CHAPTER XXVIII. 1787-1808.

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Captain Vancouver—La PÉrouse in the Pacific—The Straits of Anian—A Fantastic Episode—Russian Hunters and Traders—The Russian Company—Dissensions amongst the Northmen—They send the Beaver to Hudson's Bay—The Scheme of Mackenzie a Failure—A Ferocious Spirit Fostered—Abandoned Characters—A series of Outrages—The affair at Bad Lake.

When Mackenzie, in July, 1793, reached the Pacific by land from the east, he had been preceded by sea only three years by Captain George Vancouver, the discoverer of the British Columbian coast. The same year Gray, sailing from Boston in 1790, entered the Columbia River farther south. But the title of Muscovy to the northern coasts had already been made good by several Russians since Bering's time, and the Company's charter secured to them the lands drained by the Fraser, Mackenzie, and Peace rivers, to the west.

La PÉrouse in the Pacific.

So little, however, was the Russian title recognized for some time, that when this unfortunate expedition of La PÉrouse, with the frigates Boussole and Astralabe, stopped on this coast in 1787, that doughty destroyer of York and Prince of Wales' Forts did not hesitate to consider the friendly harbour in latitude 58° 36' as open to permanent occupation. Describing this harbour, which he named Port des FranÇois, he says that nature seemed to have created at this extremity of the world a port like that of Toulon, but vaster in plan and accommodation; and then, considering that it had never been discovered before, that it was situated thirty-three leagues north-west of Remedios, the limit of Spanish navigation, about two hundred and eighty-four leagues from Nootka, and one hundred leagues from Prince William Sound. The mariner records his judgment that "if the French Government had any project of a factory on this coast no nation could have the slightest right to oppose it."

De L'Isle's Map, 1752.

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Thus was Russia to be coolly dislodged by the French! There is little doubt but that the Company, judging by its declarations in committee some years afterwards, would have had something to say in the matter. But La PÉrouse and his frigates sailed farther on in their voyage and never returned to France. Their fate for a generation remained unknown, until their shipwrecked hulls were accidentally found on a desert island in the South Pacific. The unfinished journal of this zealous admiral had, however, in the meantime been sent by him overland by way of Kamschatka and Siberia to France, where it was published by decree of the National Assembly, thus making known his supposed discovery and his aspirations.

Spanish claims.

Spain also had been a claimant. In 1775 Bodega, a Spanish navigator, seeking new opportunities to plant the Spanish flag, reached a parallel of 58° on this coast, not far from Sitka; but this supposed discovery was not followed by any immediate assertion of dominion. The universal aspiration of Spain had embraced this whole region at a much earlier day, and shortly after the return of Bodega another enterprise was equipped to verify the larger claim, being nothing less than the original title as discoverer of the straits between America and Asia, and of the conterminous continent under the name of Anian. Indeed, a Spanish document appeared, which caused a considerable fluttering of hearts amongst the Adventurers, entitled "Relation of the Discovery of the Strait of Anian made by me, Captain Lorenzo Ferren Maldonado," purporting to be written at the time, although it did not see the light until 1781, when it immediately became the subject of a memoir before the French Academy. This narrative of Maldonado has long since taken its place with that of the celebrated Munchausen.

The whole fantastic episode of Anian's Straits is worthy of mention in a history of the Company and its lands. There is no doubt of the existence of early maps bearing straits of that name to the north. On an interesting map by Zoltieri, bearing the date of 1566, without latitude or longitude, the western coast of the continent is here delineated with straits separating it from Asia, not unlike Bering's Straits in outline and with the name in Italian, Stretto di Anian; and towards the south the coast possesses a certain conformity to that which we now know. Below the straits is an indentation corresponding to Bristol Bay; then a peninsula somewhat broader than Alaska, which is continued in an elbow of the coast; lower down appear three islands, not unlike Sitka, Queen Charlotte and Vancouver; and lastly, to the south appears the peninsula of Lower California. After a time maps began to record the Straits of Anian; but the substantial conformity of the early delineation with the reality has always been somewhat of a mystery.[84]

The foundation of the story of Anian is said to lie in the voyage of the Portuguese navigator, Caspar de Cortereal, in 1500-1505, who, on reaching Hudson's Bay in quest of a passage to India, imagined he had found it, naming his discovery "in honour of two brothers who accompanied him."

