1" fl‘ 3,, I, in. “fig: ,1 ’2 “RIM HISTORY 0? RED awn. INviflueofachartes-grsntcdintheyeur 1810 by King Charles the Seeoud, the Hudson's Bay Com was incor- porated and endowed with certain rigz‘ts and vileges. This charter has n mac before the ublic both of En land and America, a b copsiderablc don t 11:“ been expressed t 0 real as to w st. her any, and, if shy, w at rights could be claimed under its provisions. It has also been laid before a long succession of eminent lawyers, with the object of dis- covering what grounds the public miglht have to support the opinion that it s ould be held invalid. Some of these mtlemen, among whom were Mansfield, kiue, Romill ', Scarlett, Bethell, and many others, have doubted whether King Charles had the power to confer a right of exclusive trade upon an ' com- pany, but all agree that, an or the charter, the ri ht to the possession of the land wit in the limits therein s ified, could be, and was, conferred on t e Hudson's Bay Compan '. The terri- tory, described as Ruperts Land, con— sists of the whole region whose waters flow into Hudson's Bay. It extends back from the Bay, in its narrowest width, on the east main coast, about 200 miles, on the south about 300 miles towards Canada, while it attains its greatest breadth of more than 1200 miles on the western shore of the Bay, whence the belt stretches back towards the Rocky Mountains, including within its limits the fertile valley of the Saskatchewan, whose waters fall into Lake Winnipeg, from which, through an outlet at its north-eastern extremity, they pass into streams emptying themselves into lludv son's Bay. The. operations of the com- pany, as a trading corporation, extend over vast regions other than those in- cluded in the ring above traced, but its proprietary rights and governing res- )onsibilities under the charter are con- ned within the limits described. Until about 1774, being more than a century afler the date of' the charter, the com- pany does not appear to have extended its operations very far beyond the sea coast, the country west of which was a wilderness inhabited only by wild beasts and tribes of wandering savages. The project of colonization, in any part of the territory, was first attempted Thomas Douglas, Earl of Selkirk, a ut the year 1811. At this time Red River was the headquarters of an inland trading district perfectly isolated from the rest of the world, and one of the princépal scenes of contention between the udson’s Bay Company's agents and those of the two rival Canadian fur companies, called “ the North West” and “ the X. Y." companies, between whom the feeling of rivalry run so strong as to lead to occasional scenes of bloodshed and neat scuffies of minor import~ .ance. n the last and most serious of these engagements, which took place in 1816, Governor Semple, the chief magis~ trots, was shot. This deplorable conditions of things is not to be ascribed to any sudden out- break or mismanagement on the part of any of the agents concerned, but was brought about by a series of events ex- tend ng over a riod of years. In 1763 Canada was ed b the French to the Eu llsh, under the reaty of Paris. As car as 1640, French colonists, whose epi t of ldventnre, stimulated by the denim oli‘gsin, and love for the free, rovin in life, had led them to pun sue calling of the trapper, betook themselves to the woods and hunting grounds of Canada, and spread gradually over the whole country out from the heigktd laud west of Lake Superior. These were termed contours dos boil, and, as hunters and trappers, the were even more skilful than their ndiun tension As waders, they were outfitted by Canadian merchant with necessary to hurts with the Indians for ma, m riods of absence ex- teklgover two ve or fifteen mouths, spent Unveiling in their canoes, would WM» with fun of great value, their in of which they regularly It!“ during a short residence in the city psvious to embarking on their nu! In 1731, a Lower Cana- dian suigaeur, named M. Yarennes do is Y, acting under a license to undo, granted by the Canadian Govern- muwmthofirst white man to cross the height of land above mentioned in the fist of two expeditions which he made. fit as the Rocky Mountains. 0:: the first he went down the Winnipeg River to the borders of Lake Winnipeg, andpenetrated up the Red River and Assiaiboine to the prairie lands of the firWest, locally known at resent by the names of the Districts of an River and the Saskfitelaewim.v 0n 5);; second expedition, . e a eran e pene- trated up the river Saskatchewan. His example was followedelzy many others, and, as the trade turn out profitable, considerable quantities of oods were flirwarded from the Can ian settle- ments for barter with the Indians, the ooureurs dos bois acting as agents in the exchange. About 1774, in consequence ofthesuc- ll“! of these traders, in ursuit of their W of .interczpting t e Indians on way from eir hunting grounds in the interior to trade their flu-s with the agents of the Hudson's Bay Com- at their factories, which, as above- mon had befitre that time been erected on y in the vicinity cfthe coast, thewmpuny was broad to protect its establishing posts inland on . , which, unda- thsir charter, 'gh‘ii,bseaceaveyedtuthen,hutou ' :44. answer. .. r THE MANITOBA FREE PRESS. W which their opponents had, until