DAVID THOMPSON
CHAPTER I
APPRENTICED TO THE COMPANY
On the 30th of December, 1783, the Governors of the Grey Coat School at Westminster, England, received from the secretary of the Hudson's Bay Company a request for four boys, trained in navigation, to be apprenticed to the Company for service at their posts in America. At that time, there were in the school but two boys so qualified—Samuel John McPherson and David Thompson. The one was so terrified by the prospect of perils and hardships unknown, that within a week he ran away from the school and was heard of no more. The other accepted the destiny for which he had been marked out, and became one of the greatest land surveyors that the British race has ever produced.
When David Thompson was called before the Headmaster to be informed of his fate, he was in his fourteenth year, and had been for nearly seven years a pupil in the school. No description exists of the poor charity boy as he then was; but from accounts given of him in later life, it is possible to imagine his appearance. Though he was short of stature, his sturdy frame already gave promise of the strength that was to enable him to drive his canoe through the currents and eddies of the western waterways, or trudge at the head of his men across the plains in the teeth of a December blizzard. His complexion was ruddy, though his smooth cheeks were not as yet tanned and furrowed by a life of exposure to the sun and wind of the great North West. The straight, black hair which hung down over his forehead combined with a stub nose to give him an odd look. Yet there must have been already evident, in his expression, the animation and kindliness which in after years distinguished him, and suggested at once the boldness and fire of Curran the Irish orator, and the strength and piety of the puritan Bunyan, both of whom he is said to have greatly resembled.
Thompson's parents were Welsh, and had borne the name of ApThomas until they had come to live in London. It was there in the parish of St. John the Evangelist, that David was born on the last day of April, in the year 1770. While yet a mere child, he was left an orphan by the death of his father. So poor was the family that the dead man had to be buried at the expense of the parish, and the widow, with David and a still younger infant, was left alone to face the hardships of life in the metropolis. The boy, however, must have shown unusual promise; because, while still quite young, he attracted the attention of a certain Abram Acworth. Through the recommendation of this otherwise unknown benefactor, he was at the age of seven accepted as a scholar by the Governors of the Grey Coat School.
The Grey Coat School was a royal foundation "the principall designe of which" was "to educate poor children in the principles of piety and virtue, and thereby lay the foundations for a sober and Christian life". Almost within the shadow of Westminster Abbey, the old building is still to be seen—-a red brick house, built in the Elizabethan manner, its walls covered with grape-vine and Virginia creeper, standing in the midst of a large garden and playground.
In the school, Thompson found himself a member of the class in mathematics, and received such training in geography, algebra, mechanics, and the art of navigation as was possible with the aid of texts, many of which were at that time a century old. In those days books were scarce and dear; and, for their general reading, the boys had to be satisfied with such miscellaneous works as came their way. These were passed eagerly from hand to hand, and as eagerly read and discussed. Youthful imaginations were excited by the romantic adventures of the Persian and Arabian tales, or by the travels of Robinson Crusoe and Gulliver in strange lands and among strange peoples.
Within five minutes' walk of the school was the Abbey and its cloisters. His hours of recreation David spent mainly in wandering through the venerable pile, reading the history of England on the monuments of her heroic dead, and drinking in the beauty of the architecture, especially that of the noble Henry VII Chapel. On other occasions, when chance offered, he would stroll through the Strand and Fleet Street as far east as London Bridge or westward to Chelsea, rich in historical memories and famous for its beautiful lawns. Other favourite haunts were St. James' Park and Spring Gardens in Vauxhall, across the Thames. Forty years of wandering through rock and forest, by plain and mountain, served merely to render yet more vivid his boyish recollection of the city and its parks "where all was beauty to the eye and verdure to the feet."