INTRODUCTIOK' 17 



events, that Parliament would be asked to annul even such 

 a charter as this, in order, as set forth in the Queen's Speech, 

 that all obstacles to an unbroken chain of loyal settlements, 

 stretching from ocean to ocean, should be removed." British 

 Columbia, which had become a Province in 1858, was now 

 urging the Imperial Government with might and main to 

 furnish a waggon-road and telegraph line to connect her, not 

 only with the Territories and Canada, but with the United 

 Empire. She was met by the stiffest of opposition, the 

 opposition of a very old corporation strongly entrenched in 

 the governing circles of both parties. But the clamour of 

 British Columbia was in the air, and her suggestions, hotly 

 opposed by the Company, had been brought before the House 

 of Lords by another peer. In the discussion which followed, 

 the Duke of ITewcastle declared that " it seemed monstrous 

 that any body of gentlemen should exercise fee-simple rights 

 which precluded the future colonization of that territory, as 

 well as the opening of lines of communication through it." 

 "The Minister's idea at the time seemed to be to cancel the 

 charter, and to concede proprietary rights around fur posts 

 only, together with a certain money payment, considerably 

 less, it appears, than what was ultimately agreed upon. 



The Hudson's Bay Company, alarmed at the outlook and 

 the attitude of the Colonial Secretary, offered their entire 

 interests and belongings, trade and territorial, to the Imperial 

 Government for a million and a half pounds sterling, an offer 

 which the Duke was disposed to accept, but which was unfor- 

 tunately declined by Mr. Gladstone, then Chancellor of the 

 Exchequer. The Duke, who had resigned his office in 1864, 

 died in October following, and in the meantime a change of 

 a startling character had come over the time-honoured com- 

 pany, which sold out to a new company in 1863, being 

 merged into, or rather merging into itself, an organization 

 known as " The Anglo-International Financial Association," 

 which included several prominent American capitalists. The 

 old name was retained, but everything else was to be changed. 