then, carried on their operations comparative ly undisturbed. Far from bei seriously damaged for some years, the anudiau traders conti- nued to be so successful that wealth ’ men embarked capital in the trade, an , about the year 1783, the opposition to the company had resolved itself into one other at combination called the “ North West Company of Montreal." This association of merchants was pecu~ liarly a Canadian institution, having its chief seat of operations at Montreal, in opposition to the Hudson's Bay Com- ny, which was an English concern, with its headquarters in London. The chief operations of the Hudson's Bay Company were on the Bay itself; but, although the North Westcrs also traded on the Bay, their main efforts were con- centrated on the lain count towards the West, and t ey gradua ly forced themselves, by Lake Superior and Red River, across the continentto the Pacific coast. They are said to have employed about 5000 men altogether in their ser- vice about this time. Discord ap , however, to have ex‘ isted in the orth West camp, for we read of a division of interest therein, and tho fbundation of another association called the “ X. Y. Company," which 01)- ioscd both the Hudson’s Bay and the forth 'Wcst. The X. Y. continued to be, like the North West, a distinctively Canadian corporation. Matters between all these contending parties began to wear a formidable appearance. Hostili- ties broke out bctWecn the agents oftbc respective companies, and alliances were formed between the Indians and the whites connected with either party, while the whole trade was carried on in a reckless, extravagant manner. In the year 1811, the Earl of Selkirk purchased from the Hudson’s Bay Com- iany the ownership of a vast tract of land, including, as a small part of the whole, the ground occupied at the n-csent time by Red River Settlement. The sum paid in exchange for this grant [do not know. The rights granted to Lord Selkirk were full proprietary rights to the soil, subject only to the burden of extinguishing the Indian titles. Till that date the question of these claims had lain between the In- dians and the Company; the burden of their extinction lay thenccforward on Lord Selkirk. About this time a compulsory exodus of the inhabitants of the mountainous regions in the county of Sutherland was in progress. The history of the expul- sion of a vast number of the rer tenantry from the estates of the Duchess of Sutherland, on which they and their ancestors had vegetated in much idle- ness, semi-barbsr sin and contentment, from a traditionary era, to make way for the working of the sterner realites of the system of land management which prevails on great estates in the prosaic nineteenth century, is to this day fresh in the recollection of the remaining Egpulation of the extreme north of otland. The pain with which the homeless exiles saw the roofs which had sheltered them through life, removed from the bare walls of their deserted habitations by the merciless edict of ir- resistible power, has been retained in the memory of the peasants of the north, and, doubtless, the adventures of many of the expatriated ones, after their en- trance on the untried vicissitudes of life in other lands, are known and held in interest by the children of their kindred in the country whence they came. Few, probably, of the wandercrs found so remote and sequestered a home asdid those of their number whom the Earl of Selkirk took under his protection, and forwarded to settle on the estate he had urchased at Red River. Few, also, it is to be hoped, met with more serious obstacles to be surmounted in their deal- ings with nature and with men than the same ha less party. It must, however, be eta that they emigrated ostensibly of their free wills, Lord Selkirk havin visited their parish of Kildmsn and lai such inducements before them as led them to close with his terms, nor was it until after the last of them had departed that thelforcible expulsions were com- menced. They arrived on the Bay coast in the autumn of 1811, and spent the winter of that our amid cold of Arctic intensit an many privations at Church , on the western shore of Hud- son’s Buy. On the outbreak of sprin in 1812 they advanced inland, cross Lake Winni ,aud ascended the Bed Blur of the orth which empties itself into Winni g on its southern shore. At the con uence of the Assiniboine and Red Rivers, about forty miles from the lake, they hand themselves—metapho- rically speakin --at home. They were in the centre 0 the American continent, 1500 or 1600 miles in direct distance from the nearest city residence of civilised man in America, and separated from the country whence they came by an impassable barrier. There being no possibility ofretreat it remained only to make the best of their ition in the land of their adoption. ere, however, they found new food for anxiety. The X. Y. and the North West companies regarded them as invaders whose presence was detrimental to their interests and as protege: of their oppo- nents Lord Selkirk and the Hudson's Bay Company. The Indians also ob- jected to t e cultivation of their hunting grounds, and were instigated to hostile geesdings against the new comers by e represen tives of the Canadian companies. The year 1812 pesscdwith- out my progress being made by the unfortunate people who spent