Company Seriously Damaged by Loss of Port Nelson—Send an Account of their Claims to Lords of Trade—Definite Boundary Propositions of Trade—Lewis anxious to Create Boundaries—Company look to Outbreak of War—War of Spanish Succession breaks out—Period of Adversity for the Company—Employment of Orkneymen—Attack on Fort Albany—Desperate Condition of the French at York Fort—Petition to Anne.

The Treaty of Ryswick[40] had aimed a severe blow at the prosperity of the Company,[41] in depriving them of that important quarter of the Bay known as Port Nelson.

Although now on the threshold of a long period of adversity, the Merchants-Adventurers, losing neither hope nor courage, continued to raise their voice for restitution and justice. Petition after petition found its way to King, Commons, and the Lords of Trade and Plantations.

The Company's claims.

In May, 1700, the Company were requested by the Lord of Trade and Plantations to send an account of the encroachments of the French on Her Majesty's Dominion in America within the limits of the Company's charter; to which the Company replied, setting forth their right and title, and praying restitution.

It has been stated, and urged as a ground against the later pretensions of the Hudson's Bay Company, that at this time they were willing to contract their limits. While willing to do this for the purpose of effecting a settlement, it was only on condition of their not being able to obtain "the whole Straits and Bay which of right belongs to them."

"This," remarked a counsel for the Company in a later day, "is like a man who has a suit of ejectment, who, in order to avoid the expense and trouble of a law suit, says, 'I will be willing to allow you certain bounds, but if you do not accept that I will insist on getting all my rights and all that I am entitled to.'"

The Company's propositions soon began to take a definite form.

The adventurers were, they said, not indisposed to listen to reason. They proposed limits to be observed by the two nations in their trade and possessions in the Bay. But should the French be so foolish as to refuse their offer, then they would not be bound by that or any former concession, but would then, as they had always theretofore done, "insist upon the prior and undoubted right to the whole of the Bay and straits."

Lewis proposes boundaries.

The Court of Versailles was now most anxious to delimit the boundaries of the respective possessions of the two countries in the Bay. To this end, proposals were exchanged between the two crown governments. One alternative proposed by the French Ambassador was that the Weemish River, which was exactly half way between Fort Bourbon and Fort Albany, should mark the respective limits of the French on the east, while the limits of New France on the side of Acadia should be restricted to the River St. George.

This proposition having been referred to them, the Board of Trade and Plantations discouraged the scheme. The Hudson's Bay Adventurers it said, challenged an undoubted right to the whole Bay, antecedent to any pretence of the French. It was, therefore, requisite that they should be consulted before any concession of territories could be made to the Most Christian King or his subjects.

The Company pinned their hopes to an outbreak of hostilities,[42] which would enable them to attempt to regain what they had lost. A protracted peace was hardly looked for by the nation. In answer to Governor Knight's continual complaints, to which were added those of the dispossessed Geyer, the Company begged its servants to bide their time; and to exert themselves to the utmost to increase the trade at Albany, and Moose, and Rupert's River.

"England," says the historian Green, "was still clinging desperately to the hope of peace, when Lewis, by a sudden act, forced it into war. He had acknowledged William as King in the Peace of Ryswick, and pledged himself to oppose all the attacks on his throne. He now entered the bed-chamber at St. Germain, where James was breathing his last, and promised to acknowledge his son at his death as King of England, Scotland and Ireland."

Outbreak of the war between England and France.

Such a promise was tantamount to a declaration of war, and in a moment England sprang to arms. None were so eager for the approaching strife as the Honourable Merchants-Adventurers. They expressed their opinion that, while their interests had undoubtedly suffered at the peace of 1697, they were far from attributing it to any want of care on the part of his Majesty. Their rights and claims, they said, were then "overweighed by matters of higher consequence depending in that juncture for the glory and honour of the King."

Yet a dozen more years were to elapse before they were to come into their own again; and during that critical period much was to happen to affect their whole internal economy. The value of the shares fell; the original Adventurers were all since deceased, and many of their heirs had disposed of their interests. A new set of shareholders appeared on the scene; not simultaneously, but one by one, until almost the entire personnel of the Company had yielded place to a new, by no means of the same weight or calibre.[43]

Mention has already been made of the manner in which the Company devoted its thought and energy to its weekly meetings. Not even in the gravest crises to which the East India Company was subjected, was there a statute more inconvenient or severe, than the following: "Resolved and ordered by the Committee, to prevent the Company's business from being delayed or neglected, that for the future if any member do not appear by one hour after the time mentioned in the summons and the glass run out, or shall depart without leave of the Committee, such member shall have no part in the moneys to be divided by the Committee, and that the time aforesaid be determined by the going of the clock in the Court-room, which the Secretary is to set as he can to the Exchange clock; and that no leave shall be given until one hour after the glass is run out."

But out of their adversity sprung a proposition which, although not put into effect upon a large scale until many years afterwards, yet well deserves to be recorded here. To stem the tide of desertions from the Company's service, caused by the war, and the low rate of wages, it was in 1710 first suggested that youthful Scotchmen be employed.[44]

Employment of Scotchmen in the service.

