PROVISIONAL CONVENTIONAL BOUNDARIES OF ONTARIO, 1874.

[The following provisional arrangement between the Dominion of Canada and Province of Ontario was confirmed by Orders in Council of both Governments]:

The Government of the Dominion of Canada, having by an Order in Council, dated the 3rd day of June, 1874, suggested that the Ontario Government should be moved to appoint a Commissioner to meet "the Minister of the Interior, and arrange some joint system for the sale of lands and adjusting disputed rights in the territory claimed by both Governments, by the adoption of a Conventional Boundary on the West and North, and that after the final adjustment of the two Boundaries, titles to land should be confirmed by the Government, whether of Ontario or the Dominion, whichever should be the proper party to legalize the same."

And the Ontario Government having acted on the suggestion of the Privy Council, by appointing the Commissioner of Crown Lands of that Province, to meet the Minister of the Interior and discuss the proposed arrangements, and the said parties having met this day, have agreed to the following propositions as the basis of a memorandum to be submitted to their respective Governments:

1. That the Conventional boundary of the Province of Ontario for the purposes set forth in the said Order in Council of the 3rd of June, instant, shall be on the West:-the meridian line passing through the most easterly point of Hunter's Island, run south until it meets the Boundary Line between the United States and Canada, and north until it intersects the fifty-first parallel of latitude; and the said fifty-first parallel of latitude shall be the Conventional Boundary of the Province of Ontario on the North.

2. That all patents for lands in the disputed territory to the east and south of the said Conventional Boundaries, until the true boundaries can be adjusted, shall be issued by the Government of Ontario; and all patents for land on the west or north of these Conventional Boundaries, shall be issued by the Dominion Government.

3. That when the true West and North bonndaries of Ontario have been definitely adjusted, each of the respective Governments shall confirm and ratify such patents as may have been issued by the other for lands then ascertained not to be within the territory of the Government which granted them; and each of the respective Governments shall also account for the proceeds of such lands as the true boundaries, when determined, may show to belong of right to the other.

4. That the Government of the Dominion shall transfer to the Government of the Province of Ontario, all applications for lands lying to the east and south of the Conventional Boundaries, and also all deposits paid on the same; and the Ontario Government sball transfer to the Dominion Government all applications for lands lying to the west or north of the said boundaries, and likewise all deposits paid thereon. And such of the said applications as are bona fide, and in proper form, shall be dealt with finally, according to the priority of the original filing; and where applications for the same lands have been filed in the Departments of both Governments, the priority shall be reckoned as if all had been filed in one and the same office.

Signed in duplicate this 26th day of June, 1874.

DAVID LAIRD,

Minister of the Interior.

T. B. PARDEE,

Com. Crown Lands.

XVII.

Supplementary Miscellaneous Documents.

The documents in this section, together with the Notes on Maps, pp. 135-140 ante, were procured and prepared for the press after the rest of the work had been printed off, and on the point of being completed for distribution.

DOCUMENTS RELATING TO THE BOUNDARIES AND TO THE INDIAN NATIONS AND FRENCH POSTS OF CANADA, &c., 1671-1878.

OGILBY ON THE BOUNDARIES OF CANADA, LABRADOR, &c., 1671.*

ESTOTILAND-NOVA BRITANNIA TERRA LABORATORIS-Corterealis.

The farthest part of land northward, between Hudson's Gulf and Hudson's Straight, betwixt fifty-seven and sixty degrees of northern latitude, goes generally by the name of Estotiland,... and, according as Nova Britannia is placed in some charts, might very well be taken for the same, though it hath not been so termed by any author, but rather Terra Laboratoris, Corterealis and Nova Britannia † are generally received to be all one. Terra Laboratoris... comprehended, according to Peter du Val, under Nova Britannia, as the more general Province, or, according to Cluverius, under Canada,-lies from about fifty-four to fiftyseven degrees of northern latitude.

CANADA, OR NEW FRANCE.

Canada, as it is taken for one and the same Province with New France, contains New France properly so called, Nova Scotia, Norumbega, and some adjoining Islands; as the Canada of Cluverius, lying more north-westerly, comprehends (as we have already intimated) Estotiland, Laboratoris and Coterealis; and, according to the most modern divisions, hath on the north Terra Corterealis, on the south New England, and on the east the Ocean, and hath between forty-five and fifty-two or fifty-three degrees of northern latitude. The River Canada [St. Lawrence] rises in the western parts of this Province, which remain yet undiscovered, and in some places spreads itself into huge lakes.

