THE HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY. 11 



immense country were brought yearly to the 

 headquarters in Montreal. 



The Hudson's Bay Company after having 

 inhabited all the territory that they could right- 

 ly claim under their charter, began to oppose 

 the Northwest Company in the country they 

 had in a way discovered. The Hudson's Bay 

 Company after gettng out of the Bay found the 

 Northwest Company's people trading on the 

 Red, Assiniboine and Saskatchewan, all rivers 

 that they could claim by right of their charter 

 seeing they all drained into Hudson's Bay and 

 then began one of the keenest and most bloody 

 commercial warfares in history. 



Might was right and wherever furs were 

 found the strongest party, for the time being, 

 took them. Retaliation was the unwritten law 

 of the country and what was this week a Hud- 

 son's Bay post was next week occupied by a 

 party of Northwesters or vice versa. There is 

 hardly a place in what is now the peaceful and 

 law abiding Manitoba and the western provinces 

 but what, if it could tell the tale, had witnessed 

 at some time in its early history sanguinary 

 conflicts between the two powerful and rival 

 companies. 



Things got to such a pass that the heads of 

 the two fur parties in London and Montreal saw 

 that something had to be done to stay this loss 



