Hudson Bay Company
a fur-trading company of British North America. Two Frenchmen, who were dissatisfied because the French fur traders would not extend their operations into the Hudson Bay country, succeeded in gaining the attention of a London trading firm. Prince Rupert, a cousin of King Charles II, took up the matter and brought home a cargo of furs from Hudson Bay. In 1670 he secured a charter for himself and seventeen associates, running "to the Governor and Company of Merchants-Adventurers, trading into Hudson's Bay." The king granted this company a monopoly of the right to trade in that region, authorizing it to expel rivals, to build forts, maintain ships of war, to declare war and to make peace with non-Christians, that is to say, the Indians. The capital of the company was $52,500, divided into thirty-five shares.
The company built a number of forts and established a profitable trade. The early dividends averaged forty per cent per annum, but the total volume of business was small in comparison with that carried on by the French fur traders of the St. Lawrence. The operations of the company were hindered and large losses were inflicted by various intercolonial wars. During the war of the Spanish Succession the company declared that a half a million dollars' worth of its property had been destroyed. When France ceded her North American possessions to England the business of the company was greatly enlarged, and it became exceedingly wealthy. In 1784 a company of Scotch merchants started a rival concern, the Northwest Fur Company, headquarters at Montreal. These companies did each other all the harm they could, sinking each other's canoes, destroying each other's forts, inciting Indian massacres, and coming into actual conflict at arms. In 1821 they were consolidated.
Parliament adopted the policy at this time of making the company land grants, so that it became not only a fur-trading and military company, but a landowner. Vancouver Island was granted. At this time the company employed 513 men and thirty-five officers. A few years later there were over 3,000 employes and officers with 152 trading posts. In 1859 the right of the company to a monopoly of trade expired, but it was too well intrenched to permit successful rivalry. It was also a large landholder. The Dominion of Canada desired to introduce settlers, a project quite at variance with the views of fur traders. The company held that powers of government granted in the original charter could not be taken away, and that the company had the right to forbid the entrance of settlers into its fur-producing territory. The government felt that the rights of the company ought not to be permitted to frustrate plans for the settlement and development of the country. A compromise was arranged in 1869. The company transferred all its right of government to the Dominion of Canada. The Dominion gave the company $1,500,000 and a grant of one-twentieth of all lands which might be set out for settlement. These lands are held under a title similar to that by which a railroad company holds a grant.
The company is far from extinct. It maintains about 200 factories, or fur-buying stations, stretching from Labrador westward to British Columbia, and northward to the borders of Alaska and the Arctic Ocean. A regular mail route is maintained, extending from Edmonton northward through the Mackenzie region. The lands of the company have been placed on the market, and are bringing in large sums of money. The profits of the company for the year 1908 were $2,250,000. Shares, originally valued at pound10 or $50, now command $400, and are not to be had at that. The central office is maintained, as of old, in London.