ught I understood the English language as well
as most people; but the Governor makes it appear plainly enough that I
ought still to confine myself to the old Celtic.

The instructions above referred to being given in the foregoing pages,
I shall leave the reader to form his own opinion of one who, in
the high and honourable position of a Governor, could treat so
ungenerously one whom he admitted to be a faithful and meritorious
servant, and whom he had acknowledged to be deserving of preferment:
and that not on the present only, but on several former occasions.

This last insult I consider the climax to the wrongs I have so long
suffered. First I am appointed in the usual terms to the charge of a
district. I am allowed to continue in that opinion for a twelvemonth;
I enter into correspondence with the gentlemen of the district as
their future superintendent, and make my arrangements with them as
such; and, _au bout du compte_, am ordered back to the same district
to mix with the crowd, and submit to another master. I leave it to
the reader to judge whether such a Governor could possibly have the
interests of the Company at heart; even supposing for a moment there
were no _injustice_ in the case; I leave it to him to consider what
effect a conduct and measures so vacillating, unsteady and arbitrary,
are likely to have on the service and interests of the Company.

This last act of the Governor made me completely disgusted with a
service where such acts could be tolerated. In no colony subject to
the British Crown is there to be found an authority so despotic as is
at this day exercised in the mercantile Colony of Rupert's Land; an
authority combining the despotism of military rule with the strict
surveillance and mean parsimony of the avaricious trader. From
Labrador to Nootka Sound the unchecked, uncontrolled will of a single
individual gives law to the land. As to the nominal Council which is
yearly convoked for form's sake, the few individuals who compose it
know better than to offer advice where none would be accepted; they
know full well that the Governor has already determined on his own
measures before one of them appears in his presence. Their assent is
all that is expected of them, and that they never hesitate to give.
Many years pass without such a thing as a legally constituted Council
being held. A legal Council ought to consist of seven members besides
the Governor; three chief factors and four chief trade