Lord Elgin had showed the weak spot of the opposition. Mr. Ross indicated it more precisely. "I believe," said he, "there are certain gentlemen at Toronto very anxious to get up a second North-West company, and I daresay it would result in something like the same difficulties which the last North-West company created. I should be sorry to see them succeed. I think it would do a great deal of harm, creating further difficulties in Canada, which I do not desire to see created."
At the close of the evidence, Mr. Gladstone proposed resolutions unfavourable to the Company, which were negatived by the casting vote of the chairman, Lord Taunton, the numbers being seven to seven. The committee agreed to their report on the 31st July. It recommended that the Red River and Saskatchewan districts might be "ceded to Canada on equitable principles," the details being left to Her Majesty's Government. The termination of the Company's rule over Vancouver Island was advised; and this advice was not distasteful to the Company. The committee strongly urged, in the interests of law and order, and of the Indian population as well as for the preservation of the fur-trade, that the Company "should continue to enjoy the privileges of exclusive trade which they now possess."
Toronto merchants petition Legislative Council.
As an illustration of the spirit prevalent in many quarters in Canada towards the Company, the petition which on the 28th of April, 1857, reached the Legislative Council of Canada, may be cited. It emanated from the Board of Trade of the City of Toronto. After reciting in anything but a respectful manner the history and status of the Company, it declared that the Company acted under a "pretended" right, that it "assumed the power to enact tariffs, collect custom dues, and levy taxes against British subjects, and has enforced unjust and arbitrary laws in defiance of every principle of right and justice." The petitioners besought the attention of the Government "to that region of country designated as the chartered territory, over which the said Company exercises a sovereignty over the soil as well as a monopoly in the trade, and which said Company claims as a right that insures to it in perpetuo, in contradistinction to that portion of the country over which it claims an exclusive right of trade, but for a limited period only." The "gentlemen from Toronto" admitted that this latter claim was founded upon a legal right, but submitted that a renewal of "such license of exclusive trade was injurious to the interests of the country so monopolized, and in contravention of the rights of the inhabitants of Canada."
In this year the claims of the Company in connection with the Treaty of 1846 were finally arranged by a special treaty concluded through the Hon. W. H. Seward for America, and Lord Lyons, the British Ambassador. The Puget's Sound Agricultural Company, which was an offshoot and subordinate concern of the Hudson's Bay Company, for the purposes of wheat, wool, hides and tallow production, was also named as one of the interested parties.
"Whereas," so ran the new treaty, "it is desirable that all questions between the United States authorities on the one hand, and the Hudson's Bay and Puget's Sound Agricultural Companies on the other, with respect to the possessary rights and claims of these companies, and of any other British subjects in Oregon and Washington Territory, should be settled by the transfer of those rights and claims to the Government of the United States for an adequate money consideration: It is hereby agreed that the United States of America and Her Britannic Majesty shall, within twelve months after the exchange of the ratification of the present treaty, appoint each a commissioner for the purpose of examining and deciding upon all claims arising out of the provisions of the above-quoted articles of the Treaty of June 15, 1846."[121]
Unwholesome temper amongst the Indians.
The commercial rivalry existing between the Russian-American Company and the Hudson's Bay Company, which held a trading lease of part of the sea-bound territory, naturally tended to engender and keep alive an unwholesome temper amongst the Indians. They were frequently troublesome, and occasionally murderous. In May, 1862, between two hundred and fifty and three hundred of the natives on the west side of Chatham Strait, twenty-five miles north of Cross Sound, seized on the quarter-deck the captain and chief trader of the Company's steamer Labouchere, of seven hundred tons and taking possession of the vessel, drove the crew forward. But the crew had a large gun trained aft, and parleying took place. The Indians had not known that this was a Company ship. It was agreed that both parties should discharge their rifles, and peace was proclaimed, the Indians finally leaving the vessel. Before their departure, however, they covered the deck with fine sea-otter and other skins as a present to the captain and traders, and as a token of peace.
In September, 1860, after an illness of but five days' duration, died Sir George Simpson, the Governor-in-Chief in Rupert's Land, amidst universal regrets. He had been often, indeed persistently, attacked by the Company's enemies during his tenure of his office; indeed almost up to the day of his death he was charged with being autocratic and tyrannical, but none could deny him great ability and exceptional fitness for his post.
He had taken a powerful interest in northern discoveries, and superintended the fitting out of several Arctic expeditions. For his services in this direction he had been knighted in 1841, and soon afterwards had set out on a journey round the world, of which he published an interesting relation. In his late years he resided at Lachine, where he entertained the Prince of Wales, on his visit in 1860.