[65] On June 28th, 1749, at a Company's meeting, an account was made of the cost of defending the Company's charter, upon the motion made in the House of Commons. It amounted in the whole to only £755 5s. 10d., exclusive of Sharpe, the Company solicitor's services.
[66] In refusing to advise the granting of a charter to the Company's enemies, the Attorney-General, Sir Dudley Ryder, and the Solicitor-General, Sir William Murray—afterwards Lord Mansfield—drew up a lengthy and important paper, reviewing the charges against the Company. Their conclusion was that either the charges were "not sufficiently supported in point of fact, or were in great measure accounted for from the nature and circumstances of the case." They deemed the charter valid for all practical purposes.
[67] "The Company being apprehensive that Mr. Secretary Pitts' indisposition should deprive them of an opportunity of conferring with him in due time, with respect to the Company's claim on the French nation for depredations in times of peace before the Treaty of Utrecht, resolved that a petition should be drawn up to his Majesty, humbly representing such losses and damages, reciting the tenth and eleventh article of the said treaty, and praying that his Majesty will give his plenipotentiaries at the approaching congress for a treaty of peace, such directions as will suffice for justice being done to the Company by compensation for such losses. Also that the boundaries of Hudson's Bay may be settled."—Minute Book, May 20th, 1761.
[68] France ceded to England "Canada with all its dependencies," reserving only such part of what had been known as Canada as lay west of the Mississippi. The watershed between the Missouri and the Mississippi rivers had been the boundary between Canada and Louisiana when both were owned by France, and by the treaty of 1763 the River Mississippi was agreed to as the future boundary between the English and French possessions in that quarter; the language of the treaty being, "that the confines between [France and England] in that part of the world shall be fixed irrevocably by a line drawn along the middle of the River Mississippi from its source [etc.], to the sea." Very soon after this treaty, viz., on 7th October, 1763, the Province of Quebec was erected by Royal Proclamation, but the Province as then constituted took in very little of what was afterwards Upper Canada and what is now Ontario; the most north-westerly point was Lake Nipissing; the whole of the territory adjacent to the great lakes was excluded. In 1774 the boundaries of Quebec were enlarged by the Quebec Act. That Act recited that "by the arrangements made by the said Royal Proclamation a very large extent of territory, within which were several colonies and settlements of subjects of France, who claimed to remain therein under the faith of the said treaty, was left without any provision being made for the administration of civil government therein." The Act, therefore, provided that "all the territories, islands and countries in North America belonging to the Crown of Great Britain, bounded on the south by a line" therein described, "from the Bay of Chaleurs to the River Ohio, and along the bank of the said river, westward, to the banks of the Mississippi, and northward to the southern boundary of the territory granted to the Merchants-Adventurers of England trading into Hudson's Bay," etc., "be, and they are hereby, during His Majesty's pleasure, annexed to and made part and parcel of the Province of Quebec as created and established by the said Royal Proclamation of the 7th October, 1763."
[69] It is not a little singular that neither Middleton, Ellis, Christopher, Johnston nor Garbet, all of which explorers had visited Marble Island prior to 1767, and some of them often, ever discovered this harbour. The actual discoverer was Joseph Stephens, commanding the Success, a small vessel employed in the whale fishery. Two years later Stephens was given the command of the Charlotte, a fine brig of 100 tons, his mate then being Samuel Hearne, the explorer.
[70] "I have seen," wrote Governor Hearne, "the remains of those houses several times; they are on the west side of the harbour, and in all probability will be discernible for many years to come."
[71] From the good opinion we entertain of you, and Mr. Norton's recommendation, we have agreed to raise your wages to £130 per annum for two years, and have placed you in our council at Prince of Wales' Fort; and we should have been ready to advance you to the command of the Charlotte, according to your request, if a matter of more immediate consequence had not intervened.
Mr. Norton has proposed an inland journey, far to the north of Churchill, to promote an extension of our trade, as well as for the discovery of a north-west passage, copper mines, etc.; and as an undertaking of this nature requires the attention of a person capable of taking an observation for determining the longitude and latitude and also distances, and the course of rivers and their depths, we have fixed upon you (especially as it is represented to us to be your own inclination) to conduct this journey with proper assistants.
We therefore hope you will second our expectations in readily performing this service, and upon your return we shall willingly make you any acknowledgment suitable to your trouble therein.
We highly approve of your going in the Speedwell to assist in the whale-fishery last year, and heartily wish you health and success in the present expedition.