the following winter in great misery at Pembina, near the United States frontier, whither they were driven by compulsion of the Indians. They a pear, however, to have found means he ore spring to mollify their op- ponents to such an extent as permitted their return to build log houses and cul- tivate the lands on the borders of Red River. Alter having been left to enjoy a term of peace which lasted about a year, the colonists were attacked by their rsevering enemies, who, profes- sing t eir determination to exterminate the society, reduced the huts the had built to Cinders, killing some of t c in- habitants in the process. Be—inforced by a company of additional immigrants from Scotland the settlers returned to the spots whence they had been driven, and recommenced their labours in de- fiance of all the disoouragcmcnts they had encountered. The foundation of this colony, if it had any effect at all on the relations between the agents of the rival trading companies, served onlyI to oxaspcratc their mutual enmity. 1 atters between them became steadily worse and worse—- property was destroyed, establishments attacked, men captured and others killed. Acting as the representatives of the power in whose hands the government of the country had been vested, Gover- nors MacDonnell and Sample succes- sively issued proclamations and fought bravely in the defence of the interests entrusted to their keeping for a long time. At length, on the 19th of June, 1816, the adherents of the two parties met under such circumstam-es that a skirmish occurred. in the course of which about twenty men, among whom was Governor Semplc himself, lost their lives at a place now called chcn Oaks, situated in the heart of the colony. * =o< * * * * Anxious about the fate of the poo lc who had gone to Red River under his auspices, and deeply concerned per- sonally as». land owner in the impor- tant events transpiring on the scene of these belligerent operations, Lord Scl- kirk left En land with the view of visiting Red fiivcr, and personally in- specting the business there. In )assing ttrough Canada, being advised y dis- iatchcs sent him of the outrages at even Oaks, he applied to the command- ing general of the forces in that colony for a body guard to protect him from assassination in his journey through the interior. He received for that purpose a detachment of two sergeants and twelve privates soldiers belonging to a corps called the regiment De Meuron. On his own ersonul responsibility he raised an additional force recruited from disbanded soldiers formerly connected with the same' ment in Canada, and proceeded to R River. On his way, and after his arrival at that place, he attacked and took ssession of all the forts of the North est Company lying on his route, and made its agents his prisoners. Some of those who had been concerned in the Seven Oaks affair were senttoCanada to stand their trial as murderers, some as principals, others as accessories. There were also charges of arson, robbery of cannon and other “ high misdemeanours.” The trials of the accused took place at Toronto, in virtue of a Commission from Lower Canada granted under the Canada Juris- diction Act. They rcsultcd in an ac- quittal of all the prisoners on all the charges. Lord Selkirk was himself, some years subsequently, sued for damages grounded on the action he had taken during his expedition to Red River, and judgments adverseto him were obtained in the Canadian courts involving vast sums. as as s: as s: a: a: A very im rtant element in the business whichotook his Lordship to Red River in 1817, was the roposed ex- tinction of the Indian tites on that part of his property intended for imme- iate occupation. What these Indian titles are is aquestion on which great latitude of opinion prevails among dif- ferent le. * * * * The r of Selkirk arrived with his s stem of operations arran sdon a lan rawn up under reliable egal vice obtained in England. 0n seekin for men in authority among the In inns, some dimculty was at first found in gettin any recognized chiefs, possessed of rig t to enteras principals on such a no otiatiou. The ground in question was old to belong to the Chippewa or Saulteux, and the Killistine or Cree Nation. These barbarous tribes wan- dered over a wide extent of countr , hunting and passing their time 1i 0 ony other brotherhood of savages. It was a difficult matter to find any single individual whose authority was con- sidered binding by the rest. Five dif ferent chiefs were, however, at length selected, whose right to treat was established to the satisfaction of both sides, and on the 18th of July, 1817, a treaty was dul signed by the Earl on one side, and t can dusky wanderers on the other, whereb ' the latter made over to King George II., for the benefit of the Earl of Selkirk, their rights in a lon stri of country, extending alon sac ban of the Red River and Assim- boine. The:land ceded was to extend two miles back on either side from the river as a centre line, along that part of the Red River beginning from its mouth at Lake Winni , and extending to its confluence wit Lake River in the United States, and along the Aminibeine them its junction, with the Red River, where Fort now stands, to Musk- rat River. The n of land thus indicated between Pembina and Bed Lake River, on which, in virtue