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The ‘Adventurers of England Trading Into Hudson's Bay’: A Study of the Founding Members of the Hudson's Bay Company, 1665–16701
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 July 2014
Extract
In this year of the tercentenary of the incorporation of the Hudson's Bay Company it is appropriate to examine the founding membership of what may still be called “The Great Company.” It is surprising that the literature which chronicles the early adventures of the Company in the northern reaches of Canada has largely neglected a close scrutiny of the founders. The purpose of this article is to examine the early partnership, note the walks of life and social groups from which the adventurers came, and identfy those who formed the nucleus of leadership in planning and executing the endeavors for which the Hudson's Bay Company became renowned.
In general, the men who established the Hudson's Bay Company were representative of the era of extensive oversea expansion that characterized Restoration England. They were essentially promoters and imperialists. Yet they were not the first of their kind, for in the thirteenth century merchants had formed regulated organizations for prosecuting the cloth trade. Nor did they ever possess the financial power or parliamentary lobby of the East India Company. Nonetheless, their interest in the fur trade, in a Northwest passage and in general scientific inquiry prompted these men to lay the basis of a firm that by the height of its influence in the early 1840 was engaged in business throughout most of British North America as well as on the Pacific slope south to San Francisco Bay, in the Pacific islands, and in Canton. Today this organization remains the oldest merchant trading company in the world and the oldest business firm on the North American continent.
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- Copyright © North American Conference on British Studies 1970
Footnotes
1
An earlier version of this essay was read to the annual meeting of the Conference on British Studies, Pacific Northwest Section, in Seattle, March 13, 1970.
References
NOTES
2 The phrase was used by Willson, Beckles, The Great Company; Being the History of the Honourable Company of Merchants Adventurers Trading into Hudson's Bay (2 vols.; London, 1900)Google Scholar. The author wishes to acknowledge, with thanks, permission granted by the Governor and Committee of the Hudson's Bay Company to examine materials in the Company Archives pertinent to this subject.
3 The one exception to this is the brief study by Mood, Fulmer, “Hudson's Bay Company Started as a Syndicate,” The Beaver, outfit 268 (Mar. 1938), 52–58.Google Scholar
4 Wilson, C. H., England's Apprenticeship, 1603-1763 (London, 1965), xiii.Google Scholar
5 The chances of gain or loss were both high in the late seventeenth century. See Davis, R., “Merchant Shipping in the Economy of the late 17th Century,” Economic History Review, 2d ser., IX (1965), No. 1.Google Scholar
6 See Steele, I. K., Politics of Colonial Policy; The Board of Trade in Colonial Administration, 1696-1720 (Oxford, 1968, 4–8.Google Scholar
7 “Profit and Power,” wrote Sir Josiah Child, “ought jointly to be considered.” SirChild, Josiah, A New Discourse of Trade (2d ed., 1694), 114–15Google Scholar: quoted in Wilson, C. H., Profit and Power (London, 1957), 1.Google Scholar
8 The Colony of Carolina was founded in 1663 under the patronage of Clarendon. Sir John Colleton, a Barbadian magnate and father of Sir Peter Colleton (the Hudson's Bay Company founding member), and Sir William Berkeley, Governor of Virginia, can be classified as its “designers.” Its “associates” were Lord George Berkeley, Lord Ashley, Sir George Carteret, Lord Craven, and George Monck. Duke of Albemarle. The last four were charter members of the Hudson's Bay Company. From the Carolina proprietors also came a group which received a grant in 1670 for the Bahamas Colony. Cambridge History of the British Empire, I (Cambridge, 1929), 248Google Scholar, and Egerton, H. E., A Short History of British Colonial Policy (London, 1897), 91.Google Scholar
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10 Radisson's petition, 1694; quoted in MacKay, Douglas, The Honourable Company (2d ed. rev.; Toronto 1966), 16Google Scholar. Cf. Scull, G. D. (ed.), Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson (Prince Society; Boston, 1885), 12.Google Scholar
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16 Charters … relating to the Hudson's Bay Company, 3-21, passim. It would appear that the Company gained great benefits by the Royal Charter. Yet it should not be forgotten that in the joint-stock form of organization the commerce of Hudson Bay could be regulated on wise lines through the Charter, and that the merchant adventurers involved would be responsible for conducting the trade in a manner that would be most advantageous to the realm. The corporate form was therefore valued by the Company and state alike. When, in the late 1680's, competition from interlopers and French rivals threatened to undercut the Company's position, its privileges were confirmed and fortified by an Act of Parliament in 1690. This was done despite protests from the Merchants of London trading to New York and New England and also a petition from the Company of Feltmakers. H.B.C. petition, 26 Mar. 1690, C.O. 1/67, no. 88, Public Record Office, London; Calendar of State Papers Colonial, 1699, No. 1196. Commons' Journal, X (1688–1693). 369–70Google Scholar. Lords' Journal, XIV (1685–1991), 497, 498Google Scholar. House of Lords, Main Papers, 14 May 1690; Historical Manuscripts Commission. Thirteenth Report (London, 1892), 73–74Google Scholar. The Feltmakers' opposition was removed by a requirement for public sales of “coat-beaver”; Carr, Cecil T. (ed.), Select Charters of Trading Companies, A.D. 1530-1707 (Seiden Society, vol. XXVIII; London, 1913), xcGoogle Scholar. 2 W.&M., c. 23 (1690). These privileges remained fundamentally the same until 1870, when the Company's role as an imperial factor came to an end.