Russians on the west coast.

Meanwhile Russian hunters and traders from Okhotsk were extending their expedition from the north-east coast of Siberia to the north-west coast of North America. A Russian Government expedition started from Okhotsk in 1790, under the command of Captain Billings, an Englishman in the Russian service, and to Captain Taryteheff, one of the members, are due important researches on the hydrography and ethnology of these countries. The first attempt at permanent settlement was due to three Russian traders, Shelekoff and the two Golikoffs, who fitted out two or three vessels to be sent to "the land of Alaska, also called America; to islands known or unknown, for the purpose of trading in furs; of exploring the country and entering into relations with the inhabitants." Their first expedition started in 1781, and the first settlement was founded on the Island of Kodiak. The authority of the Russian Government was thus established on this and the adjacent islands. In 1790, Shelekoff, then residing in Irkoutsk, sent out a merchant named Baranoff to govern the new colony.[85]

Thus the knowledge that they were being pressed in on opposite sides by the Canadian traders on the south and east, and by Russians on the north and west, reached the Company at the same time. As a matter of fact, the knowledge of Baranoff's enterprise and the energy with which it was being prosecuted did not come before the committee until October, 1794; and it was in that very month that the report of Mackenzie's journey reached them.

The next few years were devoted to devising and considering schemes to counteract these two growing competitors—to oppose the further progress of the Russians on the one hand, and to combat the North-Westers on the other.

For twenty-seven years Baranoff continued to be the controlling mind of the new Russian trading enterprise. Shelekoff died in 1795; and his widow continued the business, and upon combining with the Milnikoff Company it increased gradually in wealth. The charter of these joint enterprises, to which the name of the Russian-American Fur Company was given, was signed in August, 1798, and confirmed at St. Petersburg in 1799. That year witnessed the settlement of New Archangel, on the island of Sitka.

The consequences of this increased output were not, however, felt in the fur-markets at Leipsic. Europe was convulsed by war, and Napoleon had laid an embargo on British goods. The furs, therefore, accumulated for several years in the stores of the Hudson's Bay Company without finding a mart.

From 1787 to 1817, for only a portion of which time the Russian Company existed, the Unalaska district yielded upwards of 2,500,000 seal skins alone. The number of other skins reported at times was prodigious.

But the time had not come for the Company to actively assert itself in opposition to the Russians.

It was paying dearly now for its short-sightedness in not availing itself of the opportunities afforded by the conquest of Canada to penetrate into its chartered domain. In the second year of the century the Honourable Adventurers had been obliged to borrow £20,000 from the Bank of England, hoping that the cessation of war in Europe, and the quarrels of the rival Montreal traders in North America, would permit the Company to regain the advantage it had lost. For in the autumn of 1798 the Company had received advices that its prosperous Canadian rival had taken a new step in the conduct of its affairs.

Rival factions in the North-West Company.

