172 ASSINNIBOINE AND SASKATCHEWAN EXPEDITION. 



the proclamation of 1763, and the principle has since 

 been generally acknowledged and rarely infringed upon by 

 the Government. The same rule has been followed by 

 the Government of the United States, who pay annuities 

 for the surrender of Indian lands to the extent of about 

 140,000/. a-year."* 



Great and apparently reasonable doubt exists respecting 

 the Indian title to that part of the valley of Eed Eiver 

 and the Assinniboine now occupied by the settlements. 

 The royal charter for incorporating the Hudson's Bay 

 Company, granted by Charles II., a.d. 1670, trans- 

 ferred to the Company the trade, lands, mines, minerals, 

 fisheries, &c, of Eupert's Land. The territory to be 

 reckoned one of his Majesty's plantations or colonies in 

 America, and the Governor and Company to be the 

 Lords Proprietors of the same for ever.f 



On the 12th June 1811 the Hudson's Bay Company 

 made a grant of lands to Lord Selkirk included within 

 the following boundaries: — "All that tract of land or 

 territory bounded by an imaginary fine running as fol- 

 lows, that is to say, beginning on the western shores of 

 the Lake Winnipeg at a point in 52° 30' north latitude, 

 and thence running due west to the Lake Winnepego-sis, 

 then in a southerly direction through the said lake so as 

 to strike its western shore in latitude 52°, then due west 

 to the place where the 52° intersects the western branch 

 of Eed Eiver, the Assinniboine Eiver, then due south from 

 that point of intersection to the height of land, which sepa- 

 rates the waters running into Hudson's Bay from those of 

 the Missouri and Mississippi, then in an easterly direction 



* " Report on the Affairs of the Indians in Canada." Legislative Council, 

 Sessional Papers, Appendix T, 1847. 



f See the Royal Charter of Incorporation, page 409 of the Report from 

 the Select Committee on the Hudson's Bay Company. 



