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for ploughing; and, of course, when the soil is suitable." (P. 102.) The extension of the plan of benefit societies, to assist large families, or temporary distress, as well as absolute sickness, under the control of the principal inhabitants of a parish, and assisted by their contributions, is recommended, and has been usefully practised in Somersetshire and elsewhere. (P. 124.) To which we may add, that the custom of receiving weekly contributions from the poor during summer, to be repaid in coals and provisions during the winter months, has been experimentally found a most useful and acceptable mode of charity; and may be managed with less trouble than would be commonly supposed, by simplifying the plan of the institution at Dorking. Those who had reaped the benefits of such foresight were so sensible of the advantages conferred upon them, as to bring their contributions, at the expense of great immediate privation, during the high price of bread, throughout last summer.

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But one thing we must impress upon the public; that these and other improvements in the condition of the poor will never have more than a partial and very limited effect, till a radical alteration has been made in the administration of the present laws. The contributions of the higher ranks are often essential to the success of such schemes; but these are withheld by the pressure of the existing tax, as well as by a sort of general conviction, that what is called, though falsely called, the charity of the country, has increased the distress it professes to relieve. The co-operation of prudential foresight and restraint, on the part of the poor, is absolutely requisite; but the sluggish dependance on parochial aid, and the mean apprehension that any plan proposed for their benefit is intended to favour the parish, too often frustrates the endeavour, and disgusts those through whose means it was to be carried into execution. The schemes we have alluded to;-saving banks;-religious and moral education;-improvements in the law of settlement;-the establishment of standing-overseers;-all promise advantage: but they will all be insufficient and inefficacious, as long as the unsound root, which we have exposed, remains beneath: till the seat of the disorder is reached and removed, strengthening medicines can be of no avail.

Indeed, when we consider the degree of labour, and attention, and intelligence, and activity, employed upon the concerns of the poor, in late years, and disclosed by the evidence before us, we may justly affirm that, if it had been possible for things to go on well upon a bad system, and to succeed on a wrong principle, they must have succeeded, and the poor must have prospered in England:

-Si Pergama dextrâ
Defendi possent, etiam hâc defensa fuissent.

Painful on every other ground, in this respect alone the study of these valuable reports has been gratifying to our minds: and we gladly look forward to a time when the interest taken by the landed proprietors in the welfare of their peasantry, by the manufacturers in the prosperity of their workmen, by the magistrates in the complaints of the distressed, and by the clergy in the general melioration of the temporal and spiritual condition of their flocks, will be less opposed and frustrated by laws which give additional force to all the depraved corruptions of our nature; which offer an incentive to vice, an encouragement to improvidence, and a bounty to pauperism.

ART. XVIII.-LORD SELKIRK'S COLONY, AND THE NORTH-WEST COMPANY.

1. A Sketch of the British Fur Trade in North America, with Observations relative to the North-west Company of Montreal. By the Earl of Selkirk. London, 1816.

2. A Narrative of Occurrences in the Indian Countries of North America, since the Connection of the Right Honourable the Earl of Selkirk with the Hudson's Bay Company, and his Attempt to establish a Colony on the Red River with a detailed Account of his Lordship's Military Expedition to, and subsequent Transactions at, Fort William, in Upper Canada. London, 1817. 3. Statement respecting the Earl of Selkirk's Settlement upon the Red River, in North America: its destruction in 1815 and 1816; and the Massacre of Governor Semple and his Party. With Observations upon a recent Publication, entitled "A Narrative of Occurrences in the Indian Countries, &c." London, 1817. THE name of Lord Selkirk is closely connected with the history of emigration from these kingdoms to North America; and whilst his zeal in this cause has been put to his credit on the one hand, as patriotism and humanity, it has, on the other, been set down against him as a proof either of disordered intellects, or of a calculating and heartless selfishness. For our part, we see no reason for inquiring very deeply into secret motives, or for pronouncing on the general character of the leading persons who have lately been so active in promoting or opposing this or the other plan of colonization; but, in relation to the case now more immediately under our consideration, and after a fair and patient reading of all the documents at this moment before the public, connected with the origin and most unfortunate issue of the attempt to form a colony on the Red River, we have no difficulty whatever in stating, as a well-warranted inference from all the facts

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and arguments with which we are thus furnished, that the destruction of that colony was all along a favourite object with the North-west Company; and also, that the accomplishment of that object is in a great measure, if not solely, to be ascribed to the exertions of their resident agents and dependants, in the Indian countries. This, at least, is the impression made upon our minds from a repeated and candid perusal of the publications placed at the head of this article. Our business, however, is not with opinions: we, therefore, proceed to lay before our readers the principal circumstances of the case which we have just announced, leaving it entirely to them to draw their own conclusions.

