The Sun.
London, England, 1848-09-02 00:00:00

v'j Attalt 11
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LONDON, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 11148.

Not only do we consider the Government culpable
in entertaining the project of a transference of Van-
couver's Island to the Hudson's Bay Company, but
we regard the members of the ruling Cabinet as de-
serving our most serious condemnation, for inasmuch
as they permit the atrocious administration of that
company to coritinue uncorrected. Every one who is
net implicated, either directly or indirectly, in their
transactions ; every one who is not either a shareholder
or a director in the Hudson's Bay Company acknow-
ledges that the maintenance of their rule in the
northern portions of North America has been, during
a period of 178 years, most disastrous to the territories
intrusted to their charge, and most destructive to the
cause of the diffusion of civilization. The first char-
ter granted to the company was dated as far back as
1670—. that company consisting of not more than ten
or eleven individuals, whose mercantile enterprise
tended even then materially to their own advantage,
and in no manner to the commercial interest of the
United Kingdom. About sixty or seventy years
ago there were not more than four vessels employed
by the company, and those vessels manned by merely
120 seamen—their exportation of commodities, being
to the extent of 16,0001. in value, and bringing home
returns to the amount of 29,3401. Since that period,
the trade carried on through the four principal ports
of Churchill, New Severn, Nelson, and Albany, ha
been wonderfully extended—the result being exclu-
sively for the benefit of these gigantic monopolists.
If we only bear in recollection the extraordinary
nature of the commodities drawn from the dominions
of the Hudson's Bay Company, we shall be compelled
to acknowledge that the British Government has
been hitherto most lax in abstaining from the demand
of some sort of compensation from a body of men,
who, through the application of its leniency, have been
so singularly benefited. Without taking into account
the enormous profits derivable from the Hudson's Bay
fishexies, we will simply refer to the character of the
trade in fur and peltry. In our preceding observa-
tions upon this subject, it:will be remembered, that
we have maintained, in language as explicit as pos-
sible, that the interests of the company were directly
opposed to the most visible interests of civilization and
Christianity. We explained the accuracy of this
assertion by remarking that the chief care of the
directors would manifestly be to preserve their terri-
tories in such a condition as would be best calculated
to promote the propagation of the wild animals whose
skins are the principal commodities from which they
derive their revenues. To attain this end the most
obvious and the least difficult course is the prevention
of colonization and the entire avoidance of anything
approaching to a systematic cultivation of the
soil. The wilder the condition of their do-
minions the more prolific would be the
source of their emolument. And the necessity
of tilts prolific propagation among the wild beasts of
North America becomes the more comprehensible
when we reflect that those animals make up in
numerical abundance for the diminutive character of
the different species ; for instance, the tapurette,
which is the largest animal in the territories of the
Hudson's Bay Company, is scarcely bigger than a
calf twelve months old, while the Asiatic elephan

attains, in many instances, to the height of more than
#'teen feet. Again, the cougar, which is the tiger;
the taquar, which is the leopard ; and the taquaretti,
which is the panther of North America, are, in their
respectiV dimensions, of comparative insignificance.
In testimony of this, it is only necessary to observe,
that while the Bengal tiger measures six feet in
length, exclusive of the tail, the American
cougar very seldom exceeds three feet from
the tip of the nose to the buttock. As

a token of how this smallness of size is counter,

balanced by prolific generation we may mention the
Ikct, that European goats imported to the neighbour.
hoed of Hudson's Bay have been found to diminish in
bulk in the course of a few generations, but in pro-
portion as the size of the animal decreased, its powers
of propagation were increased, so that instead of
bearing one or two kids at a time, it would produce
as many as five, six, and sometimes even seven at a
litter. It is clear, therefore, that greater facilities
for undisturbed propagation are requisite in the nor-
thern tracts of the North American continent than
perhaps anywhere else upon the globe, inasmuch as
general abundance is the
only compensation for the
individual diminutiveness

.To this end the Hudson's Bay Company have hi-
therto directed the whole of their, energies,oflwl
at the
knowledge,
ex-
pense of humanity, of religion
The deductions derivable from the data
of their-
lorious history assure us that in their estimation ti
gheextent of their dividends is of immeasurably e
more
account than the progress of enlightenment or the
spread of Christianity. As far back as the year 1788
we find Mr. GUTHRIE inveighing against the ,tini-
quitous spirit " displayed by the Hudson's Bay
Company in all their transactions. The shameful
character of their policy has been by no means im.

proved since those words were written by that

eminent geographer. Possessing an almost irre-
sponsible authority, holding over their subjects a