A great land company--Fort Garry dismantled--The new buildings--New _v._ old--New life in the Company--Palmy days are recalled--Governors of ability--The present distinguished Governor--Vaster operations--Its eye not dimmed 472
The Greater Canada--Wide wheat fields--Vast pasture lands--Huronian mines--The Kootenay riches--Yukon nuggets--Forests--Iron and coal--Fisheries--Two great cities--Towns and villages--Anglo-Saxon institutions--The great outlook 477
B.--SUMMARY OF LIFE OF PIERRE ESPRIT RADISSON 489
C.--COMPANY POSTS IN 1856, WITH INDIANS 491
G.--NAMES OF H. B. CO. OFFICERS IN PLATE OPPOSITE PAGE 442 498
Four great Governors of the Hudson's Bay Company _Frontispiece_
Junction of the Ottawa and St. Lawrence 94
Map of Route of Scottish Merchants up the Ottawa to Lake Athabasca 96
Fort Edmonton, on the North Saskatchewan 336
Map of Labrador, and the King's Domains 378
Council of Hudson's Bay Company Commissioned Officers held in Winnipeg, 1887 442
Hudson's Bay Company's Stores and General Offices, Winnipeg 472
Famous Companies--"The old lady of Fenchurch Street"--The first voyage--Radisson and Groseilliers--Spurious claim of the French of having reached the Bay--"Journal published by Prince Society"--The claim invalid--Early voyages of Radisson--The Frenchmen go to Boston--Cross over to England--Help from Royalty--Fiery Rupert--The King a stockholder--Many hitherto unpublished facts--Capt. Zachariah Gillam--Charles Fort built on Rupert River--The founder's fame.
Charles Lamb--"delightful author"--opens his unique "Essays of Elia" with a picturesque description of the quaint "South Sea House." Threadneedle Street becomes a magnetic name as we wander along it toward Bishopsgate Street "from the Bank, thinking of the old house with the oaken wainscots hung with pictures of deceased governors and sub-governors of Queen Anne, and the first monarchs of the Brunswick dynasty--huge charts which subsequent discoveries have made antiquated--dusty maps, dim as dreams, and soundings of the Bay of Panama." But Lamb, after all, was only a short time in the South Sea House, while for more than thirty years he was a clerk in the India House, partaking of the genius of the place.
The India House was the abode of a Company far more famous than the South Sea Company, dating back more than a century before the "Bubble" Company, having been brought into existence on the last day of the sixteenth century by good Queen Bess herself. To a visitor, strolling down Leadenhall Street, it recalls the spirit of Lamb to turn into East India Avenue, and the mind wanders back to Clive and Burke of Macaulay's brilliant essay, in which he impales, with balanced phrase and perfect impartiality, Philip Francis and Warren Hastings alike.
