CHAPTER VI 

 THE GREATEST FUR COMPANY OF THE WORLD 



In the history of the world only one corporate company has 

 maintained empire over an area as large as Europe. Only one 

 corporate company has lived up to its constitution for nearly three 

 centuries. Only one corporate company's sway has been so be- 

 neficent that its profits have stood in exact proportion to the well- 

 being of its subjects. Indeed, few armies can boast a rank and 

 file of men who never once retreated in three hundred years, whose 

 lives, generation after generation, were one long bivouac of hard- 

 ship, of danger, of ambushed death, of grim purpose, of silent 

 achievement. 



Such was the company of "Adventurers of England Trading 

 into Hudson's Bay," as the charter of 1670 designated them. 1 

 Such is the Hudson's Bay Company to-day still trading with 

 savages in the white wilderness of the north as it was when Charles 

 II granted a royal charter for the fur trade to his cousin Prince 

 Rupert. 



Governors and chief factors have changed with the changing 

 centuries ; but the character of the company's personnel has never 

 changed. Prince Rupert, the first governor, was succeeded by the 

 Duke of York (James II) ; and the royal governor by a long line 

 of distinguished public men down to Lord Strathcona. All have 

 been men of noted achievement, often in touch with the Crown, 



1 The spelling of the name with an apostrophe in the charter seems to be the only reason 

 for the company's name always having the apostrophe, whereas the waters are now known 

 simply as Hudson Bay. 



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