THE COMPANY’S PROSPERITY AROUSES OPPOSITION—ARTHUR DOBBS AND THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE AND THE ATTACK ON THE CHARTER—NO NORTHWEST PASSAGE IS FOUND BUT THE FRENCH SPUR THE ENGLISH TO RENEWED ACTIVITY
For fifty years, the Company had been paying dividends that never went lower than 7 per cent. and generally averaged 10. These dividends were on capital that had been twice trebled. The yearly fur sales yielded from £20,000 to £30,000 to the Adventurers—twice and three times the original capital, which—it must be remembered—was not all subscribed in cash. French hunters had been penetrating America from the St. Lawrence. Bering had discovered Alaska on the west for Russia. La Vérendrye had discovered the great inland plains between the Saskatchewan and the Missouri, for France. It was just beginning to dawn on men’s minds what a vast domain lay between the plantations of the Atlantic seaboard and the Western Sea. It was inevitable that men should ask themselves whether Charles II. had any right to deed away forever that vast domain to those court favorites and their heirs known as the Hudson’s Bay Company. To be sure, Parliament had confirmed the charter when the Stuart House fell; but the charter had been confirmed for only seven years. Those seven years had long since expired, and the original stock of the fur company had passed from the heirs of the original grantees to new men—stock speculators and investors. With the exception of royalty, there was not a single stockholder of the Hudson’s Bay Company by 1740, who was an heir of the original men named in the original charter. Men asked themselves—had these stockholders any right to hold monopoly against all other traders over a western domain the size of half Europe? The charter had been granted in the first place as a reward for efforts to find passage to the South Sea. What had the Company done to find a passage to the Pacific? Sent Knight and his fifty men hunting gold sands in the North, where they perished; and dispatched half a dozen little sloops north of Chesterfield Inlet to hunt whales. This had the Adventurers done to earn their charter, and ever since sat snugly at home drawing dividends on twice-trebled capital equal to 90 per cent. on the original stock, intrenched behind the comfortable feudal notion that it was the manifest design of an All Wise Providence to create this world for the benefit of the few who can get on top and exploit the many to the profit of the aforesaid few.
We, whose modern democracy is working ten-fold worse injustice by favors to the few against the many, must have a care how we throw stones at that old notion. Feudalism in the history of the race—had its place. It was the system by which the bravest man led the clan and ruled because he was fittest to rule as well as to protect. Of all those rivals now yelping enviously at the Company’s privileges—which could point to an ancestor, who had been willing to brave the perils of a first essay to Hudson Bay? We have seen how even yet the Company could obtain servants only by dint of promising bounties and wives and dowries; how the men under command of the first navigators balked and reared and mutinied at the slightest risk; how—in spite of all we can say against feudalism—it was the spirit of feudalism, the spirit of the exclusive favored few, that faced the first risks and bought success by willing, reckless death, and later fought like demons to hold the bay against France.
It was one Arthur Dobbs, a gentleman and scholar, who voiced the general sentiment rising against the privileges of the Company. Dobbs had been bitten by that strange mania which had lured so many and was yet to lure more brave seamen to their death. He was sure there was a Northwest Passage. Granted that; and the sins of the fur traders became enormities. Either they had not earned their charter by searching the Northwest Passage, or if they had found it, they had kept the discovery a secret through jealousy of their trade. Dobbs induced the Admiralty to set aside two vessels for the search. Then he persuaded Captain Middleton, who had for twenty years navigated Hudson Bay, to resign the service of the Company and lead the government expedition of 1741-2.
Around this expedition raged a maelstrom of ill feeling and false accusations and lies. The Company were jealous of their trade and almost instantly instructed their Governing Committee to take secret means to prevent this expedition causing encroachment on their rights. This only aroused the fury of the Admiralty. The Company were given to understand that if they did not do all they could to facilitate Middleton’s search, they might lose their charter. On this, the Company ordered their factors on the bay to afford Middleton every aid, but judging from the factors’ conduct, it may be surmised that secret instructions of another nature were sent out.
When Middleton came to Churchill in July on The Furnace Bomb and Discovery, he found buoys cut, harbor lights out and a governor mad as a hornet, who forbade the searchers to land, or have any intercourse with the Indians. Taking two Indians as guides, Middleton proceeded north as far as 66°—in the region of Rowe’s Welcome beyond Chesterfield Inlet. Here, he was utterly blocked by the ice, and the expedition returned to England a failure.
It was at this point the furor arose. It was charged that the Company had bribed Middleton with £5,000 not to find a passage; that he had sailed east instead of west; that he had cast the two Indian guides adrift at Marble Island with scant means of reaching the main shore alive; and that while wintering in Churchill he had been heard to say, “That the Company need not be uneasy, for if he did find a passage, no one on earth would be a bit the wiser.” The quarrel, which set England by the ears for ten years and caused a harvest of bitter pamphlets that would fill a small library—need not be dealt with here.
Middleton knew there was no passage for commercial purpose. That the Admiralty accepted his verdict may be inferred from the fact that he was permanently appointed in the king’s service; but Dobbs was not satisfied. He hurled baseless charges at Middleton, waged relentless pamphlet war against the Company and showered petitions on Parliament. Parliament was persuaded to offer a reward of £20,000 to any one finding a passage to the Pacific. Dobbs then formed an opposition company, opened subscriptions for a capital of £10,000 in one hundred shares of £100 each for a second expedition, and petitioned the king for a grant of all lands found adjacent to the waters discovered, with the rights of exclusive trade. Exclusive trade! There—the secret was out—the cloven hoof! It was not because they had not earned their charter, that the Adventurers had been assailed; but because rivals, themselves, wanted rights to exclusive trade. To these petitions, the Company showered back counter-memorials; and memorials of special privileges becoming the fashion, other merchants of London, in 1752, asked for the grant of all Labrador; to which the Company again registered its counter-memorial.