230 SALMON FISHING IN CANADA. 



The concerns of the Hudson's Bay Company are man- 

 aged by a governor and deputy-governor resident in 

 Canada, and a committee of directors established in 

 London, by whom all general regulations and orders are 

 devised, and sent forth, and by whom all the accounts, 

 reports of subordinates, and other matters of interest are 

 examined and controlled. The conduct of this body is 

 enveloped in profound seeresy. Even the communications 

 which they are required to make to the government in 

 writing, are made with studied brevity and caution, and 

 contain only what is absolutely required. This policy, 

 which originated in apprehension of rivalry and of parlia- 

 mentary interference in their interior regulations and 

 intercourse with the Indians, it is to be regretted, has 

 resulted in the suppression of a multitude of facts im- 

 portant to science at large, and especially so to our 

 geographical knowledge.* The duty of the governor, who 

 is resident in Canada, is to visit the various trading posts, 

 to superintend and direct the conduct of the commandants, 

 and to collect and transmit to the Board in London an 

 accurate account of their proceedings. Each interior fort 

 or trading post has a commandant and a clerk, as many 

 traders as are necessary to carry the goods into the villages 



* This disgrace, however, will no longer attach to them, for beside the dis- 

 coTeries made by Heme, Dease, and Simpson, there is at the present day an 

 ex^iedition on foot, under one of their most experienced and clever servants, 

 to complete the survey of the northern coast of America, left unfinished by 

 the last-named explorers. 



