the original limits of British territory, and the French fur-traders continued to push their outposts into the wilderness on every side; while, as we know, the American colonies were ever spreading further and further to the north as well as to the west.
It was in the early part of this century that the Hudson's Bay Company, whose previous career we have already sketched, was in the zenith of its prosperity. Even so long ago as 1684, it had declared a dividend of 50 per cent.; while a little later, about the time of the Peace of Utrecht, we are told that, by a call of only 10 per cent. upon its shareholders, it was able to treble its income. But early in the present century—in 1827—a recent writer informs us, "the price of a flint-lock musket, valued in Fort Dunvegan at perhaps twenty shillings, was worth sables at three pounds a piece, piled up on either side of the weapon until they were level with its muzzle. A six-shilling blanket was bartered for beavers which would bring in London eighteen or twenty pounds; and a black fox was obtained for a price at which the neediest Dog Rib or Locheaux would now laugh his loudest." The Hudson's Bay Company was indeed autocratic within the wide territories where it held sway, and it could make not its own prices merely, but also its own laws. As the century proceeded, however, a change came: first of all, the price of beaver decreased, from the growing use of silk in the manufacture of hats. Then came the rising tide of jealousy against monopolies and a consequent inclination to examine the Company's titles. Moreover, Canada itself was eager for "elbow-room;" and still further, as we have seen, the United States were spreading northward, and so impinging upon its territory. Thus the story of the Hudson's Bay Company has gradually come to be one of decay, and the great triumphs won, with the wonderful bargains struck by the directors, are alike things of the past.
One can not but be struck with the lack of enterprise and enthusiasm which marked the relations of Great Britain to her American possessions during this period. The spread of United States settlements had necessitated the establishment of an international boundary line, and in 1818, the 49th degree of north latitude had been fixed by treaty as the limit between the Western States and British America, the St. Lawrence and its lakes remaining, as before, the boundary between Canada and the Eastern States of the Union. But another half-century elapsed before any attempt was made by the British Government to survey and mark this new boundary line. The outlying colonies struggled on, some of them almost entirely cut off from
