CHAPTER LIII. 



The Hudson's Bay Route Opposed. 



the enterprise and opposition of the toronto " mail " newspaper 

 — misstatement of facts contradicted and explained — 

 why the ocean nymph was detained — strange detention 

 of the prince of wales — the cam owen finds the .strait 

 open late in october. 



^>OTHING is to be more regretted than the fact that recently 

 there has been manifested a disposition in the Eastern 

 Provinces to oppose the Hudson's Bay route. The Toronto 

 Mail newspaper has signalized its record by assuming the 

 leadership of this opposition. It was generally understood that no 

 newspaper correspondents would be allowed on the first Hudson's 

 Bay Expedition, but somehow the newspaper to which I have 

 referred, by a stroke of enterprise, succeeded in sending with the 

 Neptune a special correspondent of its own, a man from its own 

 staff. 



From a journalistic standpoint this was very commendable on 

 the part of the Mail, but .owing to the tone of the articles written 

 by its correspondent, and the worse tone of its own editorials, the 

 enterprise is likely to result in considerable damage to the cause of 

 the Hudson's Bay outlet. All this leads me to hope that the 

 Government will not give the Mail a monopoly of the next Hudson's 

 Bay Expedition, as they did the first one, but that another press 

 representative may be allowed to go along representing a paper 

 known to be friendly to the route. 



The articles by the Mail's Hudson's Bay Expedition corres- 

 pondent were for the most part very interesting and instructive, but 

 wherever they touched upon the question of navigation they were 



