Page:Centennial History of Oregon 1811-1912, Volume 1.djvu/166



lies in the United States at the present day, not one of which has the sanction or support of the government, but every one of which is under the ban of the law. But here was a monopoly of all the trade in a region a thousand times greater in size than the country whose king created the monopoly, to which was given the right over the lives and liberties of the natives and subordinates of the char- tered corporation. And all this by the grace of his most Christian majesty, King Charles II. The kings of England, two hundred and fifty years ago, had little conception of the rights of the common people. The whole government was run for the benefits of the king's favorites and relations ; and it is no wonder that Macaulay should have said of this king: "That honor and shame to him were scarcely more than light and darkness to the blind. ' '

Those who have not made some investigation of the subject have no idea of the vast powers and dcrminions of this great English corporation. From the At- lantic to the Pacific, three thousand miles, and from the Arctic ocean down to where the southern boundary is now located — a full two thousand miles — the undisputed sway of all living things for a half century, and over half of that region for more than a century. We are now all of us accustomed to think of organized governments with legislatures and laws, sworn officers and courts of justice, in connection with territorial expansion. That has been the rule under all the western extensions of American enterprise and settlement. But here in this great fur company we see an English king and his cousin and courtiers or- ganizing in a private room, a private company, with all the powers of a respon- sible state government in America, and handing over to that private company a region larger than all Europe, to be ruled and exploited for their own private and exclusive use and profit for an unlimited period of time ; and without any limitations or restrictions in favor of any other people or person on the face of the globe. Picture if you can this vast empire of natural wealth in land, and all that the richest land will produce, six million square miles in extent, diversi- fied with beautiful lakes, grand rivers, mountain ranges, fertile prairies, great forests of matchless timber, millions of wild animals, and peopled by probably one hundred thousand native Indians, and you may have some idea of the sort of monopoly that was set down to exploit old Oregon and all the region east and north of it except Alaska.

If we turn to Mitchell's geography, printed in 1842, we find Oregon territory described as the most western part of the United States ; and contains an area greater than that of the whole of the southern states, with an Indian population of eighty thousand. So that the dominions of the Hudson's Bay Company must have been, all told, larger than the whole of the United States in 1842, with a much larger Indian population than is here set down. These facts as to the vast dominions and unrestricted sovereign powers of the Hudson's Bay Company are given as an all-sufficient reason to explain the anxiety of the early pioneers of Oregon as to the course of this great corporation towards these early settlers. These pioneer families of civilization could not believe that any King Charles could sell out this great country to a private corporation monopoly trading com- pany to be held for all time as a game preserve to produce pelts for London prof- its. And hence their early and iinrestrainable resentment.

Considering time and circumstances the Hudson 's Bay Company was the most perfect commercial organization ever operated on the American continent. No