November, 1869, until April or May of 1870; during that time fraudulent entries were made by W. B. O'Donohue, a member of the Provisional Government, who assumed the charge of it and other public documents. An instance of such tampering would be found in the case of Lot 1212, where a transfer is recorded by Madame Noline to Joseph Poitras, as of date of October 24, 1868; this is a forgery in the handwriting of O'Donohue. To brand it as such, Mr. McTavish made an entry, "Null. Not made with the authority of the H. B. C.-J. H. McTavish." In the summer of 1870, after the troops came to Fort Garry, the Company regained possession of the register. After the Transfer, some few entries might have been recorded in it; as Mr. McTavish put it, "I might have made transfers in this book after it came back into my possession, and there was nothing to prevent the holders [the Company] making any entry they chose in it. This was the only official record book of land transactions during the time the Council of Assiniboia were the Government of this country" (u). The original entries in Register B were made, says the same witness, in Keating v. Moyses, "from the old Hudson's Bay entries which were in quarter folio, and they were made by him who got up this book, and his entry was recognized by the Hudson's Bay Company. ... I don't know what became of the old books; I rather fancy they are in the hands of the Department of the Interior. The Company say they haven't got them. . . . This book took the place of the old books, and was made for the purpose of showing the title, and has been used by the Company ever since." The object of the heading "Acres granted by Lord Selkirk," was to distinguish between those who derived title direct from the Earl before he reconveyed to the Company, and those who derived from the Company after that event. Though in 1883 the Company said that it had not got (u) Council established in 1835. Mr. McTavish is mistaken in this statement, as will later appear. the old records from which Register B was made up, a statement repeated to the writer last year, yet he was fortunate enough, after a persistent search, to discover them on the 27th of October, and they are now in case No. 1, in the Company's warehouse No. 4, on the north bank of the Red River, and are indexed as numbers 64 and 65. They should rather be described as small folio volumes, half-bound in faded red leather. They are labelled in writing as follows: Memo Respecting Grants They record grants of land by Lord Selkirk and the Company in a fashion very similar to Register B already described, but the headings, which differ slightly, and lines are filled in by hand, not printed. The writing is very similar to, if not identical with, that of B. The great distinction is that the method of arrangement is not by consecutive number of lots, but alphabetically according to the grantees' names. Thus the three first grantees are Joseph Adam, George Adams, and Pierre Allard, receiving lots Nos. 379 (100 acres), 168 (50 acres), and 862 (50 acres) respectively. These numbers correspond with those in Register B, so it is probably the original record of Taylor's survey. The three grants cited are stated to be from the Company, May 1, 1835, April 20, 1835, and April 6, 1835. It will be remembered that in a prior chapter (v) it was stated that, in default of better evidence, the date of the reconveyance by Lord Selkirk to the Company would be taken to be 1836, but if these entries are accurate as to dates, and not made regardless of a wish to strictly distinguish between the grants of the Earl and the Company, the assumption would be that the reconveyance was made prior to the earliest of these grants, (v) Ante, p. 19. i.e. April 6, 1835. Volume 1 contains names A to N, volume 2 the rest of the alphabet; the pages are not numbered. The dates of grants range from November 10, 1830, Lot 571, 50 acres to John Hourie, senior, by Lord Selkirk, to Lot 98, 25 acres, from the Company to James Johnstone, on January 6, 1840, i.e. in the handwriting in which nearly every entry is recorded: but there are two later grants interpolated in a different hand, one to William Donald, jr., of Lot 30, 93 fractional acres, on May 2, 1843, at 7s. 6d. per acre; and the other, the latest, to François Boudron, Lot 320, 65 fractional acres, by the Company, on February 5, 1844, valued at £7 158. Od. The inference from this would be that Register B is at least as old as 1844. Most of the grants bear date in April, 1835, but a number were made on April 15, 1839; for example, the Widow Kennedy, from Lord Selkirk, of Lot 491, 50 acres. This shows, as above suggested, that these dates cannot be relied on with certainty, for the colony had passed out of the possession of the deceased Earl's executors at least three years before. The prices range from 58., 78. 