se territories, known as Rupert's Land, by
virtue of a charter given by King Charles II, on the 2nd May, 1670, to
Prince Rupert, the Duke of Albemarle, and other Englishmen of rank and
wealth. The early operations of this Company of Adventurers of England
were confined to the vicinity of Hudson and James Bays. The French of
Canada for many years disputed the rights of the English company to this
great region, but it was finally ceded to England by the Treaty of
Utrecht. Twenty years after the Treaty of Paris (1763) a number of
wealthy and enterprising merchants, chiefly Scotch, established at
Montreal the North-West Company for the purpose of trading in those
north-western territories to which French traders had been the first to
venture. This new company carried on its operations with such activity
that in thirty years' time it employed four thousand persons and
occupied sixty posts in different parts of the territories.

The Hudson's Bay Company's headquarters was York Factory, on the great
bay to which British ships, every summer, brought out supplies for the
posts. The North-West Company followed the route of the old French
traders from Lachine by way of the Ottawa or the lakes to the head of
Lake Superior, and its principal depot was Fort William on the
Kaministiquia River. The servants of the North-West Company became
indefatigable explorers of the territories as far as the Pacific Ocean
and arctic seas. Mr., afterwards Sir, Alexander Mackenzie first followed
the river which now bears his name, to the Arctic Ocean, into which it
pours its mighty volume of water. He was also the first to cross the
Rocky Mountains and reach the Pacific coast. Simon Fraser, another
employee of the company, discovered, in 1808, the river which still
recalls his exploits; and a little later, David Thompson, from whom a
river is named, crossed further south and reached Oregon by the Columbia
River. The energetic operations of the North-west Company so seriously
affected the business of the Hudson's Bay Company that in some years the
latter declared no dividends. The rivalry between the two companies
reached its highest between 1811 and 1818, when Thomas Douglas, fifth
Earl of Selkirk, who was an enthusiastic promoter of colonisation in
British North America, obtained from the Hudson's Bay Company an immense
tract of land in the Red River country and made an earnest effort to
establish a Scotch settlement at Kildonan. But his efforts to p