Power of the Hudson Bay Company 251 
yond question. The insidious and powerfully effective influ- 
ences and the remarkably successful aggressions of the Hudson 
Bay company are best illustrated by the triumphs it achieved in 
the face of what seemed insurmountable obstacles. Although 
its original charter dates back to Charles II of England, in 1670, 
by which it was granted certain important rights, forty years prior 
to that a similar charter had been granted to the Canadian North- 
west Fur company by Louis XIII of France. Prior to 1821 this 
company was in numbers, capital, influence and power vastly 
superior to and a most formidable rival of the Hudson Bay com- 
pany ; yet the latter, notwithstanding all this, through its superior 
management and great diplomacy, compelled the former in 1821 
to yield to and accept its own terms as to union and consolida- 
tion, and from that day the Hudson Bay company, thus re- 
énforced in capital, numbers and influence, and in the number 
and extent of its outposts, directed all its vast energies and im- 
mense powers to wrest from the United States and obtain eventu- 
ally for Great Britain the whole of Oregon territory. 
The Error of our Government in treating for Joint Occupancy. 
But notwithstanding these superior rights on the part of the 
United States, in virtue not only of occupancy but also of scien- 
tific exploration and settlement, entitling this country to exclu- 
Sive sovereign rights in the whole of Oregon territory, the fact 
that the Hudson Bay company had extended its operations into 
that region and was engaged in trade there with the Indians 
induced our government to make the fatal mistake of entering 
into a treaty with Great Britain in 1818 providing for joint occu- 
pancy for a period of ten years. This stipulation was extended 
indefinitely by another treaty with Great Britain in 1827, pro- 
mulgated May 15, 1828. 
These treaties, however, were not intended, nor did they or 
either of them in any manner attempt, to determine the respect- 
ive sovereign claims of the United States and Great Britain, or 
in fact those of any other government, to this territory; they 
were intended only, as expressly stated in the treaty, “to pre- 
vent disputes and differences among the occupants of that terri- 
tory.” 
That the government of the United States made a fearful mis- 
take in ever consenting by treaty stipulation that Great Britain 
