For many years the Company's officers in charge of the various districts in Rupert's Land had annually met in Council for the regulation and discussion of affairs of the fur-trade in general. Regarding themselves as true partners of the Company, they naturally looked to share with the shareholders in the sum agreed to be paid by Canada for its territory.
Turbulent meetings at Hudson's Bay House.
In July, just one month before the entrance of the future hero of Tel-el-Kebir and the British troops into Fort Garry, a last meeting of the council of officers of the Honourable Hudson's Bay Company was held at the post known as Norway House. It was presided over by Fort Garry's Governor, Mr. Donald Alexander Smith,[129] a servant since boyhood of the Company. At this meeting it was decided to represent the claims of the officers to the partners in England. To this end Mr. Smith was unanimously appointed their representative, he undertaking the task of presenting their claims. The London shareholders were by no means immediately acquiescent. But although Sir Stafford Northcote presided over some turbulent meetings in Fenchurch Street, the claims of the "wintering partners" were ultimately recognized in the only manner possible. Out of the £300,000 paid by the Dominion, the sum of £107,000 was divided amongst the officers for the relinquishment of their claims.
The Governor of the Company, in his report to the shareholders in November, stated that "since the holding of the General Court on the 28th June, the Committee have been engaged in proceeding with the re-organization of the fur-trade, and have entered into an agreement with the Chief Factors and Chief Traders for revoking the Deed Poll of 1834, and settling claims arising under it upon the terms sanctioned by the proprietors at the last General Court. They have also prepared the draft of a new Deed Poll adopted to the altered circumstances of the trade."
A new era had thus begun in the history of the Honourable Company of Merchants-Adventurers trading into Hudson's Bay.
