volume 1, appendix., note (B) to chapter 80.

See CONSTITUTION OF CANADA.

ALSO IN: _J. E. C. Munro, The Constitution of Canada (with text of Act in appendix) Parl. Debate on Confederation, 3d Sess., 8th Prov. Parliament of Canada._

_W. Houston, Docs. Illustrative of the Canadian Const., pages 186-224._

CANADA: A. D. 1869-1873. Acquisition of the Hudson's Bay Territory. Admission or Manitoba, British Columbia and Prince Edward's Island to the Dominion.

"In 1869 ... the Dominion was enlarged by the acquisition of the famous Hudson's Bay Territory. When the charter of the Hudson's Bay Company expired in 1869, Lord Granville, then Colonial Secretary, proposed that the chief part of the Company's territories should be transferred to the Dominion for £300,000; and the proposition was agreed to on both sides. The Hudson's Bay Charter dated from the reign of Charles II. The region to which it referred carries some of its history imprinted in its names. Prince Rupert was at the head of the association incorporated by the Charter into the Hudson's Bay Company. The name of Rupert's Land perpetuates his memory. ... The Hudson's Bay Company obtained from King Charles, by virtue of the Charter in 1670, the sole and absolute government of the vast watershed of Hudson's Bay, the Rupert's Land of the Charter, on condition of paying yearly to the King and his successors 'two elks and two black beavers,' 'whensoever and all often as we, our heirs and successors, shall happen to enter into the said countries, territories and regions.' The Hudson's Bay Company was opposed by the North West Fur Company in 1788, which fought them for a long time with Indians and law, with the tomahawk of the red man and the legal judgment of a Romilly or a Keating. In 1812 Lord Selkirk founded the Red River Company. This interloper on the battle field was harassed by the North West Company, and it was not until 1821, when the Hudson's Bay and North West Companies--impoverished by their long warfare-amalgamated their interests, that the Red River settlers were able to reap their harvests in peace, disturbed only by occasional plagues of locusts and blackbirds. In 1885, on Lord Selkirk's death, the Hudson's Bay Company bought the settlement from his executors. It had been under their sway before that, having been committed to their care by Lord Selkirk during his lifetime. The privilege of exclusive trading east of the Rocky Mountains was conferred by Royal license for twenty-one years in May 1888, and some ten years later the Company received a grant of Vancouver's Island for the term of ten years from 1849 to 1859. The Hudson's Bay Company were always careful to foster the idea that their territory was chiefly wilderness, and discountenanced the reports of its fertility and fitness for colonisation which were from time to time brought to the ears of the English Government. In 1857, at the instance of Mr. Labouchere, a Select Committee of the House of Commons was appointed to enquire into the state of the British possessions under the Company's administration. Various Government expeditions, and the publication of many Blue Books, enlightened the public mind as to the real nature of those tracts of land which the council from the Fenchurch Street house declared to be so desolate. ... During the sittings of the Committee there was cited in evidence a petition from 575 Red River settlers to the Legislative Assembly of Canada demanding British protection. This appeal was a proceeding curiously at variance with the later action of the settlement. When in 1869 the chief part of the territories was transferred to Canada, on the proposition of Earl Granville, the Red River country rose in rebellion, and refused to receive the new Governor. Louis Riel, the insurgent chief, seized on Fort Garry and the Company's treasury, and proclaimed the independence of the settlement. Sir Garnet, then Colonel, Wolseley, was sent in command of an expedition which reached Fort Garry on August 28, when the insurgents submitted without resistance, and the district received the name of Manitoba."

_J. McCarthy, History of our own Times,