6d., 10s., to 12s., 6d. per acre. In the "Remarks" are recorded transfers from one party to another, and other information, such as the making of payments; in some cases no date of a grant is given, nor a price, nor from whom derived. Names and particulars appear in these volumes which are not noticed in B; for example, compare the entries in regard to Alex. McLean and Lots 220 and 632, and John McLean, Lots 221 and 633. In B Alex. McLean is not mentioned in connection with Lot 220, nor does the name of John McLean appear at all. Apparently in B the intermediate grantees were not recorded, only the owner at the time of the compilation. In an official report made by the late Chief Justice Wood, of Manitoba, to the Department of the Interior, on a case (w) (w) Quoted in A Manual of the Law of Registration of Titles to Real Estate in Manitoba, etc. By L. W. Coutlée. Toronto, 1890. submitted to him under the Dominion Lands Act, he stated that the register, "as containing a connected history of the changes and transfer of land," was "wholly unreliable." No one at all familiar with this record would claim for it any such properties; it shows on the face of it that it is not a connected history of any of the lots therein mentioned, but it is strong prima facie proof of ownership in fee at a specified time. This is the view now entertained by the best authorities, and acted upon by the Government. The expression "acres granted" either by the Earl or the Company conveys not the slightest intention of a limitation to a lease; according to a well-known rule of law, the presumption of the greater estate is in favour of the grantee. If it had been intended to lease the land, that word would have been used. As was pointed out by Mr. (now Chief Justice) Justice Taylor in 1883 (x), the memorandum "does not contain particulars from which it could be treated as an agreement for a lease; for instance, no term is mentioned for which the grantee was to hold the land." As has been seen in Chapter IV., the view taken by the Department of Justice is that "the word 'grant' in the entries may be considered to afford an indication that the intention was to grant a fee simple." In regard to Register B, it only remains to be said that two copies of it are in existence, one in the Department of the Interior at Ottawa, and the other in the Land Titles Office at Winnipeg. The Manitoba Government, recognizing the great importance of this record, authorized at its first session, by statute, "an act to make valid a certain copy of the Hudson's Bay Company's plans of survey and for other purposes," the making an exact copy of the register. This was done by Messrs. W. N. Kennedy and Frank I. Clarke, and their affidavit of verification, dated January 7, 1874, will (x) Kealing v. Moises, 2 Man. R. 48. be found on the back of the copy in the Land Titles Office, together with a certificate of Lieut.-Governor Morris. The work was well and carefully done, even the faintest pencil-marks being faithfully reproduced. This attested and statutory copy is received in all courts as evidence where the original would be so received. Register A is in Government House, Winnipeg, and is a thick folio volume, likewise bound in brown pigskin and fastened with two brass clasps. It is much smaller than B, and is not stamped with the Company's arms, as it belonged to the executors of Lord Selkirk, and was compiled by them, though there is no particular date assigned to it. It is lettered on the front cover, and back, "Register Book A," and was made by Bailey, Surgey and Blight, 89, Cornhill, London. It is not a register of lands, but of documents relating to the settlement. The first thirty-eight pages alone are utilized, and of these No. 35 is blank. Document No. 1 is a copy of the conveyance from the Company to Lord Selkirk, June 12, 1811. This will be found in Appendix B. It occupies pages 1-13 inclusive, the last three and a half being taken up with affidavits of due execution, certificates, etc. To face page 9 is a copy of a map, beautifully executed, of the territory granted, on a large sheet folded up, more than twice as big as an ordinary page of the register. A reduced copy of this map will be found elsewhere in this volume. Document No. 2 is a copy of the agreement of July 18, 1817, between Lord Selkirk and the chiefs of the Saulteaux Nation, given on page 12 of this book. This agreement occupies pages 14 and 15, and to face the latter page is a map, also reproduced in this volume on a reduced scale; the portion conveyed is coloured blue in the register. Document No. 3 occupies pages 16-22, and three-quarters of 23, and is a copy of Trust Disposition (dated at Edinburgh, August 20, 1806, and registered in the Books of the Lords |