of the treaty, the Indian titles were exting- uished, as well as the 1.30, portion of ground previousl grant tohis Lord- ship by the II son's Bay Com ny, being in the territory of the nited States, gave rise long afterwards to a claim for compensation brought by the Earl's representatives against the Ame- rican government. In addition to the strips of ground just described, two cir- cles, each of six miles radius, were coded around Fort Douglas, (near Fort Garry) and Fort Darr (Pcmbina) as centres. The idea of a distance of two miles, which forms so important an element in this bargain, was conveyed to the Indian comprehension by des— cribing it as the greatest distance at which a horse on the level prairie could be distinctly seen, or daylight seen under his boll between his legs. The Earl of Selkir was known among the lndians as the “ Silver Chief." The instrument executed conve ed the lands in the first instance to the ing, because the extinction of Indian titles in favor of rivate parties is legally a nullity, out the Earl came out invested with special powers to conclude the treaty conferret on him by the Imperial Government. The consideration on account ofwhich the land was coded was an annual pay- ment of two hundred pounds weight of tobacco, of which onchalfwas to be paid the Saultoaux cheifs at Fort Garry, and the other to the Cree chiefs at Portage Laprairic, or, as it is called by the Eng- lish, the Prairie Portage, a point on the Assinilminc about 70 miles above Fort Garry. Each )aymcnt was to take place on the 10f 1 October. The important document, of which the foregoing is the scope, was si rned by Lord Selkirk and five Indian 0 iicfs as principles, and seven officers connect- cd with the service as witnesses. The chief's signed by appending their dis- tinctive marks on t 10 representations of wild animals by which they were re- spectively known. So wretched had the general condition of the territor become, in consequence of the dcplora 10 events above narrated, that the government of Canada inter- fered, with a view to attempt a recon- ciliation between the conflicting parties. A gentleman named Coltman was ap- pointed commissioner to ascertain the causes and extent of the disturbances. He recommended, as the onl feasible remedy, that an effort shoul be made by the Government to bring the traders to an amicable settlement and union of interests ; but for some considerable time, no action was taken on his recom- mendation by his employers, while the unfortunate companies through their protracted exertions were reduced to the ver e of bankruptcy. Lord Selkirk di in 1821, and after that date the late Right Hon. Edward Ellice became the most prominent person round whom the currentof events runs. This entleman, then one of the principal stoc holders of the North West Company, was consulted by Government, and, under its auspices, instituted negotiations which,aiter man difficulties had been surmounted by his perseverance and tact, resulted in a har- monious union between the Hudson's Bay and North West Companies, the latter of which had alread combined with the X. Y. Under con itions satis- factory to both parties a coalition was formed in 1821, while the British Gov- ernment, at Mr. Ellice's suggestion, ob tained from Parliament powersto confer on the new Hudson’ Ba Company rights and privile cs extcn ing over the country cast an west of the Rocky Mountains not included in their own chartered territory, tenable for a term of twenty years. These rivileges of exclusive trade in the In an country outside of their own limits the company surrendered in 1838 with an application for their renewal. An inquiry into the working of the tem under the man. agement of the udson’s Bay Company was instituted by the Colonial Office and the Board of Trade, the result of which was an expression of the entire satisfac- tion of the imperial authorities with the system of trade and government of the company, and an extension of the term of the temporary license to trade for twenty years more. On his arrival in the settlement Lord Selkirk had provided the colonists with agricultural implements, seed, grain and other necessaries, but as the season was far advanced before they could be used, the harvest of 181'! was so sca'nty that a ihmine ensued, and the people again ed the winter at Pembina, subsist- ing as best they could on the produce of the chase. The springduties of longh- ing and sewing were duly pe ormed, and men hoped the harvest of 1818 would turn out well, but an army of lo- custs made its appearance and in one night cleared away ever vestige of verdure from the fields. he grasshop- pers left their eggs in the ground, and the numbers of youn locusts which again in 1819 reader agriculture im- possible far exceeded those of the pre- vious year. While the settlers took re- fuge at Pembina, Lord Selkirk, at an expense of £1,000, im rted 250 bushels ofseed grain from t 0 United States, and this, which was sown in the spring of 1820, produced a plentiful crop in the autumn of that year. Peace bemg completely restored be- tween all parties on the coalition in 1821, the settlement at Red River made steady regress. The life of adventure, discomfdrt and migration between Pem- bina and their proper homes which the settlers had been forced to lead for eight years u(ter