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FILE: 1846-09-07_Pelly_to_Grey_V465HB01.txt
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The annual ship of the Hudson's Bay Company to the Columbia and North West Coast of America is now loading, and will be ready to sail about the middle of this month. By this opportunity the Company send out their instructions for the information and Hudsons Bay Company instructions to officers guidance of the officers in charge of their interests in that quarter.
The treaty for the division of the Oregon Territory having been concluded, I conceive that all questions respecting the possessory rights of the Hudson's Bay Company and of all other British subjects who may be already in the occupation of lands or
other property, as stated in the third Article of the treaty; or
respecting the lands, farms and other property of every description
belonging to the Puget Sound Agricultural Company, as mentioned in the fourth Article (the whole of which is on the South side of the line of demarcation, viz Lat. 49) will be referred to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs; but that questions relating to settlement in the territory on the North side of the boundary line (now exclusively British) will belong to the Colonial Department, over which Your Lordship presides.
Assuming that I am right in this opinion, I now address your
Lordship with the view of ascertaining the intentions of Her Majesty's Government as to the acquisition of lands, or formation of Settlements, to the North of Lat. 49.
The Hudson's Bay Company having formed an Establishment on the
Southern point of Vancouver's Island which they are annually enlarging, are anxious to know whether they will be confirmed in the possession of such lands as they may find it expedient to add to those which they already possess.
With regard to the question of trade, your Lordship is aware
that the Company, by a grant from the Crown, dated May 1330 1838, have the exclusive right of trading with the natives of the Countries west of the Rocky Mountains for 21 years from that date.



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FILE: 1846-10-24_Pelly_to_Hawes_Parliamentary_Under-Secretary_V465HB02.txt
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I have to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 3d
Instant, stating that you had received the directions of Earl Grey to make certain enquiries of the Directors of the Hudson's Bay Company the
answers to which might perhaps relieve his Lordship from the difficulty
he at present feels in returning any definite answer to the application
made in my letter of the 7th. September, respecting an Establishment
which the Company have formed on the south point of Vancouver's Island. 
In reply to his Lordship's enquiries as to the extent and limits
of the territory in the possession of which the Company desire to be
confirmed, and the soil, harbours, and navigable streams comprized
within it, I enclose the Report, dated July 12 1842, made by Mr.
Chief Factor Douglas, the officer who was sent to survey the locality, and to select an advantageous situation for carrying on the Company's trade in the event of any portion of the territory north of the
Columbia River falling under the dominion of the United States, together with extracts from Despatches of various dates received at the
Hudson's Bay House since the receipt of that Report.
The only additional information in the Company's possession will be found in the Report of Lieuts Warre and Vavasour, dated November 1. 1845, addressed to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, and in that of Lieut. Vavasour to Colonel Holloway of the Royal Engineers, Canada,
dated March 1. 1846, which is accompanied by a sketch of the harbour of Camoosan and a plan of Fort Victoria.
In reference to the question, whether the Company are advised that
their right is clear in point of law to receive and hold in their
corporate capacity any lands within the dominions of the British Crown
westward of the Rocky Mountains, I beg to observe that there is nothing
in the Charter of Incorporation, granted to the Company by Charles the Second, to preclude them from holding lands in addition to those comprehended within it; and I entertain no doubt whatever, that if Her
Majesty be graciously pleased to grant the Company, in perpetuity, any
portion of the territory westward of the Rocky Mountains, now under the
dominion of the British Crown, such grant will be perfectly valid. Had
I, indeed, ever had any doubt on that point, it would have been removed
by the Treaty lately concluded between Great Britain and the United
States, in the third article of which (as I interpret it) the British
Government has fully recognized the right in question.
The lands held by the Company south of the 49th parallel have been confirmed to them under that Treaty by an act of the Crown, and
they therefore hope Her Majesty's Government will not see reason to
withhold from them a similar confirmation in the lands they held north
of that parallel at the time the Treaty was concluded.
This, however, is a matter of small importance compared with the
colonization of such parts of the territory as may be adapted to
that purpose.
The Royal Grant to the Hudson's Bay Company of the exclusive
privilege of trading with the natives of the territories westward of
the Rocky Mountains, dated May 1330. 1838, reserves to the Crown the
right of establishing Colonies within those territories, or of annexing
any part of the territories to any existing Colony or Colonies; and the
Company's Charter constitutes the territory included within the limits
therein prescribed, "one of His Majesty's Plantations and Colonies in
America" under the name of Ruperts Land. The inference therethereof appears
to me to be clear and obvious that the Company may legally hold any
portion of the territories belonging to the Crown, westward of the
Rocky Mountains, that it may please Her Majesty to annex to Rupert's Land.
It would be a superfluous task to enter into a detail of the
reasons which render the colonization of Vancouver's Island an object
of great importance; I shall, at present, merely submit to Earl Grey's
consideration whether that object, embracing as I trust it will the
conversion to Christianity and civilization of the native population,
might not be most readily and effectually accomplished through the
instrumentality of the Hudson's Bay Company, either by a grant of the
Island on terms to be hereafter agreed upon, or in some other way in
which the influence and resources of the Company might be made
subservient to that end.



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FILE: 1846-12-11_Pelly_to_Grey_V465HB03.txt
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1666 N. America
Sir John Henry Pelly presents his Compliments to Earl Grey &
encloses for his Lordships information an Extract from a Letter from
Chief Factor Douglass at Fort Vancouver dated 28th July received on Wednesday; it came by way of S.San Blas and Vera Cruz — nothing further is said about Vancouver Island than that Her Majestys Herald & Pandora
are Surveying the So part of the Island
The Right Honourable The Earl Grey

