Antony Lord Ashley, Sir John Robinson,
Sir Robert Vyner, Sir Peter Calleton, Sir
Edward Hungerford, Sir Paul Kneele, Sir
John Griffith, Sir Philip Carteret, James
Hayes, John Kirke, Francis Millington,
William Prettyman, and John Fenn, Esquires,
and John Portman, citizen and goldsmith.
These were the first kings of Prince Rupert's
Land created by the merry monarch for the
discovery of a new passage into the South
Sea, the finding of some trade for furs, minerals,
and other considerable commodities, and
for the public good. The Indian Territories,
which the present nine kings hold by licence,
were obtained by act of parliament during
the last forty years; Vancouver's Island
was let to the same tenants at the highly
advantageous rent of five shillings per annum,
about ten years ago.

The charter conferred upon those original
eighteen monarchs, "the sole trade and
commerce of all those seas, straits, bays, rivers,
lakes, creeks, and sounds, in whatsoever
latitude they shall be, that lie within the
entrance of the straits commonly called
Hudson's Straits, together with all the lands
and territories, coasts and confines of the
seas, bays, lakes, rivers, creeks, and sounds
aforesaid, that are not already actually
possessed by or granted to any of our subjects,
or possessed by the subjects of any other
Christian state." The grant is also extended
"to all havens, bays, creeks, rivers, lakes,
and seas into which they shall find entrance
or passage, by water or land, out of the
territories, limits, or places aforesaid." The only
reservation to all this liberality was "that
these territories should henceforth be reckoned
and reputed as one of our plantations or
colonies in America, called Rupert's Land,
the Governor and Company [meaning the
kings,] for the time being, to be true and
absolute lords and proprietors of the same
territory, holding it as of the manor of
East Greenwich, and paying for it yearly
two elks and two black beavers, whensoever
and as often as we, our heirs and
successors, shall happen to enter into the said
countries, territories, and regions hereby
granted."

The kingdom of the nine kings is covered
with immense herds of buffaloes, red deer,
and wild horses; and the country is admirably
adapted for the growth of hemp, flax, and
corn. But the kings will not produce,
themselves, nor allow others to do so. Their
traffic outward is limited to skins: inward
to articles for their own use, or for barter
with the Indians. They possess the exclusive
privilege of import and export, and will
not allow any ships but their own to enter
the bay. No British subject resident in
Rupert's Land, the Indian Territories, or
Vancouver's Island, can buy or sell furs from
or to anybody but the nine kings. Once
in every year, any British subject, resident,
and not being a fur trafficker, is allowed
by their majesties to import, free of duty,
goods of the value of ten pounds for his
own exclusive use. All other imports are
subject to an ad valorem duty of twenty
per cent.

The nine kings have done little towards
colonisation. In eighteen hundred and eleven,
they granted to the Earl of Selkirk, one of
their known number, one hundred and sixteen
thousand square miles of land, with power to
appoint governors, create courts of justice,
and perform other acts of sovereignty: all of
which he did. A colony of Scotch
Highlanders was founded, more as a fighting
station to keep off encroachers, than for the
purposes of honest colonisation. The colony,
as might have been expected, dwindled down
by degrees, many of the Highlanders passing
over into the ranks of the United
States; the rest are now hesitating, it would
seem, whether to go over to Canada or the
Union.

The nine kings do not appear to be favourably
affected towards settlers of any kind.
They delight in representing their country
as a barren, inhospitable waste, unfit for the
habitation of civlised man. The nine kings
are too modest and humble. Their own
territorial governor, Sir George Simpson,
although he made a very different statement
before a parliamentary committee, has
recorded in his book (An Overland Journey
Round the World), that there is not upon
the face of the earth a more favourable situation
for the employment of agricultural industry,
a more beautiful country, a more
fertile soil, with more rich and varied produce,
with greater beds of coal, or more navigable
rivers and lakes.

The nine kings have not done much for the
unfortunate remnant of the aborigines. They
have introduced the fire-water to the red
man in most immoral and exterminating
quantities: to say nothing of European
diseases, and the cultivation of cannibalism.
The native races have lost the use of their
old weapons, the bow and the spear, and they
are dependent upon the nine kings for guns
and ammunition, which are supplied to them
at most exorbitant rates of profit. When the
hunters become old, or unfit for profitable
employment, these implements are denied to
them, and they are left to perish of starvation,
or to eat each other.

The commercial transactions of the nine
kings with the debased natives, are conducted
in the most approved monarchical manner,
and upon the highest established model of
dealing with the heathen. They carry the
principle of buying in the cheapest and
selling in the dearest market, to the utmost
perfection. The savage man shows his
inferiority to the white man, not only in his
ignorance and heathen darkness, but in his
imperfect knowledge of values. The nine
kings, taking advantage of their superior
intelligence, barter a coarse knife that costs