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It is known to all who have paid any attention to the affairs of the British settlements in North America, that a charter was granted by Charles II. to the Governor and Company of Hudson's Bay, by which these persons were vested with the "sole trade and commerce of all those seas, straits, bays, rivers, lakes, creeks, and sounds, in whatever latitude they may be, that lie within the entrance of the straits, commonly called Hudson's Straits, together with the lands and territories upon the coasts, bays, &c.;" and by which, likewise, it was granted to the said Company "to have, to use, and enjoy, not only the whole, entire, and only liberty of trade and traffic, and 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 may 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." In virtue of this charter, which conferred property and privileges so extensive, the Hudson's Bay Company granted, on certain terms, to Lord Selkirk, who had already become a principal holder of their stock, a portion of land, supposed to be within the limits of their territory, amounting to about 116,000 square miles. The grant in feesimple of so much ground, exceeding in extent the kingdom of England, must, indeed, have appeared a little extravagant and whimsical, exciting doubts both as to the right on the part of the Company to make over such a bequest, and as to the validity of the tenure upon which it was to be held by the noble Lord. The opinions of counsel were accordingly taken by his Lordship'; and, as we are informed by the author of the "Statement," both "the right to the soil, as vested in the Company, and the legality of the grant, were fully supported by the opinions of the most eminent counsel in England,of Sir Samuel Romilly, Mr. (now

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Mr. Justice) Holroyd, Mr. Cruise, Mr. Scarlett, and Mr. Bell." As the propriety of the conduct afterwards pursued by Lord Selkirk's agents in establishing the infant colony on the Red River, as well, indeed, as that of the general views entertained by his Lordship himself, and of the measures which he subsequently adopted towards the North-west traders, depends a good deal upon the admission or denial of his claims, as territorial proprietor and lord of the manor, we shall give at length the legal opinions to which we have just now alluded.

"We are of opinion that the grant of the soil contained in the charter is good; and that it will include all the country, the waters of which run into Hudson's Bay, as ascertained by geographical observations. We are of opinion that an individual, holding from the Hudson's Bay Company a lease, or grant in fee simple, of any portion of their territory, will be entitled to all the ordinary rights of landed property as in England; and will be entitled to prevent other persons from occupying any part of the lands, from cutting down timber, and fishing in the adjoining waters (being such as a private right of fishing may subsist in), and may (if he can peaceably, or otherwise, by due course of law) dispossess them of any buildings which they have recently erected within the limits of his property. We are of opinion that the grant of the civil and criminal jurisdiction is valid; but it is not granted to the Company, but to the governor and council at their respective establishments; but we cannot recommend it to be exercised so as to affect the lives or limbs of criminals. It is to be exercised by the governor and council as judges, who are to proceed according to the laws of England. The Company may appoint a sheriff to execute judgment, and to do his duty as in England. We are of opinion, that the sheriff, in case of resistance to his authority, may call out the population to his assistance, and may put arms into the hands of their servants, for defence against attack, and to assist in enforcing the judgments of the court; but such powers cannot be exercised with too much circumspection. We are of opinion, that all persons will be subject to the jurisdiction of the court who reside or are found within the territories over which it extends. We do not think the act (43 Geo. III. c. 138, commonly called the Canada Jurisdiction Act) gives jurisdiction within the territories of the Hudson's Bay Company, the same being within the jurisdiction of their governors and council. We are of opinion, that the governor (in Hudson's Bay) might, under the authority of the Company, appoint constables and other officers for the preservation of the peace; and that the officers so appointed would have the same duties and privileges as similar officers in England, so far as these duties and privileges may be applicable to their situations in the territories of the Company."

Proceeding on the warrant supplied by this high authority, Lord Selkirk dispatched Mr. Miles Macdonell with a small party of settlers, who arrived on the Red River in the autumn of 1812. This person, whose name is mentioned in almost every

page of the pamphlets now before us, had been appointed by the Hudson's Bay Company Governor of Ossiniboia, in which district the proposed colony was to be founded; and to the influence connected with this important office he was enabled to add the more effective authority of a magistrate, as well as that of the commander of the small militia corps into which the settlers had just formed themselves. An accession to the strength and number of these settlers took place about the beginning of 1813, and two fresh arrivals of emigrants in June and September, 1814, raised the total amount of colonists and labourers to little less than two hundred. Houses were already erected, gardens were enclosed, and fields were covered with corn in the remote settlement of Kildonan; a name which the fond recollections of their native parish in Sutherland naturally suggested to the Celtic exiles who peopled it.

The difficulties in some degree unavoidable in the commencement of an establishment of that nature were happily got over. The heads of families, as they arrived, were put in possession of regular lots of land, which they immediately begun to cultiyate; a mill was erected; sheep and cattle were sent up to the settlement, and all practicable means were taken to further the agricultural purposes of the colony. The spot which had been selected was ascertained to be of the highest fertility, and of the most easy cultivation. Though woods abounded in the neighbourhood of the plains adjoining the Red River, containing a variety of the finest timber, yet no trees were required to be cut down, or roots to be cleared away from the lands that were appropriated to husbandry. The expensive and tedious operation of cutting down and clearing away heavy woods, before the ground can be tilled, was wholly unnecessary upon the banks of the Red River: the plough, from the first, met with no obstruction; and the soil proved in the highest degree rich and productive. The climate had long been ascertained to be equal to that of any part of Canada, and with less snow in the winter, The river abounded with fish, the extensive plains with buffalo, and the woods with elk, deer, and game. The neighbouring tribes of Indians appeared from the first to be friendly and well disposed; and all things, within and without the settlement, were in the most promising condition, when the jealousy and dislike subsisting between this branch of the Hudson's Bay Company, for so we may describe it, and the Fur-trading Company of Montreal, to whom we have already made an allusion, began to operate so powerfully in the breasts of both parties, as not only to disturb the repose which the Company had hitherto enjoyed but even to originate a series of attacks and insults, which terminated in its total ruin. Even so early as the spring of 1813,

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