THE FUE-TRADE OF THE HUDSON'S BAY TERRITORIES. 307 



geur," deeper and deeper into the wilderness, until finally they reached on the 

 Athabasca and the Churchill River the Indian hunters who used to sell their 

 skins in the settlements of the Hudson's Bay Company. 



This company was founded in the year 1670 by a body of adventurers and 

 merchants under the patronage of Prince Rupert, second cousin of Charles II. 

 The charter obtained from the Crown was wonderfully liberal, comprising not 

 only the grant of the exclusive trade, but also of full territorial possession to 

 all perpetuity of the vast lands within the watershed of Hudson's Bay. The 

 Company at once established some forts along the shores of the great inland 

 sea from which it derived its name, and opened a very lucrative trade with the 

 Indians, so that it never ceased paying rich dividends to the fortunate share- 

 holders until towards the close of the last century, when, as I have already men- 

 tioned, its prosperity began to be seriously affected by the energetic competi- 

 tion of the Canadian fur-traders. 



In spite of the flourishing state of its affairs, or rather because the monop- 

 oly which it enjoyed allowed it to prosper without exertion, the Company, as 

 long as Canada remained in French hands, had conducted its affairs in a very 

 indolent manner, waiting for the Indians to bring the produce of their chase to 

 the Hudson's Bay settlements, instead of following them into the interior and 

 stimulating them by offering greater facilities for exchange. 



For eighty years after its foundation the Company possessed no more than 

 four small forts on the shores of Hudson's Bay ; and only when the encroach- 

 ments of the Canadians at length roused it from its torpor, did it resolve like- 

 wise to advance into the interior, and to establish a fort on the eastern shore 

 of Sturgeon Lake, in the year 1774. Up to this time, with the exception of 

 the voyage of discovery which Hearne (1770-71) made under its auspices to 

 the mputh of the Coppermine River, it had done but little for the promotion 

 of geographical discovery in its vast territory. 



Meanwhile the Canadian fur-traders had become so hateful to the Indians 

 that these savages formed a conspiracy for their total extii'pation. 



Fortunately for the white men, the small-pox broke out about this time 

 among the Redskins, and swept them away as the fire consumes the parched 

 grass of the prairies. Their unburied corpses were torn by the wolves and 

 wild dogs, and the survivors were too weak and dispirited to be able to under- 

 take any thing against the foreign intruders. The Canadian fur-traders now 

 also saw the necessity of combining their efforts for their mutual benefit, instead 

 of ruining each other by an insane competition ; and consequently formed, in 

 1783, a society which, under the name of the North-west Company of Canada, 

 at first consisted of sixteen, later of twenty partners or shareholders, some of 

 whom lived in Canada, while the others were scattered among the various 

 stations in the interior. The whole Canadian fur-trade was now greatly de- 

 veloped ; for while previously each of the associates had blindly striven to do 

 as much harm as possible to his present partners, and thus indirectly damaged 

 his own interests, they now all vigorously united to beat the rival Hudson's 

 Bay Company out of the field. The agents of this North-west Company, in 

 defiance of their charter, were indefatigable in exploring the lakes and woods, 