Difficulties and dissensions had begun to breed in the ranks of the Northmen. A few disaffected spirits spoke of secession and carried their intentions into effect, but the stronger partners were reluctant to break up an alliance which had proved so prosperous. But in the closing year, but one of the century, the situation became intolerable and when the partners met, as was their custom at the Grand Portage, Mackenzie bluntly told his associates that he had resolved to quit the Company. He was led to this decision by a personal quarrel between himself and Simon McTavish, the chief of the North-West Company. Opposing factions sprang into being, attaching themselves to both Mackenzie and McTavish, the latter of whom strongly resented the way in which he was treated at the annual meeting by the partisans of the former, and each now determined to take his course thenceforward untrammelled by the other. Mackenzie went to England, where he published an account of his travels in the north-west and obtained the honour of knighthood, and in 1801 returned to Canada. Here his friends flocked about him, and there saw the light of a new organization, officially entitled the New North-West Company, or Sir Alexander Mackenzie & Co., but more popularly as the X.Y. Co. The two rival Canadian associations now put forth all their strength to establish their commerce in the unknown and unfrequented regions. One of the old North-West employees, Livingston, who had already, in 1796, established a post nearly 100 miles north of Slave Lake, undertook to carry the trade still farther north. But this he was never destined to accomplish. A few days out on this journey he was confronted by the aborigines, who slew him and his companions. An expedition to the Bow River, however, was more successful, and in the midst of many hostile Indians a trading post was established there. Other proofs of enterprise on the part of McTavish and his associates were not wanting.

The dissensions between the two companies so far do not appear to have had a prejudicial effect on the traffic, for on the 30th October, 1802, Lieutenant Governor Milnes, in a dispatch to Lord Hobart,[86] gives an account of the flourishing state of the fur-trade which so far, he says, from diminishing, appears to increase. New tracts of country had been visited by the merchants employed in this traffic, which had furnished new sources of supply, a large proportion of the furs taken in the North-West being brought to Quebec for shipment.[87]

But, perhaps, a policy the most daring was pursued with regard to the Hudson's Bay Company. It was not expected that either McTavish and his allies, or the X.Y. concern would long be content to forego the glory and profit attendant upon warfare at close quarters with the Chartered Company.

"What is there in their charter," they asked themselves, "which gives them benefits we cannot enjoy? We shall see."

The Northmen at Hudson's Bay.

They provided for a most effectual demonstration. In the spring of 1803, they sent the Beaver, a vessel of one hundred and fifty tons, to Hudson's Bay, with instructions to exploit commerce under the very guns of the Company's forts. Hardly had the Beaver got under way than an overland expedition was sent by the old French trading route of Lakes St. Jean and Mistassini, to the same quarter. The result was the construction of two posts, one on Charlton Island, and the other at the mouth of Moose River. The astonishment of the Company's servants can be imagined, when upon looking out one fine morning, they beheld a band of swarthy half-breeds, captained by Orkneymen, rearing premises adjacent to their own, and bidding defiance to the ancient charter of the Honourable Hudson's Bay Company. They were told by their superiors not to be alarmed; the scheme of their rivals would not succeed any more than had those of the Quebec companies who a century before had sought to penetrate overland to the Bay. The company could always undersell them then; and it could now, and did. The confidence of the factors was justified, and the Indians merely smiled at the Northmen and their goods, bidding them return to their country, or betake themselves to the west, where the tribes were ignorant and knew not the value of things. So, after a season or two, the North-West concern abandoned Moose River and Charlton Island, and sought other and more fruitful fields in the west.

The Fishery and Fur Company.

Mackenzie himself was in London actively engaged in promoting a scheme of his own. He sought to get the British Government to constrain the Hudson's Bay Company to grant licenses to a company of British merchants, to be established in London under the name of "The Fishery and Fur Company," which company, for the purpose of combining the fishery in the Pacific with the fur trade of the interior from the east to the west coasts of the Continent of North America, would at once "equip whalers in England, and by means of the establishments already made and in activity at Montreal on the east and advanced posts and trading houses in the interior towards the west coast, to which they might extend it and where other establishments to be made at King George Sound, Nootka Island, under the protection of the Supreme Government, and on the River Columbia and at Sea Otter Harbour under the protection of the subordinate Government of these places, would open and establish a commercial communication through the Continent of North America between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans to the incalculable advantage and furtherance both of the Pacific Fishery of America and American Fur Trade of Great Britain, in part directly and in part indirectly, through the channel of the possessions and factories of the East India Company in China," etc., "it being perfectly understood that none of these maritime or inland establishments shall be made on territory in the possession of any other European nation, nor within the limits of the United States of North America or of the Hudson's Bay Company." The scheme, however, failed.

