began life by uniting the Canadian fur trade with that of the Hudson's
Bay Company, and just lived long enough to witness the sale and
transfer of the interests he had, by a bold and masterly policy,
combined in 1820. Leaving Canada, Mr. Ellice joined the Whig party, and
was returned to Parliament for Coventry in 1818; and, with the
exception of the period from 1826 to 1830, he retained his seat till
the day of his death. Marrying the youngest sister of Earl Grey, of the
Reform Bill--the widow of Captain Bettesworth, R.N.--who died in 1832,
leaving him an only son; and, in 1843, the widow of Mr. Coke, of
Norfolk, he became intimately connected with the Whig aristocracy.

In Mr. Ellice's evidence before the Parliamentary Committee of 1857, on
the Hudson's Bay Company, I find that, in answer to a question put by
Mr. Christy, M.P., as to the probability of a "settlement being made
within what you consider to be the Southern territories of the Hudson's
Bay Company?"--he replied, "None, in the lifetime of the youngest man
now alive." Events have proved his error. Mr. Ellice was a man of
commanding stature and presence, but, to my mind, had always the
demeanour of a colonist who had had to wrestle with the hardships of
nature, and his cast of countenance was Jewish. According to his own
account, he went out to Canada in 1803, when he must have been a mere
youth, and then personally associated himself with the fur trade, a
trade which attracted the attention of almost the whole Canadian
society. It was, in fact, at that time, the great trade of the country.
The traders had inherited the skill and organization of the old French
voyageurs, who, working from Quebec and Montreal as bases of their
operations, were the doughty competitors of the Hudson's Bay Company,
many of whose posts were only separated by distances of a hundred miles
from those of the French. When Canada became the possession of our
country, in the last century, Scotch and English capital and energy