He also dispatched an official
to govern what might be called the Middle West on behalf of the
Hudson's Bay Company. This person, acting under instructions, claimed
the whole region beyond the provinces of Upper and Lower Canada as the
private property of the Hudson's Bay Company, on the strength of their
antiquated charter issued by Charles II. The agents of the North-west
Company were warned (as also the two or three thousand French
Canadians and half-breeds in their pay) that henceforth they must not
cut wood, fish or hunt, build or cultivate, save by the permission and
as the tenants of the Hudson's Bay Company.
[Footnote 3: Prince Edward's Island is off the north coast of New
Brunswick. It was named after Queen Victoria's father, the Duke of
Kent.]
It is not surprising that such an outrageous demand, when it was
followed up by the use of armed force, soon provoked bloodshed and a
state of civil war throughout the North-west Territories. Lord Selkirk
himself took command on the Red River, with a small army of
disciplined soldiers. At length, in 1817, the British Government
intervened through the Governor-General of Canada, and in 1818 Lord
Selkirk left North America disgusted, and two years afterwards died at
Pau, in France, from an illness brought on by grief at the failure of
his projects.
Sir Alexander Mackenzie also died suddenly in 1820, in Scotland.
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