Copy of License referred to in Resolution 7.
“On behalf of the Hudson’s Bay Company, I hereby license A. B. to trade, and also ratify his having traded in English goods within the limits of Red River settlement. This ratification and this license to be null and void, from the beginning, in the event of his hereafter trafficking in furs, or generally of his usurping any whatever of all the privileges of the Hudson’s Bay Company.”
It was to save Oregon from becoming a den of such oppressors and robbers of their own countrymen, that Whitman risked his life in 1842-3, that the provisional government of the American settlers was formed in 1843, that five hundred of them flew to arms in 1847, and fought back the savage hordes that this same Hudson’s Bay Company had trained, under the teaching of their half-breeds and Jesuit priests, to sweep them from the land. Is this so? Let us see what they did just across the Rocky Mountains with their own children, as stated by their own witnesses and countrymen.
Sir Edward Fitzgerald says of them, on page 213:—
“But the company do not appear to have trusted to paper deeds to enforce their authority.
“They were not even content with inflicting fines under the form of a hostile tariff; but, as the half-breeds say, some of the fur traders were imprisoned, and all the goods and articles of those who were suspected of an intention to traffic in furs were seized and confiscated.
“But another, and even more serious attack, was made on the privileges of the settlers.
“The company being, under their charter, nominal owners of the soil, dispose of it to the colonists in any manner they think best. A portion of the land in the colony is held from Lord Selkirk, who first founded the settlement.
“Now, however, the company drew up a new land deed, which all were compelled to sign who wished to hold any land in the settlement.”
This new land deed, above referred to, is too lengthy and verbose to be given entire; therefore we will only copy such parts as bind the settlers not to infringe upon the supposed chartered rights of the Hudson’s Bay Company.
The first obligation of the person receiving this deed was to settle upon the land within forty days, and, within five years, cause one-tenth part of the land to be brought under cultivation.
The second: “He, his executors, administrators, and assigns, shall not, directly or indirectly, mediately or immediately, violate or evade any of the chartered or licensed privileges of the said governor and company, or any restrictions on trading or dealing with Indians or others, which have been or may be imposed by the said governor and company, or by any other competent authority, or in any way enable any person or persons to violate or evade, or to persevere in violating or evading the same; and, in short, shall obey all such laws and regulations as within the said settlement now are, or hereafter may be in force”—— Here are enumerated a long list of political duties pertaining to the citizen.
The deed in its third condition says: “And also that he [the said receiver of the deed], his executors, administrators, and assigns, shall not nor will, without the license or consent of the said governor and company for that purpose first obtained, carry on or establish, in any part of North America, any trade or traffic in, or relating to, any kind of skins, furs, peltry, or dressed leather, nor in any manner, directly or indirectly, aid or abet any person or persons in carrying on such trade or traffic.”——Here follows a long lingo, forbidding the settler to buy, make, or sell liquors in any shape on his lands, and requiring him, under pain of forfeiture of his title, to prevent others from doing so, and binding the settler, under all the supposed and unsupposed conditions of obligation, not to supply or allow to be supplied any articles of trade to any unauthorized (by the company) person supposed to violate their trade, including companies “corporate or incorporate, prince, power, potentate, or state whatsoever, who shall infringe or violate, or who shall set about to infringe or violate the exclusive rights, powers, privileges and immunities of commerce, trade, or traffic, or all or any other of the exclusive rights, powers, privileges, and immunities of, or belonging, or in any wise appertaining to, or held, used or enjoyed by the said governor and company, and their successors, under their charter or charters, without the license or consent of the said governor and company and their successors, for the time being, first had and obtained.