1844.] Hudson's bay company's treatment of Americans. 399 



The position of the Hudson's Bay Company towards these people, 

 is thus wholly different from that of the East India Company, with 

 respect to the Chinese ; the motives of the former body to prohibit 

 the introduction of spirits among the Indians, being no less strong 

 than those of the latter, to favor the consumption of opium in 

 China. 



The course observed by the Hudson's Bay Company towards 

 American citizens, in the territory west of the Rocky Mountains, 

 has been equally •unexceptionable, and yet equally politic. All the 

 missionaries and emigrants from the United States, and indeed all 

 strangers from whatsoever country they might come, have been re- 

 ceived at the establishments of the company on the Columbia with 

 the utmost kindness and hospitality, and aided in the prosecution of 

 their objects, so far and so long as those objects were not commer- 

 cial. But no sooner did any one unconnected with the Company, 

 attempt to hunt, or trap, or to trade with the natives, than all the 

 force of the body was immediately turned towards him. There is 

 no evidence or well-founded suspicion, that violent means have ever 

 been employed by the company, directly or indirectly, to defeat the 

 efforts of its rivals. Many American citizens have been murdered 

 by the Indians west of the Rocky Mountains ; but many more ser- 

 vants of the Hudson's Bay Company have suffered in the same way. 

 Indeed, violent means would have been unnecessary on the part of 

 the Company, whilst it enjoyed advantages so great over all other 

 competitors in trade, by its organization, its wealth, and the know- 

 ledge of the country possessed by its agents. Wherever an Ameri- 

 can port has been established, or an American party has been en- 

 gaged in trading on the Columbia, an agent of the Hudson's Bay has 

 soon appeared in the same quarter, at the head of a number of ex- 

 perienced hunters, or with a large amount of specie or merchandise 

 on hand, to be given to the Indians for furs, on terms much lower 

 than the Americans could offer ; and the latter, thus finding their 

 labors vain, were soon obliged to retire from the field. Even with- 

 out employing these extraordinary and expensive means, the British 

 traders, receiving their goods in the Columbia by sea from London, 

 free from duty, can always undersell the Americans, who must 

 transport their merchandise more than two thousand miles over 

 land, from the frontiers of the United States, where many of the 

 articles best adapted for the trade have previously been subjected to 

 import duties. In pursuance of the same system, the Company en- 

 deavors, and generally with success, to prevent the vessels of the 



