But it is not necessary to further consider this question of the Indian title—a right apt to be considered by civilized intruders on barbarous and ill defined territories as not a legal but a moral one barely entitling the inhabitants to some scant and tardy measure of consideration—as the claims of the Indians and half-breeds were ultimately investigated and allowed for by the Dominion Government on the transfer of Rupert's Land as will be hereafter mentioned. Having seen, then, the settlers established in Assiniboia and holding under titles granted by the Earl of Selkirk, the grantee of the Company, and passing over for the present the investigation of the nature of such titles, it is necessary to determine for what period of time the Earl or his agents continued to grant lands to the settlers. Under these grants, whatever they were, these settlers from the beginning took and (save interruptions before referred to) continued in possession of their farms. After the death of Lord Selkirk in 1820, and until 1824, his executors continued to deal with the colony as he or his agents had done before, but since the latter date its affairs) had been entrusted to the Company's officers by the executors.(t) The settlement had cost the deceased nobleman, or his estate, a very large amount of money "from first to last" says Ross "no less a sum than 85,000l. sterling; an amount the colony would not have realized had it been sold off at auction, even twenty years after it was founded." (u) (t) Ross, p.155. (u) Ross, p. 171. CHAPTER II. OF THE POSSESSION OF ASSINIBOIA BY THE HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY. The result of the Earl's scheme of settlement having proved so disastrous, negotiations were accordingly set on foot for a transfer of the colony to the Company. This was eventually effected, and the Company purchased from the executors in the year 1835 or 1836 all the interest of the Selkirk estate in the same and became the sole owners of the District of Assiniboia, thus revesting in themselves their old title thereto. It is only natural to assume that a transaction of such magnitude would be evidenced by indentures of some description but recent enquiry from Mr. Armit, the secretary of the Company in London, elicited the strange fact that the directors were unaware of any conveyance or relinquishment whatsoever from or by the executors to the Company, nor could he furnish the date on which the Company resumed possession of the colony, if indeed any formal resumption took place or were necessary under the exceptional circumstances of the District being under its control at the time. It is unfortunate that this very important date of the re-possession of Assiniboia cannot be accurately determined in the absence of original documentary evidence, for that which is available is conflicting. Ross (v) says: For the first ten or twelve years, it (the colony) was under the management of Lord Selkirk's authority, as lord paramount; and after that in consequence of his death, it fell into the hands of his Lordship's executors, who found it convenient to transfer the government of its affairs into the hands of the Company, as noticed in the last chapter. (v) Ibid, p. 170. This arrangement lasted about twelve years more, till the present time (1835), when we have to regard it as the property of the Hudson's Bay Company by right of purchase. And further (w): Nor was it till many years after the settlement became virtually the Company's own property, that the fact was made known to the people, and then by mere chance. Till this eventuality the people were under the persuasion that the colony still belonged to the executors of Lord Selkirk, and were often given to understand so. But Hargrave (x) assigns the date a year later : In 1836 the Hudson's Bay Company repurchased from the heirs of Lord Selkirk the whole tract of country ceded to his Lordship in 1811. This step was taken as the best means of putting an end to the complications arising from the tenure of the country by Lord Selkirk's representatives. The sum paid by the Company was about £84,000, and was meant to reimburse Lord Selkirk's heirs for the large sums his Lordship had spent in improving and settling the colony. This transaction was without prejudice to the interests of all colonists who had purchased land between 1811 and 1836. The Rt. Hon. Edward Ellice, M.P., a man all powerful in the councils of the North-West and Hudson's Bay Companies and "perfectly acquainted with the constitution of both," in his evidence before the House of Commons Committee in 1857, speaking of the purchase from Lord Selkirk, said: (y) The Hudson's Bay Company have a large mass of property (Red River Settlement) which they repurchased from Lord Selkirk in 1836 for a considerable sum of money. They thought it better to extinguish Lord Selkirk's right, and not to have separate interests in the country. And again: Q. 5985. In the same statement which has been laid before this Committee, I observe an item of 84,1117. paid to Lord Selkirk for the Red River settlement? A. That is the money, actually paid to Lord Selkirk, with interest added to it. The honourable gentleman is aware that when merchants make a purchase they open an account, and they debit to that account the money which the estate cost them, and they add the interest, and deduct any revenue or receipt which they have had from it since; and the 84,000l. is the balance of such an account. (w) Ibid, p. 173. (x) Red River, p. 80. Committee on the H. B. Co., 1857. 