1696 A. D. It was not England alone to which the fisheries of Newfoundland were of value. France was equally in earnest in her desire to gain control of the coveted territory. She had one or two small settlements, and she had been able by one happy stroke to gain possession of the whole island. The triumph, however, was not enduring, for England speedily reclaimed all that she had lost. By the treaty of Utrecht, when Louis XIV. was reduced by the victorious arms of Marlborough to the last extremity of exhaustion, France ceded to England all her claims upon Newfoundland; preserving still, however, her right to participate in the fisheries. 1713 A. D. Down almost to the close of last century Newfoundland was without any proper government or administration of justice. England would not recognize the island as a colony, but persisted in regarding it as a mere fishery. The substitute for government was probably the rudest device which has ever been adopted by any civilized country. The master of the fishing-vessel which arrived first on the coast was the "Admiral" for the season, charged with the duty of maintaining order among the crews of the other ships, governing the island from the deck of his vessel. The great industry of Newfoundland-her fisheries-was always prosperous, and yielded large gains to the mother-country. But her infant settlements struggled up to strength and importance in the face of many discouragements, which were negligently or wilfully inflicted. 1690 A. D. The area of Newfoundland is equal to two-thirds that of England and Wales, and her population is one hundred and fifty thousand. For three hundred and fifty years after Cabot's discovery the interior of the island had never been explored by Europeans, and was wholly unknown, excepting to a few Indian hunters. Only so recently as 1822 an adventurous traveller accomplished for the first time a journey across the island. The enterprise was attended with much difficulty and some danger. The country was found to be rugged and broken. Innumerable lakes and marshes opposed the traveller's progress, and imposed tedious deviations from his course. The journey occupied two months, during which the traveller and his Indian companions were obliged to subsist by the chase. No traces of cultivation were discovered, and no inhabitants. The natives of Newfoundland were the only race of American savages who persistently refused to enter into relations with the white men. They maintained to the end a hostile attitude, and were shot down and finally exterminated as opportunity offered. Newfoundland has on her western coast, and along the valleys through which her rivers flow, some tracts of rich land on which grain might be grown. She has, too, much good pasturage; and although her winters are long and severe, her brief summer has heat enough to ripen many varieties of fruit and vegetables. She has coal, iron, and limestone. Her savage inhabitants fed on the flesh of deer, which wandered in vast herds in the woods; and they clothed themselves in the rich furs of bears, wolves, beavers, and other wild creatures. The first settlers found the noble Newfoundland dog living in a very debased condition-hunting in packs, and manifesting tendencies not superior to those of the wolf. But his higher nature made him amenable to civilizing influences, and he quickly rose to be the trusted companion and friend of man. CHAPTER XV. THE PROVINCES OF THE NORTH-WEST. HE boundary-line which marks the southern limit of British territory divides the continent into two not very unequal portions. On one side stretches out the vast area covered by the United States-the home of fifty million people-the seat of the manifold industries which their energy has called into existence. On the other side there lies a yet wider expanse of territory, whose development is still in the future. Northward and westward of the original line of settlement in the valley of the St. Lawrence the possessions of Great Britain are nearly equal in extent to the whole of Europe. Towards the Atlantic vast pine-forests cover the ground. Towards the Pacific are great mountainranges, rich with mineral treasures, destined to yield wealth to the men of future generations. The central portion of the continent is a vast expanse of rich farm-land, where the slightest efforts of the husbandman yield lavish increase.* Great navi * "It was here that Canada, emerging from her woods and forests, first gazed upon her rolling prairies and unexplored North-West, and learned, as by an unexpected revelation, that her historical territories of the Canadas-her eastern sea-boards of New Brunswick, Labrador, and Nova Scotia; her Lawrentian lakes and valleys, corn-lands and pastures-though themselves more extensive than half-a-dozen European kingdoms, were but the vestibules and ante-chambers to that till then undreamt-of Dominion, whose illimitable dimensions alike confound the arithmetic of the surveyor and the verification of the explorer. It was hence that, counting her past achievements as but the preface and prelude to her future exertions and expanding destinies, she took a fresh departure, received the afflatus of a more imperial inspiration, and felt herself no longer a mere settler along the banks of a single river, but the owner of half a continent; and, in the magnitude of her possession, in the wealth of her resources, in the sinews of her material might, the peer of any power on the earth."--Lord Dufferin, Governor-General of Canada. Speech in the City Hall, Winnipeg, September 1877. gable rivers, which take their origin in the Rocky Mountains, traverse the continent, and wait, silent and unused, to bear the traffic which coming years must bring. The Saskatchewan, after a course of thirteen hundred miles, and the Red River, whose scources are very near those of the Mississippi, after flowing nearly seven hundred miles, pour their ample floods into Lake Winnipeg-a vast sheet of water, covering an area equal to one-third that of Scotland. The Nelson River carries the waters of Lake Winnipeg into Hudson Bay by a course of three hundred miles, which could easily be rendered navigable for ships of large burden. Lake Winnipeg is in the latitude of England; but the genial influences of the Gulf Stream do not visit those stern coasts, whose temperature is largely governed by the ice-cold currents of the Arctic Ocean. The climate is severe, the winter is long. During five or six months of the year the country lies under a covering of snow; river and lake are fast bound by frost; the thermometer occasionally sinks to fifty degrees below zero. This stern dominion does not pass gradually away; it ceases almost suddenly. The snow disappears as if by magic; the streams resume their interrupted flow; trees clothe themselves with foliage; the plains are gay with grass and flower. At one stride comes the summer, with its fierce heat, with its intolerable opulence of insect life, with its swift growth and ripening of wild fruits, and of the seeds which the sower has scattered over the fertile soil. At the coming of Europeans into America this magnificent region was possessed by numerous tribes of Indians, who gained their food and clothing almost wholly by the chase. In course of years the white man found that the Indian would sell, for trivial payment, rich furs which were eagerly desired in Europe. The Indian came to understand that he could exchange his easily obtained furs for the musket which the strangers brought and taught him to use, for the beads with which he loved to ornament himself, for the seductive liquors which quickly asserted a destructive mastery over his savage nature. Out of these experiences there arose trading relations between the Indians of the North-West and the adventurous Europeans who from time to time made their way into those mysterious regions. A sagacious Frenchman perceived the advantage which was to be gained by an organized and systematic prosecution of this lucrative commerce. He proposed the enterprise to his countrymen, but it failed to command their support. The baffled projector made his way to England, and obtained access to Prince Rupert, to whom he unfolded his scheme. A quarter of a century had passed since the fierce charges of Rupert's cavalry swept down the troops of the Parliament at Naseby and Newark, since he himself had been chased from Marston Moor by the stern Ironsides of Cromwell. The prince was now a sedate man of fifty. The vehemence of his youth had mellowed itself down to a love of commercial adventure. He lent a willing ear to the ingenious Frenchman. His influence with the public procured the formation of a company, whose paid-up capital was £10,500. His influence with his cousin, King Charles, sufficed to obtain a charter. The liberal monarch bestowed half a continent 1668 A.D. 1670 upon these speculators, on no more burdensome terms A.D. than that they should pay two elks and two black beavers to the sovereign whensoever he visited their territory. "The Governor and Company of Adventurers trading into Hudson Bay" were endowed by this liberal monarch with "“all countries which lie within the entrance of Hudson's Straits, in whatever latitude they may be, so far as not possessed by other Christian States." Thus largely privileged, the adventurers entered upon a career of unusual success. In a few years they paid a dividend at the rate of fifty per cent.; a little later they trebled their capital out of profits, and paid to shareholders twenty-five per cent. upon the increased amount; |