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“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'.‘