their arrival in the Novsxssa 9, 1872. country gave way to one of tranquillity and greater case than had fallen totheir lot, in Scotland. General contentment revailed. The only market which ex~ istcd for the roduce they had to sell the colonists ound in the forts of the company, where their grain was pur- chased to be exported for use in the establishments of the north where cult-i- vation is impossible. Large as are the demands of the fur trade for farm pro- duce the supply has often much exceed- ed them, an hence have risen much com laining, and loud cries for a wider mar et. * * * * * As the immigration from Scotland did not recur after the arrival in two parties of the founders of the settlement, the population increased but slowly, and few events of public moment varied the dead monotony of yearly life. The vol— unteers from the regiment De Menron, who accompanied Lord Selkirk, settled numerously in the colony. The bulk of them were Swiss and Germans. Servants of the company who had spent their lives in the service retired to end them at Red River; and some of the officers, whose desire to :rcturn to their native country had withered through the lapse of time and the influence of family ties formed in the country, bought land and settled down on it for lif'c.~ The repre- sentatives of Lord Selkirk sold the land to such people at a nominal price, vary- ing from 5s. to 75. Gd. pcr acrc. The farms were laid ofi‘, hounded by two parallcl lines running out for two miles over the plains, starting at right angles from lied River as a base line. The most valuable of these lots were such as had the largest frontage to the rivcr, such frontages varying in length from three to ten chains. When such a farm was alloted a land deed was given to the purchaser, and his claim registered in a record kc it in the company‘s office. In 1836 the {udson’s Bay Company repur- chased from the hcirs of Lord Selkirk the whole tract of country ceded to his Lordship in 1811. This step was taken as the best means of putting and end to the complications arising from the tenure of the country by Lord Selkirk’s representatives. The sum paid b the company was about £84,000, am was meant to reimburse Lord Selkirk’s heirs for the large sums his Lordship had spent in improving and settling the colony. This transaction was without prejudice to the interests of all colonists who had purchased land between 1811 and 1836. The chief physical drawbacks against which the settlement has had to contend are floods, the most destructive of which occurred in the years 1826, 1852 and 1861. These are otzcasioned by the sud~ den thawin of deep snows which, form- ing vast s ects of water destitute of channels to carry them off, cause the rivers to overflow their banks and in- nundate the plains over an extent of hundreds of square miles.—-Hargrave’s “ Red River." W— Ttppoo Sahib’s Heir. “ Prince Gholam Mahommed died re cently. Such were the few words of a Calcutta telegram. Not many readers were probably aware that the Prince so briefly mentioned was the last surviving son of Tippoo, the fierce Sultan of Mysore, who, after ears of plodding or fighting against t e hated Feringhi, fe l at the storming of Seringapatam in the last year of the eighteenth century. On Ti poo’s death the kingdom which his fat or had founded was broken up, but the province of Mysore was given back to the old line of Hindu Rajahs whom Hyder Ali had dispossessed. Tippoo's children were removed to the fort of Vellore, until the mutiny and massacre of our soldiers at that place in 1808—4 disaster mainly due to the intrigues of the young Princes and their parties ne—brou ht about their re- mov to Calcutta here the Princes lived and ew old on the handsome nsions a lowed them by the East ndia Company, and there in succession they died. Gholam Mohammed’s years where more than eighty when he, too, away, “for seeing the power which his father had defied and his grandfathermlaoed in imminent peril carry its arms over all India, and weather a mutiny fhr wider spread than that of Vellore. The last mention made of him in an Indian paper was about two months ago, when the old man figured at one of Lord Mayo's durbars, and received from the late Viceroy a fill] measure of the courtesy due to his years and antecedents. W The Magnet. Magnetism is the directive power of an ore or preparation of iron toward the lar regions, which varies consecutive- l); but regularly, at the same place, both in dip and polar declination. The two similar ends of needles increase each other's distance, and the two dissimilar ends cause approach, just as in positive and negative electricity. The affection is created by the double current in the wires, which connect and restore the positive and negative sides of an electric or voltaic excitement, and the direction, with reference to the current, is that of the tangent of a circle round the wires. The direction ofa needle, as it is above . or below the wires, is N. or S. It is therefore believed that, as iron and steel - are laminar or scaly in their structure, like the plates and cells of a voltaic ar- rangement, or the membranes of a tor- . l. pedo, that the iron is charged by the ateral action of the current on the sun rounding space just as in all electricity W Oars are 3 cents a bushel in Kansas. l w.-. - Mu'.‘