Canada is by some accounted a general Province containing New France, L'Accadie, Norumbega and other places.

THE TAKING POSSESSION OF HUDSON'S BAY AND OF THE NORTHERN LANDS AND SEAS, BY ALBANEL AND ST. SIMON, 1672. ‡

Father Charles Albanel, Jesuit, missionary employed in the instruction of the Indian Nations and Montagnois, and Paul Denis de St. Simon, Commissary, and deputed by M. Talon, Intendant of Canada, to take possession in the King's name, of the countries, lands, lakes and rivers, which lie between the banks of the River St. Lawrence as far as the shores of the Straits of the Fretum Davis, including Hudson's Bay, and adjacent lands and seas, being at Mis

*Extracts from "America, being an accurate description of the New World—with maps and sculptures. by John Ogilby, Esquire, London, 1671." pp. 127-9, 139.

The names-Nouvelle Bretaigne, Nova Britannia, New Brittany, New Britain-given to a certain part of Labrador, would seem to have originated with the Breton navigators or fishermen, who, at a very early period, frequented that coast.

N. Y. Hist. Col., Vol. ix., p. 791.

kaouto, Nagasit, places where the Indians meet to trade, and at the River Némiskau, which rises in Lake Némiskau, the residence of Captain Kiaskou, Chief of all the Indians inhabiting the North Sea and Hudson's Bay, and on the Ninth of July, 1672, planted the cross, with the captain's consent, and in His Majesty's name set up the arms of France, on the said Lake Némiskau, at the mouth of the river of the same name.*

On the 19th of the same month, being at the River Minahigouskaé, Sossibahourat, Captain of the Mistasirenois, having consented, they did set up in like manner the said arms, after having turned up a sod of earth, pulled up some grass, planted some shrubs, and performed other necessary ceremonies. They made known to the Indian Nations, in their language, that they subjected them to the French nation, and that they should acknowledge in future King Louis XIV., for their Monarch and Sovereign Lord.

In witness whereof, the said minute was signed by Father Albanel, Sieur de St. Simon, and by Sebastian Provero; and the chiefs of each Indian nation, to the number of eleven, made their hierogyphical marks.

TRAITE DE TADOUSSAC, 1672.

DESPATCH FROM COMTE DE FRONTENAC, 2D 9BRE., 1672.†

The Company's Commissary demanding this year a passport, to winter four men at Lake St. John, on the pretext of the Tadoussac trade, urged me strongly to insert in it a prohibition to all those who would trade on Lake St. John.

He pretended that the Limits of (Traite de) Tadoussact extended as far as that, and even to Hudson's Bay, which would be giving him an extent of five or six hundred leagues, and preventing the inhabitants of that colony going to the places the Company have never meant to reserve. In the meantime, in order not to make a noise, M Talon thought proper that I should grant it to him, with a clause that it would be only for this year, on condition that it would not serve as a precedent for the future so as to confer any title to the places.

[This passport, granted by M. de Frontenac at Quebec, bears date the twenty-second of September, 1672, for Father Crespin, Jesuit, and for Sieurs Montagne, Maquard, Dautray, and Pelletier, sent by the West India Company to trade with the Indians, and to winter at Lake St. John, called Peakoüagamy, about 70 leagues above Tadoussac.]

ANSWER OF THE HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY, § 1699, TO THE FRENCH PA PER INTITULED, "A MEMORIAL FOR JUSTIFYING THE PRETENTIONS OF FRANCE TO FORT BOURBON."

(Copy obtained by the Ontario Government from the Public Records Office, London.)

Since the French desire a more express answer to their First Paper, wherein they demand to be maintained in the possession of Fort Bourbon (which they acknowledge the English called Port Nelson), upon this ground of their having made the first discovery and the first settlements, and being dispossessed thereof by the English in a time of peace, saving the right which the Hudson's Bay Company claims under the Imperial Crown of England, both to this particular place of Port Nelson, and all the rest of the Bay within Hudson Straits by the Law of Nations,―we deny the French to be the first discoverers of that place, or to have made the first settlements there, and are ready to prove the contrary on the English side. And the French, in this paper bringing their pretended right of discovery and settlements no higher than the year 1682, and their being dispossessed in 1684, we shall briefly show what sort of possession that was, and how those two actions were conducted.

Némiskau-Rupert R.

+ N. Y. Hist. Col., Vol. ix., p. 791.