5839, 5931. (y) Report from Select Q. In 1836, as you have already stated to the Committee? Q. Chairman-Rt. Hon. Henry Labouchere.] Deducting your profits? A. Yes. I am afraid there are no profits; it is the accumulation of interest. Before the same committee, Sir George Simpson, who had at that time been for 37 years the Governor over the whole of the Company's territories and affairs in North America, gave still another date as that of the repurchase: Q. 1776. Previously to 1834 the Red River Settlement belonged to Lord Selkirk, did it not? A. Yes. Q. It had been sold a long time previously by the Hudson's Company to his Lordship for the purposes of colonization ? A. Yes. Q. He re-transferred it to the Company in 1834 ? A. Yes. Q. And you paid his Lordship for that acquisition? Sir Edmund Head, Bart., Governor of the Company, writing (2) on November 11, 1863, in reply to the Duke of Newcastle's suggestion as to the introduction of the direct authority of the British Government in Rupert's Land, said: In 1834 the Hudson's Bay Company repurchased this district (Assiniboia) from Lord Selkirk for a consideration estimated at upwards of £80,000. But that 1836 was considered by the Canadian Government in 1873 as being the correct date may be inferred from the Act, 36 Vic. cap. 37. This made provision for the Lieutenant-Governor of Manitoba setting aside lots or tracts of land in that province, not exceeding in the whole forty-nine thousand acres, for the purpose of making free grants thereof to such persons then resident in the province as were original white settlers who came into the Red River country under the auspices of Lord Selkirk between the years one thousand eight hundred and thirteen and thirty-five, both inclusive, or children of such original settlers not being half-breeds. (z) Hudson's Bay Co., Correspondence etc., London, 1869, p. 26. Even were Sir George Simpson's statements before the Select Committee generally entitled to weight, and it is well known that they were not, in a matter of dates such as this his memory would be very apt to be defective and not at all as liable to be correct as the deliberate assertion of Hargrave, who for many years held a very responsible position in the Company's service at Fort Garry, where he had, as he tells us truly in his preface, " constant recourse to documents connected with the government," and "carefully consulted authorities on every point in which doubt rested on [his] mind." Ross gives no reason for fixing the date at 1835, and his manner of stating the fact is rather loose, and the same remark applies to Sir Edmund Head's letter. In favour of 1836 we have Mr. Ellice's positive statement, and he was in the best position to know the truth, Hargrave's corroborative testimony, and lastly the provision of the Act of Parliament formally recognizing the rights of the Earl's settlers up to 1836, being between 1813 and 1835 inclusive, and this exactly corresponds with that provision of the Earl's will which directed his executors immediately after his death (1820) to enter into possession of his lands but not to hold them for a period exceeding fifteen years. The effect of all the above evidence may be fairly taken to be that, though there is ample proof of the very day on which the Earl took possession (a) of (a) Ante, p. 7; and also the following certificate of Peaceable Possession given by the H. B. Co.'s officers at the Forks : Be it remembered that on the fourth day of September, in the year one thousand eight hundred and twelve, at the Fork of Red River peaceable and quiet possession of the land and hereditaments by the within Indenture (ante, p. 7) granted and enfeoffed or otherwise assured or expressed and intended so to be was taken had and delivered by the within named William Hillier, one of the attornies for that purpose appointed, unto the within named Miles Macdonnell, Esquire, who was duly authorized to receive the same to and for the use of the within named Earl of Selkirk, his heirs and assigns according to the form and effect of the within written Indenture, in the presence of (Sd.) JNo. MCLEOD, RODK. MCKENZIE. -Mss. |