APPENDIX A XXXIX 
dian, he is dealing with the subject largely at first hand, as having 
entered this western Canada in 1871, the year of the first Queen’s 
Message there, and the year when the first resounding of cannon was 
heard, west of Lake Superior, by a body of elected British freemen. 
THE Fazz or MONOPOLY. 
The high wall of the Hudson’s Bay Company monopoly had held 
fast Rupert’s Land and the Indian Territories for two centuries. But 
in the middle of the Nineteenth Century assaults were beginning to be 
made from the outside, and these were responded to from within. The 
discovery of the Northern Magnetic Pole by Commander James Ross, 
led to the sending of Capt. Lefroy to make a Magnetic, but really a 
Topographical, Survey, of the vast possessions of the Fur Traders in 
1842. Five years later a dispute, as to the rights of natives to trade, 
convulsed the Red River community, now grown to number several 
thousand souls. The distinguished Isbister, one of themselves who 
had risen to note in England, became the defender of his countrymen 
and succeeded in carrying their complaint to the foot of the throne. 
A petition of nearly one thousand Metis, of French origin, with their 
requests expressed in classic French, came to Her Majesty, and lest 
these appeals should fail, more than half-a-thousand English speaking 
whites and natives of Red River Settlement approached Canada for 
relief. In 1849 the Sayer outbreak took place and Governor, Judge and 
Council of Assiniboia took fright. 
The British House of Commons Committee of 1857, led by Roebuck 
and Gladstone, held a searching examination and from this time onward 
it was clear that the monopoly of two centuries’ duration was doomed. 
At the sessions of this great Committee Canada was represented by 
Chief Justice Draper. Coincident with the sittings of the Committee, 
two great expeditions, one British, the other Canadian, the former that 
of Palliser and Hector, the latter that of Hind and Dawson, had gone 
‘forth to view the resources of this hitherto hermit country. They were 
soon followed by the independent expedition of Lord Milton and Dr. 
Cheadle. In the year following the Confederation, the Honourable 
William McDougall and Honourable George Cartier, representing the 
two sections of Canada, crossed the ocean, and found that the country 
might become Canadian were the Hudson’s Bay Company to receive 
compensation. The fates were with Canada, and so monopoly at length 
fell down and a new community arose. These are the commonplaces of 
history, but they bespeak the rise of a new entity—the CANADIAN WEST. 