See pp. 203 et seq. ante.

$ Endorsed-" Answer left with Mr. Secr. Vernon [Secretary of State], 17th April, 1699." The memorial to which this is a reply we have not been able to find. See also a further paper on this subject, p. 120 ante.

Mr. Radisson, mentioned in the French paper to have made this settlement for the French at Port Nelson in 1682, was many yeares before in England, settled and married an English wife, Sir John Kerk's daughter, was in the interest and service of the English, upon private adventures, before as well as after the incorporation of the Hudson Bay Company. In 1667, when Prince Rupert and other nobles sett out two shipps, Radisson went in the Eagle, Captain Stanard, commander, and in that voyage the name of Rupert's River was given. Againe [in] 1668, and againe in 1669: in this voyage Radisson directed his course to Port Nelson and cast anchore before it, went on shoar with one Baley (dessigned Governour for the English*), fixed the King of England's arms there, and left some goods there for trading. In 1671, three ships were sett out from London by the Hudson Bay Company, then incorporated, and Mr. Radisson in one of them, in the Company's service, settled Moose River, went to Port Nelson, left some goods† there, and wintered at Rupert's River. In 1673, upon some difference with the Hudson Bay Company, Mr. Radisson returned into France, and is there persuaded to go to Canada againe; there he formed several dessigns of going on some French private expeditions into Hudson Bay, which the Governour, Mons! Frontenac, would by no means permit, as declaring it would break the union between the two Kings. But at last, the said Radisson was secretly sett out with two ships by one La Chaney, and other private persons, without the Governour's knowledge, without any orders from any powers; and in August 1682, arrived at a river to them unknowne, but being in the latitude of Port Nelson, resolved to go in, found an English ship, whose company were building an house; saw another ship coming in, belonging to the Hudson Bay Company of London, which had brought a governour to settle a factorie in that Port.§ Radisson, and the French with him, tooke the English ship, the Company's governour and men, and carried them to Canada, where he found Mons! La Barre governour in the roome of Mons! Frontenac, who ordered the said Radisson forthwith to release the said English ship,|| and ordered La Chaney [Chesnaye], the merchant who had sett out the said Radisson upon the said expedition, to give satisfaction to the English for some goods disposed of by Radisson, but was never performed.

This was the expedition in 1682, and the first time** that ever French men or

* Baily was governor of, and resided at, Fort Rupert. See pp. 280-2 ante.

Where in whose charge-how secured and protected, when there was as yet no fort there?

No evidence of such action of Frontenac can be found. See pp. 104-6 ante.

The author of

§ Where then was the previous English factory? We have been able to discover none. this memorial seems also to forget the fact that Radisson and Desgrossilliers having received pardon from the French King, and returned to Canada, went to Hudson's Bay in the same year, 1676, and erected a post at Port Nelson, in the French interest. See p. 109 ante.

The French Government severely reproved La Barre for his conduct herein. (See Seignelay's letter to him, p. 107 ante.)

¶ No proof hereof.

**As to this, there was, firstly, no actual necessity for the French to send ships to Hudson's Bay, as, in the absence of the English, during the period 1631-67, they had complete command of that trade by the overland channels; and, secondly, as a matter of fact, they had sent ships to the Bay as early as 1656, on which occasion Bourdon took formal possession of the Bay, and particularly of Port Nelson and the surrounding coast. This possession was renewed and a fort built there by the French in 1676, as above mentioned. It must be acknowledged, after a careful perusal of the authentic documents, that the French had full possession of that Bay and of the country between it and the Height of Land, as far as was necessary to constitute for them a priority of title; that is, nobody was there to dispute their claim to it; they had always claimed it as part of Canada, or New France; and their real possession was none the weaker because the posts and forts erected by them were at the Height of Land; for thither, and oftentimes even as far as Montreal, Quebec, or Tadoussac, did the Northern Indians come to dispose of their valuable furs, and realize in trade the price for which they were bartered. It was only when trespassers interfered with their trade or their landed possessions, that the French found it necessary to defend them. Thus, when the English, erected posts or traded with the natives at the foot of the Bay, they were immediately looked upon and treated as trespassers by the French, who moved the Indians to attack them, and to divert to Canada any trade which might be influenced in the direction of the strangers. Meantime the French, not being as yet strong enough to drive the intruders from the shores of the Bay, pushed their own posts nearer to those of the enemy, so as not only thus to aid their allies, the Indians, but also divert the trade from the English posts. It would appear also, that whilst both the English and French made several visits to Port Nelson prior to 1682-the visits of the French appearing to have been with a view to establishing colonization and trade, as above mentioned, whilst the early visits of the English were directed to the finding a north-west passage -yet the French had not attempted to build a post or fort at Port Nelson till 1676, as aforesaid, nor the English till 1682, in which year the French also re-established their first post, and destroyed the English one, as elsewhere mentioned. The French claim for themselves priority, and that they were entitled accordingly to the sole possession, and to drive out-as they actually did the English. (See memoir relating to Hudson's Bay, p. 106 ante. From this time forward, with short intermissions, this post was in possession of the French, till they delivered it up, in 1714, under the Treaty of Utrecht. (See also note to map No. 1, Sec. VIII.)

