218 THE TWEATV OF WASHINGTON. 



strategic point Letween tlie moiiiitaius and the sliores 

 of tlic Pacific; their servants kilh'd the fur-bearing 

 animals; tlicy cut and cx])ortcd. the tiuiLer; and, 

 by means of its w.^alth and organization, the Com- 

 pany mono]K)lized the commerce and the resources 

 substantially to the exclusion for a long time of the 

 people of the United States. 



But at lenirth some settlements of Americans had 

 been commenced in Oregon ; and the attention of 

 Congress was called to the usurpations of the Hud- 

 son's Bay Company by Mr. Benton, Mr. Linn, and the 

 ■writer of these pages : in conse(|uence of which steps 

 were taken to put an end to the joint occu])ation of 

 Oregon. In f-'ct, the Company liad now set up the 

 most extravagant i)reten.siuns, exaggerating a mere li- 

 ''ense to trade into a grant of proprietorship to the 

 \>'hole of the immense region south and Avest of Ru- 

 pert's Land, to the dissatisfaction of the peo])le of 

 Canada as well as of the United States. For it was 

 the interest of the Company to retain the whole 

 country occupied by them in the condition of a mere 

 hunting-field, and fpiite \ininhabited except by vassal 

 Indians: while the Canadians desired that it shoufd 

 be opened to colonization, so as to add to the materi- 

 al resources and political force of the Canadian Prov- 

 inces. Parliamentary inquiry into the rights of the 

 Company was instituted ; it was imperatively instruct- 

 ed by Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton [afterward Lord 

 Lytton], Colonial ^Minister [whose dis])atches show 

 that he was not less eminent as a statesman than as 

 a poet and a novelist], to desist from all general pre- 