The death of McTavish, in 1804, brought about a reunion of the two rival factions, and the North-West Company became stronger than ever. They imitated the Chartered Company in establishing several of their members in London as agents, who purchased the necessary merchandise and saw it safely shipped, besides attending to the fur imports and other regular business of the concern.

Coalition of the North-West and X.Y. Companies.

After the coalition of the old North-West and the X.Y. concern, and the consequent suppression of all private adventurers in Canada, the only rival of the Northmen in the Uplands was the Hudson's Bay Company. It was alleged that thenceforward the ferocious spirit which had been fostered among the clerks and servants of the two companies by six years of continual violence was all turned against the Company. It was said that not only was a systematic plan formed for driving their traders out of all valuable beaver companies, but that hopes were entertained of reducing the Company to so low an ebb as in time to induce them to make over their chartered rights to their commercial rival. With this intent, a series of aggressive acts was now begun and carried on against the servants of the Company.

The Rival Traders.

The Hudson's Bay Company had witnessed the encroachment of the traders, first French, then English, as well as the establishment and growth of the North-West association, without taking any active steps to forcibly restrain them. Many years was the competition carried on without any violent breach of the peace on either side. Oftentimes indeed did the rival traders meet in the wilderness at a deserted camp, or at some remote portage, but they bore no personal enmity in their hearts. They shook hands, smoked, broke meat together, and parted—one with his beaver skins to the east, the other to the north—to Cumberland or York Factory. Doubtless the North-West concern at the beginning of the century possessed a powerful advantage in the system of profits and deserved promotion, while the Company's servants, unstimulated by any hope of additional reward or certain promotion, was calculated to foster apathy, rather than zeal.

Murder of Labau.

It was claimed by the Company that the Northmen employed for their purposes men of the most abandoned character who, as Sir Alexander Mackenzie expressed it, "considered the command of their employer as binding on them, and however wrong or irregular the transaction the responsibility rested with the principal who directed them." One of the first instances of collision occurred in the year 1800. In that year Frederick Schultz, a clerk of the old Company, commanded a post near Nepigon. Amongst his men was a young lad about nineteen years of age named Labau, who understood English, and had in the course of the preceding winter become intimate with the servants of the Hudson's Bay Company, who occupied a post near the same place. Labau was attracted to the Company's service and, when the traders on both sides were preparing to leave their wintering ground, resolved to go down to York Factory. Intelligence of this having reached Schultz, he sent his interpreter to order Labau to return to his duty, accompanied by a reminder that he was in debt to the North-West Company. The young man responded by offering to remit the money he owed the Company, but declared that he would not remain any longer in its service. This answer being reported to Schultz he vehemently declared that if the scoundrel would not come back willingly he would know what to do with him. The doughty Northman took his dagger, carefully whetted it, and having dressed himself in his best attire, went over to the Hudson's Bay post. Here he found Labau, and asked him in a furious tone whether he would come with him. The young man, being intimidated, faltered out an affirmative, but watching his opportunity sought to make his escape out of the room, but Schultz was too quick for him. He drew his dagger and aimed a blow which Labau tried in vain to avoid. He was stabbed in the loin, and expired the same evening. After this exploit, when Schultz returned to the assembly of the Northmen at the Grand Portage, he met with an indifferent reception, Labau being rather popular amongst his fellow-servants. It was, therefore, not thought advisable to employ Schultz any longer in that quarter, although this was the only notice taken of the murder. The murderer came down in the canoes of the North-West concern to Montreal, where he remained at large and unnoticed for months. He was afterwards taken into the service of the Company, employed in a different region, and after several years settled down undisturbed in Lower Canada.

York Factory.
(From an old print.)