French vessell sailed into Hudson Bay, conducted thus by Radisson in a piraticall manner, without any publick authority, by the experience he had learnt in the voyages for the Hudson Bay Company, and this was y man who then dessigned to have given the name of Fort Bourbon to the place now in question, which had been denominated by the English (and so found in all mapps) by the name of Port Nelson, above 70 years before, and upon such rights of discovery and possession, and of this date, is the title of the French founded to this place of Port Nelson.

The manner how they were dispossessed of this unjust acquisition two years after, in 1684, as they complain in their paper, was as followeth, and right was done to the English by the same hand of Radisson who did us the wrong.

Complaint being immediately made by the Hudson Bay Company, Radisson, as soon as he returned into France, in 1683, found the effects of it by the many memorials given in against him at the French Court by the several public ministers of the King of England from time to time. The action was disowned by his most Christian Majesty, and satisfaction promissed, which was directed by a great minister in France in this manner, viz.: That Radisson should goe for London, where he should ship himself on board the Company's ships to goe to Port Nelson and withdraw the French whom he had left there, restore the effects to the English, and the Court of France nor Canada should ever pretend any right to the Bay of Hudson.* Accordingly, Radisson came to London, presented himself to King Charles and the Duke of York, then Governor of the Hudson Bay Company; by their recommendation is reconciled to the Company and goes with only two ships in the Company's service, whereof Captain Bond and Captain Outlaw were Commanders, arrived at Port Nelson, where the Sieur Chavert, whom Mr. Radisson had left, and the rest of the men came over to him and complied with the justice to be done to the English (who afterwards took service in the Hudson Bay Company), and brought into England and restored to the Company about 12,000 beaver skins and other furs (short of sixty thousand beavers as the French suggest in their paper), the greatest part of which were traded with English goods taken from them in the expedition before.

And this, we conceive, is a full answer to the French paper, whereby they pretend a right to this place of Port Nelson, as it is a true account of the matter-of-fact which we are ready to justifie and prove, and we demand to be restored to the ancient and undoubted right of the Imperial Crowne of England and our own, derivatiye from thence; and whereas they talk of injuries and dispossessing in a time of peace, who were the first aggressors and begun private and piraticall war is plaine by this narrative, and was the continual subject of our complaints which his Majesty was pleased to take notice of when he declared the warr against France.

FRENCH ANSWER TO THE MEMORIAL PRESENTED BY THE COMMISSARIES OF THE KING OF ENGLAND THE OF MARCH 1699. §

7

(Copy obtained by the Ontario Government from the Public Records Office, London.)

It will appear by the contents of this Memorial that the French made the first discovery of the Bay to the North of Canada, that they made the first settlements to maintain their trade there, and that the trouble hath happened only from the English.

* Of the statement that the French sanctioned or gave countenance to any such action, no confirmation can be found. The English and French archives (which have been searched) reveal no proof of it; all the known facts, and all the evidence we have, are against it. Oldmixon, who wrote in the Company's interest, and from information derived from them, gives a very different version of it, (p. 283 ante, line 25 et seq.) and the French documents, dated 1683-4, given at pp. 106-8 ante, clearly prove that France was opposed to any such concession. The whole affair was, evidently, concocted by Radisson-who had been again obliged to fly Canada-to serve the Hudson's Bay Company.

+Chouart, nephew of Radisson.

And yet the French were confirmed by the Treaty of Ryswick, in possession of the places they had taken from the English during that peace, thus justifying the action of the French in treating the English proceedings in Hudson's Bay as encroachments on French rights.

§ ENDORSED: "Translation of the French answar to the Company's Ded" of Rt, rec'd from Mr. Secr. Vernon ye 3rd May, 1699."