There is no trace of a desire for aggrandizement, for engaging in the
fur trade, or for going a-field on plans of speculation in the mind of
Lord Selkirk. The feuds of the two branches of the Montreal Fur
traders--the Old Northwest and the New Northwest--which were apparently
healed in the year after the Colonization of Prince Edward Island, were
not ended between the two factions of the united company led by
McTavish--called the Premier--on the one hand and Sir Alexander
Mackenzie on the other.
During these ten years of the century, the Hudson's Bay Company had also
established rival posts all over the country. The competition at times
reached bloodshed, and financial ruin was staring all branches of the
fur trade in the face.
It was the depressed condition of the fur trade and the consequent drop
in Hudson's Bay Company shares that appealed to Lord Selkirk, the man of
many dreams and imaginations and he saw the opportunity of finding a
home under the prairie skies for his hapless countrymen. It requires no
detail here of how Lord Selkirk bought a controlling interest in the
Hudson's Bay Company's stock, made out his plans of Emigration, and took
steps to send out his hoped-for thousands or tens of thousands of
Highland crofters, or Irish peasants, whoever they might be, if they
sought freedom though bound up with hardship, hope instead of a pauper's
grave, the prospect of independence of life and station in the new world
instead of penury and misery under impossible conditions of life at
home.
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