Page:Portland, Oregon, its History and Builders volume 1.djvu/104

66 and reputed as one 'of our colonies in America, called Rupert's land. And also, not only the whole, entire and only liberty, use and privilege of trading and traffic to and from the territories, limits and places aforesaid, but also the whole and entire trade and traffic to and from all havens, bays, creeks, rivers, lakes, and seas into which they shall find entrance or passage by water or land out of the territories, limits, and places aforesaid, and to and with all the natives and people, inhabitants or which shall inhabit within the territories, limits and places aforesaid, and to and with all other nations inhabitants any of the coasts adjacent to the said territories aforesaid. And do grant to the said company, that neither the said territories, limits, and places hereby granted, nor any part thereof, nor the islands, havens, ports, cities, towns, and places thereof, or therein contained shall ever be visited, frequented, or haunted by any of the subjects of us contrary to the true meaning of this grant; and any and every such person or persons who shall trade or traffic into any of such countries, territories, or limits aforesaid other than the said company and their successors, shall incur our indignation and the forfeiture and loss of all their goods, merchandise and other things whatsoever which shall be so brought into this realm of England or any dominion of the same country, to our said prohibition."

In all this monopoly of trade and commerce in all the vast region from Hudson bay west to the Pacific ocean, the charter conferred upon the company and its governors and chief factors, the sovereign rights of civil and military government of the region. Some people protest against the corporations and monopolies 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 chartered 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 dominions of this great English corporation. From the Atlantic 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 cousins and courtiers organizing in a private room, a private company, with all the powers of a responsible state government in America, and handling 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, diversified 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 a monopoly that was set down to exploit old Oregon and all the region east and north of it except Alaska.