There can be no doubt that much of the success of the Northmen was due to the indiscriminate manner in which they extirpated the animals in the country, destroying all without distinction, whether young or old, in season or out of season. The miserable natives, over-awed by the preparation and power of the strangers, and dreading the resentment of the Northmen, witnessed this destruction without daring to resist, although they complained bitterly that their country was wasted as if it had been overrun by fire. It is well known that the best season for hunting all the fur-bearing animals is the winter. The fur in summer is universally of inferior quality, and this, too, is the season when wild animals rear their young. For both these reasons it seemed desirable that the hunting should be suspended during the summer months, and this was effectually procured when all the best hunters, all the young and active men of the Indian tribes, were engaged in a distant excursion. There was consequently a material advantage in requiring them to leave their hunting grounds in summer, and come to the factories on the coast for a supply of European goods. While this was the practice, no furs were brought from home but those of prime quality, and as the beaver and other valuable fur-bearing animals were protected from injury during the most critical time of the year, the breed was preserved, and the supply was plentiful. But when the traders came to the interior, there to remain throughout the year, the Indians were tempted to conceal their hunts through the season. They were too improvident to abstain from killing the breeding animals or their young. The cub was destroyed with the full-grown beaver, and the consequence might readily have been foreseen. These valuable animals, formerly so numerous, rapidly approached the point of complete extermination. It was observed that the district in which they once abounded, and from which large supplies were formerly obtained, soon came to produce few or none.

Collision at Big Fall.

In autumn, 1806, John Crear, a trader in the service of the Hudson's Bay Company (also on the establishment of Albany Factory), occupied a post at a place called Big Fall, near Lake Winipic. One evening a party of Canadians in two canoes, commanded by Mr. Alexander MacDonnell, then a clerk of the North-West Company, arrived, and encamped at a short distance. On the following morning four of Crear's men set out for their fishing grounds, about a mile off, immediately after which Mr. MacDonnell came to the house with his men, and charging Crear with having traded furs with an Indian who was indebted to the North-West concern, insisted on these furs being given up to him. On Crear's refusal, MacDonnell's men broke open the warehouse door. William Plowman, the only servant that remained with Crear, attempted to prevent them from entering; but one of the Canadians knocked him down, while another presented a gun at Crear himself. Although MacDonnell prevented him from firing, the Canadian struck Crear in the eye with the butt end of his gun, which covered his face with blood and felled him to the ground. Mr. MacDonnell himself stabbed Plowman in the arm with a dagger, and gave him a dangerous wound. The Canadians then rifled the warehouse; the furs, being taken in summer, were of little value; but they carried off two bags of flour, a quantity of salt pork and beef, and some dried venison, and also took away a new canoe belonging to the Hudson's Bay Company. In the following February MacDonnell sent one of his junior clerks with a party of men, who again attacked Crear's house, overpowered him, beat him and his men in the most brutal manner, and carried away a great number of valuable furs. They also obliged Crear to sign a paper acknowledging that he had given up the furs voluntarily, which they extorted with threats of instant death if he should refuse. Mr. Alexander MacDonnell had lately been promoted to the station of a partner in the North-West concern.

In the year 1806, Mr. Fidler was sent with a party of eighteen men from Churchill Factory, to establish a trading post at Isle a la Crosse, near the borders of the Athabasca country, but within the territories of the Hudson's Bay Company. He remained there for two years, sending a detachment of his people to Green Lake and Beaver River. During the first winter he had some success, but afterwards he was effectually obstructed. On many former occasions the officers of the Hudson's Bay Company had attempted to establish a trade in this place, which is in the centre of a country abounding in beaver, but they had always been obliged to renounce the attempt. The methods used with Mr. Fidler may explain the causes of this failure.

