shment nearly dead with
hunger, is what I am not able to do."

In the work already quoted I find it stated "that the Company have
carefully nursed the various animals, removing their stations from the
various districts where they had become scarce, and taking particular
care to preserve the female while pregnant! instead, therefore, of
being in a state of diminution, as generally supposed, the produce is
increasing throughout their domains." Fudge! It is unnecessary to
say, that if this statement were correct, we should not hear such
distressing accounts of starvation throughout the country. No people
can be more attached to their native soil than the Indians; and it is
only the most pressing necessity that ever compels them to remove.

In 1842 the Governor and Committee issued positive orders that the
beavers should be preserved, and every effort made to prevent the
Indians from killing them for a period of three years. This was, in a
great measure, "shutting the stable door after the steed was stolen."
The beavers had already been exterminated in many parts of the
country; and even where some were yet to be found, our injunctions to
the natives to preserve them had but little weight. To appease their
hunger they killed whatever game came in their way, and as we were
not permitted to buy the beaver skins, they either converted them into
articles of clothing for themselves or threw them away. Now (1845) the
restriction is removed, and the beavers have sensibly increased; but
mark the result: the natives are not only encouraged but strenuously
urged to hunt, in order that the parties interested may indemnify
themselves for their lost time; and ere three years more shall have
elapsed, the beaver will be found scarcer than ever.

It is thus evident that whatever steps their Honours may take to
preserve the game, the attainment of that object, in the present
exhausted state of the country, is no longer practicable.

As to the Company's having ever issued orders, or recommended any
particular measures for the preservation of the larger animals, male
or female, the statement is positively untrue. The minutes of the
Council are considered the statutes of the land, and in them the
provision districts are directed to furnish so many bags of pemmican,
so many bales of dry meat, and so many cwt. of grease, every year; and
no reference whatever is made to restrictions of any kind in killing
the animals. The fact is, the provisi