The Fur Traders. 3 



Montreal with a load of furs. While they were making 

 other journeys to the Northwest for exploration and profit, 

 the French Government gave to other parties a patent 

 conveying to them the exclusive right to trade in those 

 regions. Groeilliers returned to France to protest against 

 this action, and failing to obtain redress from his own 

 government he went to England and succeeded in inter- 

 esting Prince Rupert, under whose patronage he sailed for 

 Hudson Bay in 1668. The success of this trip resulted 

 in the granting of the charter which gave to the Hudson's 

 Bay Company privileges such as no other company ever 

 enjoyed before or since. 



The trade of the company at first was small. The rec- 

 ords show that in 1672 it only purchased 200 fowling 

 pieces, 200 brass kettles, 12 gross of knives, and 900 hat- 

 chets ; but the quantities of merchandise needed to 

 carry on the trade with the Indians increased every year 

 and other articles were steadily added. Fifteen years after 

 the founding of the company they had fifteen forts; one 

 at Albany River, two at Hayes River, three at Ruperts- 

 land, four at Port Nelson, and five at New Severn. In 

 1856, the company had forts in thirty-four districts, with 

 about ten thousand whites and half-breeds and about forty- 

 nine thousand Indians under their rule. The stock of the 

 company in 1890, was divided into one hundred thousand 

 shares, of a par value of fifteen pounds sterling each. 



To convey a clear idea of the variety of articles in a 

 trading equipment in the early part of the nineteenth cen- 

 tury, as well as the prices they were rated at west of 

 the Rockies in 1826, we publish an extract from a bill of 

 sale by which on July 18, 1826, an outfit was transferred 

 in Utah. 



"Gun powder of the first and second quality at one dollar 

 fifty per pound, lead at one dollar per pound, shot one dollar 

 twenty-five cents per pound, three point blankets at nine 

 dollars each, green ditto at eleven dollars each, scarlet cloth 

 at six dollars per yard, blue ditto common quality from 

 four to five dollars per yard, butcher knives at seventy-five 

 cents each, two and a half point blankets at seven dollars 

 each. North West fuzils at twenty-four dollars each, tin 

 kettles different sizes at two dollars per pound, sheet iron 

 kettles at two dollars twenty-five cents per pound, square 



