: - ' I /\ .THE FUR TRADERS. 



On June 28, 1667, Charles II granted a new charter, which 

 again gave the company jurisdiction over the manufacture 

 of furs, muffs, and linings for fur garments; and the cut- 

 ting, clipping and dividing of the wool from the pelts. By 

 this charter they were also given authority to sue and 

 seize wares, and the power to search out offenders against 

 the law of the guild and to present them before the proper 

 authorities for punishment. Another provision of this 

 charter limited the time of service of apprentices to seven 

 years. 



The Skinners' Company has long since ceased to exer- 

 cise jurisdiction over the fur trade in England, but it still 

 has a corporate existence and owns property in London 

 and the north of Ireland. 



The ancient name of this company was the "Guild or 

 Fraternity of the Body of Christ, of the Skinners of 

 London." 



The first fur traders on the North American continent 

 were the French and Russian companies; the former tak- 

 ing possession in Canada in 1535, and the latter establish- 

 ing their first station in the Northwest in 1^53. * 

 I The West Indian Company, a Dutch organization which 

 [established headquarters in New York in 1621, shared for 

 'a time with the Plymouth Company of England a mon- 

 opoly of the business of exporting beaver skins from the 

 New World. The real history, however, of the development 

 of the fur trade on the North American continent is found 

 in the records of the Hudson's Bay Company, established 

 under the patronage of Prince Rupert, on May 2, 1670, and 

 those of the great French Merchants and the English and 

 Scotch Traders, who for more than a century refused to 

 recognize the rights of the Hudson's Bay Company to 

 exclusive trading privileges on the shores of the bay and 

 the rivers tributary to it, and who often contested their 

 claims by force of arms. 



The original title of the Hudson's Bay Company was, 

 * ' The Governor and Company of Adventurers, Trading into 

 Hudson's Bay." Its origin was as follows: In 1659, two 

 French traders, Groeilliers and Radisson, made their way 

 into the wilderness beyond Lake Superior, and having sat- 

 isfied themselves of the practicability of reaching Hudson 

 Bay by continuing overland to the north, returned to 



