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THE

AMERICAN MONTHLY MAGAZINE

AND

CRITICAL REVIEW.

No. I.....VOL. II.

NOVEMBER, 1817.

ART. 1. A Narrative of Occurrences in the Indian countries of North America, since the connexion of the Right Hon. the Earl of Selkirk with the Hudson's Bay Company, and his attempt to establish a Colony on the Red River; with a detailed account of his lordship's military expedition to, and subsequent proceedings at Fort William, in Upper Canada. London. 1817. 8vo. pp. 239.

TH HOUGH not directly interested in the result of the controversy between lord Selkirk and the North West Company, we cannot feel wholly indifferent to the decision of a claim involving the jurisdiction of a large tract of this continent, nor view with unconcern the violent measures by which that claim has been enforced. Had the sanguinary scenes to which lord Selkirk's pretensions have given rise, occurred in a remote quarter of the globe, they would have attracted some attention from the novelty of the spectacle exhibited. Not that bloodshed is uncommon in our day, nor that there is any thing remarkable in the organizing of a body of desperados, by a popular leader for any enterprise, under any colours, but that a British peer's turning commercial speculator and land-jobber, and leaving his seat in parliament to wage war in his Britannic Majesty's dominions against a company of British merchants, is, even in these extraordinary times, a little singular-whilst the apathy with which the British ministry and the Colonial government have looked upon transactions so disgraceful to the national character, and so derogatory to the national faith, is still more strange and unaccountable. But the most important consequence of lord Selkirk's expedition, to us and to the world at large, and one which, independent of his failure or success, is its bringing again into notice a region to which a century since all eyes were turned, and reviving a question which had been put at rest without being solved. The impractibility of a North-West passage to the Indies is far from being ascercertained, and the present occasion has led to a discussion of the subject in the

Quarterly Review*, which we trust will once more put discovery upon this track, How so pregnant an inquiry should have been suffered to fall into such total neglect it is not easy to imagine. The same fortitude and perseverance which have been wasted in exploring the sterile deserts of Africa for comparatively frivolous purposes, would long since have ar rived at some certain conclusion on this most momentous point. We feel as if a degree of responsibility attached to our own government on this head. As the second commercial power in the world, and the first in this hemisphere, it might have been expected that some portion of our national spirit of maritime adventure would have been directed to an object so worthy, in either regard, of our attention, The Russian Count Romanzoff, with dis, tinguished liberality, has equipped, at his private expense, a vessel under the command of Lieut. Kotzebue, for a voyage into the Arctic Sea, through Behring's Strait, in search of a passage into the Atlantic. This vessel was despatched more than a year since from St. Peters: burgh, and touched at Plymouth in England. The attempt to sail through, from the Pacific Ocean into Hudson's Bay, or Baffin's Bay, was probably made last summer. We are yet to learn the issue of the enterprise. This splendid instance of individual munificence and enthusiasm in the cause of science should rouse an honourable emulation in enlightened and opulent mercantile communities. We

* No. XXXI.—Where the possibility of the passage is maintained, and a good account given of the various attempts made to effect it.

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commend this example to the consideration of our national legislature.

From the narrative before us, from Mackenzie's travels, and from the outline oflord Selkirk's 'Sketch of the Fur Trade, &c.' contained in the Review already referred to, we gather the following history of the origin and progress of the dispute between his lordship and the North West Traders. Previous to the year 1806, the earl of Selkirk was engaged in several schemes of colonization in the British possessions in North America. He first formed a settlement at Prince Edward's Island-and on a visit to Canada, becoming acquainted with the nature and extent of the fur trade, projected a plan for monopolizing it. At that period this trade was principally carried on by an association of merchants called the North West Company, which had recently been organized by the individuals who had formerly pursued the same traffic on their separate accounts. The stock of this company is divided into a hundred shares, and each share confers a vote. Thirty of these shares are owned by a single house in Montreal, and eighteen or nineteen by different houses in Montreal and London. The remaining shares are held by the wintering partners, who manage the affairs of the company in the interior, and who after having served a certain term of years, are permitted to retire with an annual allowance, and the vacancy is filled by the election of a clerk who must have performed a previous tour of duty. Such a system is admirably calculated to stimulate all parties to activity. This company has in its employ about 2000 voyageurs, who transport merchandise and provisions to the various posts and depots, and collect the returns of furs and peltries. These returns amount annually to about 106,000 beaver skins, 2100 bear skins, 5500 fox, 4600 otter, 17,000 musquash, $2,000 marten, 1800 mink, 600 lynx, 600 wolverine, 1600 fisher, 100 rackoon, 3800 wolf, 700 elks, and 2000 deer skins. The distance of the Red River, on which this company had a post, from Montreal, is 2300 miles by the nearest route, that of Lake Superior. This post is about equidistant from Lake Superior and from Hudson's Bay, and appears to be the nearest point of the contested territory to the inhabited parts of Canada. His lordship having possessed himself of various information in regard to the establishments of this association, and perceiving its greater facility of access from Hudson's Bay, was induced, on his return to Eng

land, to look into the charter of the Hudson's Bay Company, which was incorporated by Charles the II. He found in this charter a grant to this company of an indefinite extent of territory bounding on Hudson's Bay. He found, too, that the nominal stock of this company was £100,000, and that the shares had fallen from 250 per cent. to 50 or 60 per cent. His lordship purchased shares to the nominal amount of £40,000, and obtained the virtual control of the Company's affairs. He next procured a grant to himself of about 116,000 square miles of the company's supposed territory, commencing at Lake Winnipic, and running some hundred miles into the territory of the U. States. His lordship now began to advertise for settlers, and soon obtained a number of Irish and Scotch families, which he shipped off to Hudson's Bay, under the conduct of Mr. Miles Macdonnell, whom he appointed governor of the Colony. The detachment arrived at York Fort, and proceeded to Red River, which it reached in the autumn of 1812. Gov. Macdonnell's first care was to make due provision for the subsistence of his people. This he was not immediately able to do, but was obliged to distribute them in the winter in the company's forts. The next winter he issued a proclamation in his quality of governor of 'Ossiniboia,' prohibiting the exportation of provisions of any kind from the countries within his jurisdiction. This province is thus meted and bounded in this document-" Beginning on the western shore of the Lake Winnipic, at a point in fifty-two degrees and thirty minutes north latitude, and thence running due west to the Lake Winnipiquarhish, otherwise called Little Winnipie; then in a southerly direction through the said Lake, so as to strike its western shore in latitude fiftytwo degrees; then due west to the place where the parallel of forty-two degrees north latitude intersects the western branch of the Red River, otherwise called Assiniboin River; then due south from that point of intersection to the height of land which separates the waters running into Hudson's Bay from those of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers; then in an easterly direction along the height of land to the source of the River Winnipic, (meaning by such last named river, the principal branch of the waters which unite in the Lake Sagingae); thence along the main streams of those waters, and the middle of the several lakes through which they flow, to the mouth of the Winnipic

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