Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 29).djvu/59

 *das, and a line drawn through the centre of Lake Superior; thence north-westwardly to the Lake of the Wood; thence west on the 49th parallel of north latitude to the Rocky Mountains, and along those mountains to the 54th parallel; thence westwardly on that line to a point nine marine leagues from the Pacific Ocean; and on the west by a line commencing at the last mentioned point, and running northwardly parallel to the Pacific coast till it intersects the 141st parallel of longitude west from Greenwich, England, and thence due north to the Arctic Sea.

They have also leased for twenty years, commencing in March, 1840, all of Russian America, except the post of Sitka; the lease renewable at the pleasure of the Hudson's Bay Company.[63] They are also in possession of Oregon under treaty stipulation between Britain and the United States. Thus this powerful company occupy and control more than one-ninth of the soil of the globe. Its stockholders are British capitalists, resident in Great Britain. From these are elected a board of managers, who {252} hold their meetings and transact their business at "The Hudson's Bay House" in London. This board buy goods and ship them to their territory, sell the furs for which they are exchanged, and do all other business connected with the Company's transactions, except the execution of their own orders, the actual business of collecting furs in their territory. This duty is entrusted to a class of men who are called partners, but who in fact receive certain portions of the annualnorth latitude. After being several times renewed, the lease expired in 1868 upon the purchase of Alaska by the United States.—]