17 See Brown, Louise Fargo, The First Earl of Shaftesbury (New York, 1933), 146.Google Scholar
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19 Calendar of State Papers Domestic, 1667-8, 7 Feb. 1668, 280Google Scholar. Historical Manuscripts Commisison, LeFleming MSS. (12th Report, (App., p. VII; London, 1890), 56.Google Scholar
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22 He succeeded to this title 3 Jan. 1670 on his father's death. D.N.B., XXXVIII (London, 1894), 146.Google Scholar
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24 Some inconclusive evidence seems to suggest that Arlington may have seen Groseilliers in Paris in 1665 during the latter's failure to convince Louis XIV of the practicability of the scheme to develop the fur trade of Hudson Bay. Arlington evidently convinced Groseilliers of the advisability of seeing Rupert on the matter, and it may have been at this point that Rupert was drawn into the project. The sources of this are not clear but one authority says Arlington wrote Rupert in June 1667 [1665?] that Groseilliers would soon wait on Rupert bearing an introduction from Arlington; Edinger, George, Rupert of the Rhine (London, 1936), 259–61Google Scholar. Cf. Innes, Arthur D., The Maritime and Colonial Expansion of England under the Stuarts (London, [1932], 310–11)Google Scholar, which gives the date 1665.
25 Wilfon, , Profit and Power, 19, 125, and 125 n.2.Google Scholar
26 SirClapham, John, in Rich, E. E. (ed.), Minutes of the Hudson's Bay Company, 1671-1674 (Hudson's Bay Record Society, vol. V; London, 1942)Google Scholar [hereafter H.B.R.S., V], xxvi. On Shaftesbury, see D.N.B., XXII (1887) 111; Rich, , “First Earl of Shaftesbury's Colonial Policy,” 47–70Google Scholar; Brown, , Shaftesbury, 116, 117, 131, 150Google Scholar; Beiber, Ralph P., “The British Plantation Councils of 1670-4,” English Historical Review, XL (1925), 96–7Google Scholar; and Haley, K. H. D., The First Earl of Shaftesbury (Oxford, 1968), 231–34 and 364–65.Google Scholar
27 See Appendix.
28 He had £400 in stock. On his life, see D.N.B.. XLIX (1897), 22; Wilson, , Profit and Power, 113Google Scholar; and Davies, Royal African Company, 159n.
29 Richard, Lord Baybrooke (ed.), Diary and Correspondence of Samuel Pepys (4 vols.; London, 1848–1849), II, 226.Google Scholar
30 D.N.B., LVIII (1888-9), 336; H.B.R.S., V, xvi.
31 H.B.R.S., V, xxii.
32 D.N.B., XXVIII (1891), 255.
33 Sources for instructions given in n. 21, above.
34 On SirCarteret, George, see Beiber, , “British Plantation Councils,” 97Google Scholar; D.N.B., LX (1887), 1118; and Mood, , “Hudson's Bay Company,” 57.Google Scholar
35 By 1675 he held 1/6th of all Company stock. H.B.R.S., V, xlv-xlvi.
36 Ibid., xxiv.
37 The Kirke family had been involved in the formation of the unsuccessful “Company of Adventurers to Canada” (1627). See Dictionary of Canadian Biography, I (Toronto, 1966), 404–8Google Scholar, and Scott, W. R., Constitution and Finance of English, Scottish and Irish Joint-Stock Companies to 1720 (3 vols.; Cambridge. 1912), II, 320–22.Google Scholar
38 Three names which do not appear on the Charter are deserving of notice. The first is Sir George Berkeley, prominent in commercial ventures and government circles. His interests were very similar to the leading members of the Hudson's Bay Company syndicate. See D.N.B., IV (1887), 347, and Rich, E. E. (ed.), Minutes of the Hudson's Bay Company, 1679-1684, First Series (Hudson's Bay Record Society, vol. VIII; London, 1945 [hereafter H.B.R.S., VIII], App. C, 331-32Google Scholar. The second is that of Sir Christopher Wren, architect, astronomer, and member of the Royal Society. The third is that of the Hon. Robert Boyle, natural philosopher and chemist of repute, Governor of the Corporation for the Spread of the Gospel in New England, and a director of the East India Company. He was an organizing member of the Royal Society and close to the throne. His early participation in the founding of the Hudson's Bay Company probably stemmed from his longstanding interest in the Northwest Passage. D.N.B., VI (1886), 118.
39 H.B.R.S. V, xviii.
40 Ibid.
41 A medium investor held £300 - £2,000, and a large investor in excess of £2,000; Davies, K. G., “Joint-Stock Investment in the late Seventeenth Century,” Economic History Review, 2d ser., IV (1952), 295.Google Scholar
42 Ibid., 299.
43 Davis, R., “English Foreign Trade, 1660-1700,” Economic History Review, 2nd ser., VII (1954), 162.Google Scholar
44 King, Gregory, “The Naval Trade of England, 1688,” in Two Tracts by Gregory King, 31Google Scholar; quoted in Davies, , “Joint-Stock Investment in the late Seventeenth Century,” 285Google Scholar. Davies tells us that they were the great contributors to annual “superlucration,” in other words, “the excess of national income over expenditure.”
45 See Andrews, C. M., British Committees, Commissions and Councils of Trade and Plantations, 1622-1675 (Baltimore, 1908), 67–68, 76, 79–80, 93Google Scholar and H.B.R.S., V, xxvii-xxviii. Six were Privy Councillors.