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THE GREAT COMPANY
BEING A
HISTORY OF THE HONOURABLE COMPANY OF
MERCHANTS-ADVENTURERS TRADING
INTO HUDSON'S BAY
BY
BECKLES WILLSON
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
LORD STRATHCONA AND MOUNT ROYAL
Present Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company
WITH
ORIGINAL DRAWINGS BY ARTHUR HEMING
AND
MAPS, PLANS AND ILLUSTRATIONS
NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
1900
Entered according to Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the year one thousand eight hundredand ninety-nine, by The Copp, Clark Company, Limited, Toronto, in the Office of theMinister of Agriculture.
TO
The Right Honourable
SIR WILFRID LAURIER, G.C.M.G.,
TO WHOSE GENEROUS SUGGESTION AND CONTINUED
ENCOURAGEMENT IS SO LARGELY DUE THE
COMPILATION OF THESE ANNALS.
PREFACE.
Praiseworthy as the task is of unifying the scatteredelements of our Canadian story, yet it will hardlybe maintained that such historical studies ought not tobe preceded by others of a more elementary character.Herein, then, are chronicled the annals of an institutioncoherent and compact—an isolated unit.
The Hudson's Bay Company witnessed the French dominionin Northamerica rise to its extreme height, decline and disappear;it saw new colonies planted by Britain; it saw themquarrel with the parent State, and themselves become transformedinto States. Wars came and passed—EuropeanPowers on this continent waxed and waned, rose and fadedaway; remote forests were invaded by loyal subjects whoerected the wilderness i