Mr. John MacDonnell had been Mr. Fidler's competitor during the early part of the winter, but (not being inclined to set all principles of law and justice at defiance) was removed and relieved, first by Mr. Robert Henry, and then by Mr. John Duncan Campbell. The North-West concern having been established for many years at Isle a la Crosse without any competition, had obtained what they call the attachment of the Indians, that is to say, they had reduced them to such abject submission that the very sight of a Canadian was sufficient to inspire them with terror. In order that this salutary awe might suffer no diminution, the post at Isle a la Crosse was reinforced with an extra number of Canadians, so that the natives might be effectually prevented from holding any intercourse with the traders of the Hudson's Bay Company, and that the appearance of so very superior a force, ready to overwhelm and destroy him, might deter Mr. Fidler from any attempt to protect his customers. A watch-house was built close to his door, so that no Indian could enter unobserved; a party of professed batteilleurs were stationed here, and employed not only to watch the natives, but to give every possible annoyance, night and day, to the servants of the Hudson's Bay Company. Their fire-wood was stolen, they were perpetually obstructed in hunting for provisions, the produce of their garden was destroyed, their fishing lines taken away in the night time, and their nets, on which they chiefly relied for subsistence, cut to pieces. The ruffians who were posted to watch Mr. Fidler, proceeded from one act of violence to another, and in proportion as they found themselves feebly resisted, they grew bolder, and at length issued a formal mandate that not one of the servants of the Hudson's Bay Company should stir out of their house, and followed up this with such examples of severity that Mr. Fidler's men refused to remain at the post. They were compelled to leave it, and the Canadians immediately burnt his house to the ground.

The robbery at Bad Lake.

A trader, William Corrigal, in the service of the Company, was stationed, in May, 1806, with a few men at a place called Bad Lake, not far from Albany Factory. Near this post was another occupied by a much larger number of men in charge of a partner in the North-West concern named Haldane. Five of the Canadians in his service watching their opportunity broke into Corrigal's house about midnight when he and his men were in bed. The ruffians immediately secured all the loaded guns and pistols they could find, and one of them seizing the Company's trader and presenting a pistol at his breast swore to shoot him if he made any resistance. In the meantime the others rifled the storehouse and took away furs to the number of 480 beaver. On their departure Corrigal dressed himself and went immediately to Haldane, whom he found up, and fully attired, to complain of the conduct of his servants and to demand that the stolen property be restored. The answer of the Northman was that "He had come to that country for furs, and furs he was determined to have." The robbers were permitted to carry away the stolen peltries to the Grand Portage where they were sold, and formed part of the returns of the North-West concern that year. A robbery of the same character took place at Red Lake a little later in the year. This trading house was also under the charge of Corrigal, and was forcibly entered by eight of the Northmen, armed with pistols and knives; under threats to murder the servants of the Hudson's Bay Company they carried off furs to the amount of fifty beaver. Not long after this they forcibly broke open the same warehouse and robbed it of a large quantity of cloth, brandy, tobacco and ammunition.

Violence and robbery by the North-West Company.

In the year 1808 Mr. John Spence, of the Hudson's Bay Company, commanded a post fitted out from Churchill's Factory at Reindeer Lake, in the neighbourhood of which there was a station of the North-West Company commanded by Mr. John Duncan Campbell, one of the partners. In the course of the spring, William Linklater, in the service of the Hudson's Bay Company, was sent out to meet some Indians, from whom he traded a parcel of valuable furs. He was bringing them home on a hand sleigh, and was at no great distance from the house, when Campbell came out with a number of men, stopped him, demanded the furs, and on being refused drew a dagger, with which he cut the traces of the sledge, while at the same time one of his men took hold of Linklater's shoes, tripped him up, and made him fall on the ice. The sledge of furs was then hauled away to the North-West concern's house. Campbell offered to Mr. Spence to send other furs in exchange for those which he had thus robbed him of; but they were of very inferior value, and the latter refused the compromise. The furs were carried away, and no compensation was ever made.

On a previous occasion, at Isle a la Crosse Lake (in the year 1805), the same Campbell had attacked two of the servants of the Hudson's Bay Company, and took a parcel of furs from them in the same way. Some of the men from the Hudson's Bay House came out to assist their fellow-servants, but were attacked by superior numbers of the Canadians, and beaten off, with violence and bloodshed.

Decoration

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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