In response to our demand for a large tract of land through the
"Fertile belt" of the Hudson's Bay territory, the Governor answered,
almost in terror, to the Duke of Newcastle:--"What! sequester our very
tap-root! Take away the fertile lands where our buffaloes feed! Let in
all kinds of people to squat and settle, and frighten away the fur-
bearing animals they don't hunt and kill! Impossible. Destruction--
extinction--of our time-honoured industry. If these gentlemen are so
patriotic, why don't they buy us out?" To this outburst the Duke
quietly replied: "What is your price?" Mr. Berens, the Governor,
answered: "Well, about a million and a half."

Finding that our demands for land alongside the proposed road and
telegraph were not acceptable to the Governor and Court of the Hudson's
Bay Company, we had nothing for it but either to drop the Pacific
transit proposal, after many months of labour and trouble, or to take
the bold course of accepting the challenge of those gentlemen, and
negociating for the purchase of all their property and rights. Before
making a decided move, however, I had many anxious discussions with the
Duke as to who the real purchaser should be. My strong, and often
urged, advice was, that whoever the medium of purchase might be, Great
Britain should take to the bargain. I showed that at the price named
there could be no risk of loss; and I developed alternative methods of
dealing with the question:--That the fur trade could be separated from
the land and rights, and that a new joint stock company could be
organized to take over the trading posts, the fleet of ships, the stock
of goods, and the other assets, rights, and privileges affecting trade,
and that such a company would probably pay a rental--redeemable over a
term of years, were that needful to meet Mr. Gladstone's notions--of 3
or 3-1/2 per cent, on 800,000_l_., leaving only 700,000_l_.