The Great Company : Being a History of the Honourable Company of Merchants-Adventurers Trading into Hudson's Bay (English Edition) [Kindle-editie] beoordelingen het boek quotes

The Hudson's Bay Company witnessed the French dominion in Northamerica rise to its extreme height, decline and disappear; it saw new colonies planted by Britain; it saw them quarrel with the parent State, and themselves become transformed into States. Wars came and passed—European Powers on this continent waxed and waned, rose and faded away; remote forests were invaded by loyal subjects who erected the wilderness into opulent provinces. Change, unceasing, never-ending change, has marked the history of this hemisphere of ours; yet there is one force, one institution, which survived nearly all conditions and all régimes. For two full centuries the Hudson's Bay Company existed, unshorn of its greatness, and endures still—the one enduring pillar in the New World mansion.In pondering the early records of the Company, one truth will hardly escape observation. It did not go forth amongst the savages with the Bible in its hand. Elsewhere, an old axiom, and true—first the missionary, then the soldier, then the trader. In the case of the Company, this order has been reversed. The French associations in Canada for the collection and sale of furs were preceded by the Jesuits—brave, viiifearless, self-denying—whose deeds form the theme of some of Parkman's most thrilling pages.A few years since, in the solitudes of the West, two European tourists were struck by the frequency with which they encountered a certain mystic legend. Eager to solve its meaning, they addressed a half-breed lounger at a small station on the Canadian Pacific Railway."Tell us, my friend," they said, "what those three letters yonder signify. Wherever we travel in this country we encounter 'H. B. C.' We have seen the legend sewn on the garments of Indians; we have seen it flying from rude forts; it has been painted on canoes; it is inscribed on bales and boxes. What does 'H. B. C.' mean?""That's the Company," returned the native grimly, "Here Before Christ."Might not the first missionary who, in 1818, reached York Factory contemplate his vast cure, and say: Here, bartering, civilizing, judging, corrupting, revelling, slaying, marching through the trackless forest, making laws and having dominion over a million souls—here before Christ!It is probable a day is at hand when all this area will be dotted with farms, villages and cities, a time when its forests will be uprooted and the plains of Rupert's Land and the North-West Territory tilled by the husbandman, its hills and valleys exploited by the miner; yet, certain spots in this vast region must ever bear testimony to the hunter of furs. Remote, solitary, often hungry and not seldom frozen—the indomitable servant of the Great Fur Company lived here his life and gave his name to mountain, lake and river.The Great Company : Being a History of the Honourable Company of Merchants-Adventurers Trading into Hudson's Bay, Expedition in the West Indies, Satisfaction of the Company, Progress of the Company, Claims Mentioned in Declaration, Conditions of Trade, License of the Rivals