The scarcity of servants seems to have continued. In the following year greater bribes were resorted to. "Captain Mounslow was now ordered to provide fifteen or sixteen young able men to go to H.B. This expedition for five years, which he may promise to have wages, viz.: £8 the 1st year; £10 the 2nd; £12 the 3rd and £14 for the two last years, and to be advanced £3 each before they depart from Gravesend." The result of this was that in June, 1711, the first batch of these servants came aboard the Company's ship at Stromness. But they were not destined to sail away to the Bay in their full numbers. Overhauled by one of Her Majesty's ships, eleven of the young men were impressed into the service. For many years after this incident it was not found easy to engage servants in the Orkneys.

Captain Barlow was governor at Albany Fort in 1704 when the French came overland from Canada to besiege it. The Canadians and their Indian guides lurked in the neighbourhood of Albany for several days before they made the attack, and killed many of the cattle that were grazing in the marshes. A faithful Home Indian (as those Crees in the vicinity were always termed), who was on a hunting excursion, discovered those strangers, and correctly supposing them to be enemies, immediately returned to the fort and informed the governor of the circumstance. Barlow, while giving little credit to the report, yet took immediately every measure for the fort's defence. Orders were given to the master of a sloop hard by to hasten to the fort should he hear a gun fired.

In the middle of the night the French came before the fort, marched up to the gate and demanded entrance. Barlow, who was on watch, told them that the governor was asleep, but he would go for the keys at once. The French, according to the governor, on hearing this, and expecting no resistance, flocked up to the gate as close as they could stand. Barlow took advantage of this opportunity, and instead of opening the gate opened two port-holes, and discharged the contents of two six-pounders into the gathering. This quantity of grape-shot slaughtered great numbers of the French, and amongst them their commander, who was an Irishman.

A precipitate retreat followed such an unexpected reception; and the master of the sloop hearing the firing proceeded with the greatest haste to the spot. But some of the enemy, who lay in ambush on the river's bank, intercepted and killed him, with his entire crew.

Seeing no chance of surprising the fort, the French retired reluctantly, and did not renew the attack; although some of them were heard shooting in the neighbourhood for ten days after their repulse. One man in particular was noticed to walk up and down the platform leading from the gate of the fort to the launch for a whole day. At sundown Fullerton, the governor, thinking his conduct extraordinary, ventured out and spoke to the man in French. He offered him lodgings within the fort if he chose to accept them; but to such and similar proposals the man made no reply, shaking his head. Fullerton then informed him that unless he would surrender himself as his prisoner he would have no alternative but to shoot him. In response to this the man advanced nearer the fort. The governor kept his word, and the unhappy Frenchman fell, pierced by a bullet. No explanation of his eccentric behaviour was ever forthcoming, but it may be that the hardships he expected to encounter on his return to Canada had unbalanced his mind, and made him prefer death to these while scorning surrender.

Desperate condition of the French at Fort York.

It was some solace to know that their French rivals were in trouble, and that York Factory had hardly proved as great a source of profit to the French Company as had been anticipated. The achievements of Iberville and his brothers had done little, as has been shown, to permanently better its fortunes. To such an extent had these declined, that the capture, in 1704, of the principal ship of the French Company by an English frigate, forced these traders to invoke the assistance of the Mother Country in providing them with facilities for the relief of the forts and the transportation of the furs to France. In the following year, the garrison at Fort Bourbon nearly perished for lack of provisions. The assistance was given; but two years later it was, because they could no longer spare either ships or men. Although both were urgently needed for defence against the New Englanders. Owing to the enormous increase of unlicensed bushrangers, the continued hostilities and the unsettled state of the country, no small proportion of the entire population chose rather to adventure the perils of illicit trade in the wilderness, than to serve the king in the wars at home.[45] Unaccustomed for so long a period to till the soil, their submission was not easily secured, no matter how dire the penalties.

Finding their continual petitions to the Lords of Trade ineffectual, the Company now drew up a more strongly worded one and presented it to Queen Anne herself. The memorial differed from any other, inasmuch as the Company now lay stress for the first time on some other feature of their commerce than furs.

"The said country doth abound with several other commodities (of which your petitioners have not been able to begin a trade, by reason of the interruptions they have met with from the French) as of whale-bone, whale-oil (of which last your subjects now purchase from Holland and Germany to the value of £26,000 per annum, which may be had in your own dominions), besides many other valuable commodities, which in time may be discovered."

If the French, it was argued, came to be entirely possessed of Hudson's Bay, they would undoubtedly give up whale fishing in those parts, which will greatly tend to the increase of their navigation and to their breed of seamen.

This petition seems actually to have come into the hands of the Queen and to have engaged her sympathy, for which the Honourable Adventurers had to thank John Robinson, the Lord Bishop of London. This dignitary, persona grata in the highest degree to the sovereign, was also a close personal friend of the Lake family, whose fortunes[46] were long bound up with the Hudson's Bay Company. The Company was asked to state what terms it desired to make. In great joy they acceded to the request.