I now have before me, including the Hudson’s Bay Company’s memorial, eleven hundred and twenty-six pages of printed documents and depositions relating to this case. I also have what may properly be termed British testimony, bearing directly upon this case, which is entitled to its full weight in a proper and just decision as to the amount of compensation this Hudson’s Bay Company is entitled to receive from our government.
I do not propose to review all the one thousand four hundred and nineteen pages of statements and depositions in detail; that would be too tedious, though I might be able to make it interesting to the general reader, as it develops the whole history of that portion of our continent that has for one hundred and ninety-seven years been under the exclusive jurisdiction of a monopoly that effectually closed it to all outside influences up to the year A. D. 1834.
According to our British testimony, it was originally £10,500. In 1690, in consequence of the enormous profits upon this small capital, it was increased threefold, making it £31,500. In 1720 it was declared to be £94,500. In this year the stock was (as is termed) watered. The then proprietors each subscribed £100, and received £300 of stock, calling the whole nominal stock £378,000, while the actual subscription was but £94,500, and only £3,150 was paid. The stock was ordered to reckon at £103,500, while the actual total amount paid was but £13,650.
In 1821, there was another “watering” of the stock, and a call of £100 per share on the proprietors, which raised their capital to £200,000. The Northwest Fur Company joined the Hudson’s Bay Company in this year, and the joint stock was declared to be £400,000.
We are ready to admit, in fact, the testimony in the case goes to prove, that the French Northwest Company brought into the concern an equal amount of capital with that of the Hudson’s Bay Company. This would give the present Hudson’s Bay Company a real capital of £27,300, a nominal capital of £400,000.
By reference to the memorial of the company, we find they claim, on the 8th of April, 1867, of our government:—
For the right to trade, of which the settlement of the country and removal of Indians to reservations has deprived them, £200,000.
For the right of the free navigation of the Columbia River, £300,000.
For their forts, farms, posts, and establishments, with the buildings and improvements, £285,350, making, in all, £785,350, or $3,822,036.67, or £385,350 more than the whole amount of nominal stock which they claim to have invested in their entire trade.
We will not stop to speak of the morality of this claim; it is made in due form, and this with the claim as set forth in the same document, to wit: For lands, farms, forts, and improvements, £190,000; loss of live stock and other losses, £50,000; total, £240,000—equal to $1,188,000, to be paid in gold. In British money these two sums amount to £1,025,350 sterling, in American dollars to $4,990,036.67; or £625,350 sterling money more than their nominal stock, and £998,050 sterling more than all their real stock invested.