smuggling—goes without saying. Illicit trade was the pest of the committeeman’s life. Captains and crews, traders and factors and directors were alike dismissed and prosecuted for it. The Company were finally driven to demanding the surrender of even personal clothing, fur coats, mits, caps, from returning servants. On examination, this was always restored.
The search over, wages were paid to the seamen with an extra half-crown for good luck. The committee then shook hands with the crew. A parting cheer—and the boats would be gone for six months, perhaps forever, for wrecks were frequent, so frequent that they are a story of heroism and hardship by themselves. Nor have the inventions of modern science rendered the dangers of the ice floes less. There are fewer Hudson’s Bay Company ships among the floes now than in the middle period of its existence, but half a dozen terrible wrecks mark its latter history, one but a few years ago, when a $300,000 cargo went to the bottom; the captain instead of being dismissed was presented by Lloyds with gold plate for preventing another wreck in a similar jam the next year. Pirates, were, of course, keener to waylay the ships home-bound with furs than out-going, but armed convoys were usually granted by the Government at least as far as the west Irish coast.
One of the quaintest customs that I found in the minute books was regarding the home-coming ships. The money, that had accrued from sales during the ships’ absence, was kept in an iron box in the warehouse on Fenchurch Street. It ranged in amount from £2,000 to £11,000. To this, only the governor and deputy-governor had the keys. Banking in the modern sense of the word was not begun till 1735. When the ships came in, the strong box was hauled forth and the crews paid.
After the coming of the cargoes the sales of the furs were held in December, or March, by public auction if possible, but in years when war demoralized trade, by private contract. This was the climax of the year to the fur trader. Even during the century when the French raiders swept the bay, an average of ten thousand beaver a year was brought home. Later, otter and mink and marten and ermine became valuable. These, the common furs, whalebone, ivory, elks’ hoofs and whale blubber made up the lists of the winter sales. Before the days of newspapers, the lists were posted in the Royal Exchange and sales held “by candle” in lieu of auctioneer’s hammer—a tiny candle being lighted, pins stuck in at intervals along the shaft, and bids shouted till the light burned out. One can guess with what critical caress the fur fanciers ran their hands over the soft nap of the silver fox, blowing open the fur to examine the depth and find whether the pelt had been damaged in the skinning. Half a dozen of these rare skins from the fur world meant more than a cargo of beaver. What was it anyway, this creature rare as twentieth century radium, that was neither blue fox nor gray, neither cross nor black? Was it the black fox changing his winter coat for summer dress just caught at the moment by the trapper, or the same fellow changing his summer pelt from silver to black for winter? Was it a turning of the black hairs to silver from old age, trapped luckily just before old age had robbed the fur of its gloss? Was it senility or debility or a splendid freak in the animal world like a Newton or a Shakespeare in the human race? Of all the scientists from Royal Society and hall of learning, who came to gossip over the sales at the coffee houses, not one could explain the silver fox. Or was the soul of the fur trader, like the motto painted on his coat of arms by John Pinto for thirty shillings, in December, 1679—Pro Pelle Cutem—not above the value of a beaver skin?
Terse business methods of to-day, where the sales are advertised in a newspaper and afterward held apart from the goods, have robbed them of their old-time glamor, for the sale was to the city merchant what the circus is to the country boy, the event of the year. By the committee of Nov. 8, 1680, “Sir James Hayes is desired to choose 3 doz. bottles of sack & 3 doz. of claret to be given the buyers at the sale & a dinner to be spoke at the Stellyarde, Mr. Stone to bespeake a good dish of fish, a lione of veale, 2 pullets and 4 ducks.”
In early days when the Company had the field to itself, and sent out only a score or two of men in two small ships, £20,000 worth of beaver were often sold in a year, so that after paying back money advanced for outfit and wages, the Company was able to declare a dividend of 50 per cent. on stock that had been twice trebled. Then came the years of the conflict with France—causing a loss in forts and furs of £100,543. Though small cargoes of beaver were still brought home, returns were swamped in the expenses of the fight. No dividends were paid for twenty years. The capital stock was all out as security for loans, and the private fortunes of directors pledged to keep the tradesmen clamoring for payment of outfits quiet. Directors borrowed money on their own names for the payment of the crews, and the officers of the Company, governors, chief factors and captains were paid in stock. Then came the peace of 1713 and a century’s prosperity, when sales jumped from £20,000 to £30,000 and £70,000 a year. In five years all debts were paid, but the Company had learned a lesson. To hold its ground, it must strengthen grip. Instead of two small sloops, four and five armed frigates were sent out with crews of thirty and forty and sixty men. Eight men used to be deemed sufficient to winter at a fur post. Thirty and forty and sixty were now kept at each post, the number of posts increased, some of them built and manned like beleaguered fortresses, and that forward march begun across America which only ended on the borders of the Pacific and the confines of Mexico. Though the returns were now so large from the yearly cargo, dividends never went higher than 20 per cent., fell as low as six, and hardly averaged above eight.