Beckles Willson

“ Fools, why do you trust these white traders who come amongst you with beads, and fire-water and crucifixes? They are but as the crows that come and are gone. But there are traders on the banks of the great lake yonder who are never absent, neither in our time nor in the time of our grandfathers and great-grandfathers. They are like the rock which cannot be moved, and they give good goods and plenty, and always the same. If you are wise you will go hence and deal with them, and never trust more the traders who are like fleas and grasshoppers—here one minute and flown away the next. ”

“ The Hudson's Bay Company witnessed the French dominion in Northamerica rise to its extreme height, decline and disappear; it saw new colonies planted by Britain; it saw them quarrel with the parent State, and themselves become transformed into States. Wars came and passed—European Powers on this continent waxed and waned, rose and faded away; remote forests were invaded by loyal subjects who erected the wilderness into opulent provinces. Change, unceasing, never-ending change, has marked the history of this hemisphere of ours ”

“ It is probable a day is at hand when all this area will be dotted with farms, villages and cities, a time when its forests will be uprooted and the plains of Rupert's Land and the North-West Territory tilled by the husbandman, its hills and valleys exploited by the miner; yet, certain spots in this vast region must ever bear testimony to the hunter of furs. Remote, solitary, often hungry and not seldom frozen—the indomitable servant of the Great Fur Company lived here his life and gave his name to mountain, lake and river. ”

“ Hardly had Charles the Second settled down to enjoy his heritage when the spirit of mercantile activity began to make itself felt once more. The arts of trade and commerce, of discovery and colonization, which had languished under the Puritan ascendancy, revived; the fever of "Imperial Expansion" burst out with an ardour which no probability of failure was able to cool; and the court of the "Merry Monarch" speedily swarmed with adventurers, eager to win his favour for the advancement of schemes to which the chiefs of the Commonwealth would have turned but a deaf ear. ”

“ One day it would be carried like wild-fire amongst the tribe who had come to barter, that the French were giving a pound of powder for a beaver; that a gun could be bought from the English for twelve beaver. In an instant there was a stampede outside the respective premises, and a rush would be made for the rival establishment. Fifty miles for a single pound of powder was nothing to these Indians, who had often journeyed two whole months in the depth of winter, endured every species of toil and hardship in order to bring down a small bundle of peltries ”

“ It is not too much to say that the fur-traders were the pioneers of civilization in the far West. They undertook the most fatiguing journeys with the greatest pluck and fortitude; they explored the country and kept it in trust for Great Britain. These fur-traders penetrated to the Rocky Mountains, and beyond, into what is now known as British Columbia, and even to the far north and northwest, in connection with the extension of trade, and the establishment of the famous "H. B. C." posts and forts, which were the leading features of the maps of the country until comparatively recent times. ”

“ He knew that men lived and ground out their lives in cities afar off, and that by means of their wealth they possessed power; that they had cast envious eyes on the hunting-grounds of the Indian and his half-brother the Métis; that they sought to wrest him from his lands and mark it off into town lots, people his beloved prairies and exterminate his race. They must mean him ill or they would not work in such a silent, stealthy fashion to dispossess him and drive him farther west into unfamiliar fastnesses. ”

“ A dashing soldier, a daring sailor, a keen and enlightened student, a man of parts, and at the age of forty-seven still worshipping adventure as a fetish and irresistibly attracted by anything that savoured of novelty, there was perhaps no other noble in England more likely to listen to such a project as the Canadian was prepared to pour into his ear, no prince in the whole of Europe more likely to succumb to its charm. ”

“ Godey was the last of the guests to depart.
"Look you," said he, when he and Radisson were alone together, "you, monsieur, are a brave man, and it does not become the brave to harbour vengeance. Nor does it become a brave nation to think hardly of any man because of his bravery, even though that nation itself be a sufferer. You know," he pursued, "what is said about you in England?" ”

“ Crushed and broken by the long strain of civil war, apparently bankrupt in letters, commerce and arms, above all, sick of the restraints imposed upon them by the Roundheads, the nation has too often been represented as abandoning itself wholly to the pursuit of pleasure, while folly and license reigned supreme at court. The almost startling rapidity with which England recovered her pride of place in the commercial world has been too little dwelt upon. ”

“ The tribe being assembled and having spread out their customary gifts, consisting of beaver tails, smoked moose tongues and pemmican, one of the leading braves arose and said:—
"Men who pretend to give us life, do you wish us to die? You know what beaver is worth and the trouble we have to take it. You call yourselves our brothers and yet will not give us what those give who make no such profession. Accept our gifts, and let us barter, or we will visit you no more. We have but to travel a hundred leagues and we will encounter the English, whose offers we have heard." ”

“ Accustomed to the hatchet of Great Britain, they could ill adopt the rude sharpened stone to the purposes of building, and until years of misery and of famine had extirpated the present race, they could not recur to the simple arts by which they supported themselves before the introduction of British manufactures. As the outfits of the Hudson's Bay Company consist principally of articles which long habit have taught them now to consider of first necessity, if we withhold these outfits, we leave them destitute of their only means of support. ”

“ No other organized government of white men in the world, since William Penn, has endeavoured to rule any population, still less a promiscuous people composed of whites, half-breeds, Indians and borderers, without a soldiery of some sort, and the inevitable result of the experiment has, in this case, been an unpunished case of prison-breaking, not sympathized in, it is true, by the majority of the settlers, but still tending to bring law and government into contempt, and greatly to discourage the governing body held responsible for keeping order in the territory."—Governor Dallas. ”

“ It is true that when several families went to war, or to the factories to trade, they chose a leader, but to such a one obedience was only voluntary; everyone was at liberty to leave when he pleased, and the notion of a commander was soon obliterated.
Merit alone gave title to distinction; such merit as an experienced hunter could boast, or one who possessed knowledge of communication between lakes and rivers, who could make long harangues, was a conjurer, or had a large family. Such a man was sure to be followed by several Indians when they happened to be out in large parties. ”

“ The younger men now stole again to the French camp and massacred all the others in their sleep, save one, who being wounded feigned death, and afterwards managed to crawl off. But he, with his companions, had been stripped to the skin by the savages, and in this state, and half-covered with blood, he made his way back to the fort. The distance being ten leagues, his survival is a matter of wonder, even to those hardy men of the wilderness.
The Governor naturally apprehended that the Indians would attempt to follow up their crime by an attack upon the fort. ”