Colonial Despatches
The colonial despatches of Vancouver Island and British Columbia 1846-1871
Public Offices document
Pelly, John Henry
to
Grey, George
4 March 1848, CO 305:1, no. 471, 145.
Abstract
Public Offices document.
Minutes (4), Other documents (1), Marginalia (1).
Pelly lays out for Grey the various objects of his previous letters on the HBC's colonizing schemes. He points to misapprehensions in both communication and interpretation
on the subject, and finally, stresses that the HBC expects no "pecuniary advantage" from colonizing the lands demarcated by the 1846
Oregon Treaty.
The minutes discuss the reduction of the scale of the HBC land grant. Grey advises that the grant pertain to Vancouver Island only, provided that the HBC receives no direct profit from land or mineral interests while establishing a colony.
491 North America
Printed for Parlt
10 Aug/48/PP 619
10 Aug/48/PP 619
Hudsons Bay House
March 4th 1848
My Lord
No 9
1No 7
I have to acknowledge the receipt of a letter from Mr Hawes dated Febry 25th,
acquainting me that he is desired to remind me of my letter of
March 5th 1847,
in which I submitted for Your Lordships consideration an application, on
the part of the Hudson's Bay Company, for a grant of all the Territories
belonging to the Crown which are situated to the North and West of
Ruperts Land.
Mr Hawes also states that in an interview which I had with Your Lordship subsequently to that
application I was informed that the proposal I had made was too extensive for Her
Majesty's Government to entertain.
In the interview to which allusion is made, Your Lordship did not
appear to me to express yourself so decidedly as to lead me to believe
that Her Majestys Government had made up their minds on the subject,
and therefore I did not consider what then fell from Your Lordship as an
answer to my official letter of the 5th March. I regret this
misapprehension, and shall now proceed to the consideration of that part
of Mr Hawes' letter now before me, in which he says that he is
directed by your Lordship to state that, if I am prepared to submit
another scheme which shall be more limited and definite in its object,
and yet embrace a plan for the colonization and government of
Vancouver's Island, Her Majesty's Government will be ready to give their
attentive and immediate
consideration to such proposal.
consideration to such proposal.As far as the Hudsons Bay Company are concerned, all that they
would require would be the very limited grant of lands which I had in
view in my letter to Your Lordship of the 7th September 1846. To
such a grant Mr Hawes informed me, in his letter of 14th December
1846, Your Lordship was prepared to assent on behalf of Her Majesty's
Government, provided Her Majesty's Attorney and Solicitor General should
be of opinion that the acceptance of it by the Company would be
consistent with their Charter.
The opinion of the Attorney and Solicitor General in the
affirmative was forwarded to you on the 22d January 1847, and
on the 2d February I received a letter from Mr Hawes stating
that Your Lordship was then "ready to receive and consider the
Draft of such a Grant as the Company would desire to receive of
lands belonging to the British Crown in the Oregon Territory".
In my reply to that communication, dated March 5, and with
reference to what from some casual conversations with Your
Lordship I had conceived was your opinion, I proposed a grant
which might appear extensive, but I did this not with the view
of obtaining for the Hudsons Bay Company any advantage, for, as
I have already said, they as a Company require no more for the
purpose of carrying on their trade than was asked in my letter
of the 7th September 1846, and assented to by Your Lordship.
When I understood that you were desirous that a part or the
whole of the country recently confirmed to Great Britain should
be colonized, I was induced to propose that the whole should be
included in a grant to the Hudsons Bay Company, because I was
persuaded that the colonization would be much more Successfully
conducted under the auspices of the Company, than it could be in
any other manner, as I foresaw serious difficulties should
different parts of the territory be colonized under different
authorities.
included in a grant to the Hudsons Bay Company, because I was
persuaded that the colonization would be much more Successfully
conducted under the auspices of the Company, than it could be in
any other manner, as I foresaw serious difficulties should
different parts of the territory be colonized under different
authorities.As to the territory lying eastward of the Rocky Mountains and between the Arctic Sea and the Company's territories, (from which it is separated by no defined or definable boundary) though its addition
to
the grant gives the latter a formidable appearance in point of extent,
it is little better than a barren waste. It is besides inaccessible
except through the Company's territories or by crossing the Rocky Mountains from the Westward.
My object in proposing this tract of country to form a part of the
grant was that its annexation to Ruperts Land, held of the Crown as of the Manor of East Greenwich in free and common Soccage and
not in
Capite or Knights Service, would place the whole territory north of
49 the American boundary line under under one governing power, and thereby simplify any arrangements respecting any part
or parcel of the same; but
if Your Lordship should be still of opinion that the grant is too
extensive, the Hudsons Bay Company are willing that it should be limited
to the territory north of 49, bounded on the East by the Rocky Mountains, or even to Vancouver's Island alone. In fact the Company are ready and willing to give every assistance in their
power to promote
colonization, and in any way in which Your Lordship may be of opinion
that their services can be made available towards that important object.
On that part of Mr Hawes's letter in which it is assumed that the value of the coal on Vancouvers Island will form a material consideration on the part of the Hudsons Bay Company in any negociation
that may take place on this subject, I have only to observe that the
Company expect no pecuniary advantage from colonizing the Territory in
question. All monies received for land or minerals would be applied to
purposes connected with the improvement of the country and therefore, if
the grant is to be clogged with any payment to the Mother Country, the
Company would be under the necessity of declining it.
The Right Honble the Earl Grey
&c &c &c
&c &c &c
Minutes by CO staff
Mr Merivale. This is the ansr to Mr Hawes' Letter of the 25th of Feby which you will find with 475 N. A _ .
The Hudsons Bay Company appear ready 2ABd 7/3/48 to accept any grant that the Crown may be advised to issue to them; and as less extensive
demands
have been insisted on from them they now state their willingness that
the grant should be limited to the Territory north of 49°, bounded
on the E. by the Rocky Mountains, or even to VanCouver's Island alone.
They wd decline however any grant if it were to be accompanied by a
pecuniary demand on the Co for the Coal at Van Couver's Island.
ABd 7/3/48.
Lord Grey /
Perhaps this may stand over for Mr Hawes's return, as he has a good deal considered this subject?
Perhaps this may stand over for Mr Hawes's return, as he has a good deal considered this subject?
HM.
March 7.
Time is rather an object therefore answer to the effect that I think
it will be advisable in the 1st instance to confine the grant to
Vancouver's Island, […] I shall be happy consider a proposal to that
effect proceeding on the principle suggested by the Co. that they are
not to derive any pecuniary profit from the undertaking but to apply
all money received for land or minerals towards colonizg the island.
37/
Other documents included in the file
Draft, Colonial Office to Sir D. LeMarchant, Commissioner for Trades
and Plantations, 8 September 1848, forwarding copy of "an address
to Sir J. Pelly on the subject of the proposed grant of Van Couver's
Island to the Hudson's Bay Company."