plowshare to sow his crop. The one great obstruction
to settlement there would be the claims of the Hudson's Bay Company to
exclusive monopoly of the country; but as Selkirk listened to the
descriptions of the Red River Valley given by Colin Robertson, who had
been dismissed by the Nor'westers, he thought he saw a way of overcoming
all difficulties which the fur traders could put in the way of settlement.

Owing to competition Hudson's Bay stock had fallen from two hundred and
fifty to fifty pounds sterling a share. On returning to Scotland Lord
Selkirk had begun buying up Hudson's Bay stock in the market, along with
Sir Alexander MacKenzie; but when MacKenzie learned that Selkirk's object
was colonization first, profits second, he broke in violent anger from
the partnership in speculation, and besought William MacGillivray to go
on {381} the open market and buy against Selkirk to defeat the plans for
settlement. What with shares owned by his wife's family of
Colville-Wedderburns, and those he had himself purchased, Selkirk now
owned a controlling interest in the Hudson's Bay Company.

Early in 1811 the Company deeds to Lord Selkirk the country of Red River
Valley, exceeding in area the British Isles and extending, through the
ignorance of its donors, far south into American territory. Colin
Robertson, the former Nor'wester, who first interested Selkirk in Red
River, has meanwhile been gathering together a party of colonists. Miles
MacDonell, retired from the Glengarry Regiment, has been appointed by
Selkirk governor of the new colony.

[Illustration: SELKIRK]

What of the Nor'westers while these projects went forward? Writes
MacGillivray from London, where he has been stirring up enmity to
Selkirk's project, "_Selkirk must be driven to abandon his project at any
cost, for his colony would prove utterly destructive of our fur trade_."
How he purposed doing this will be seen. Writes Selkirk to the governor
of his colony, Miles MacDonell: "_The Northwest Company must be compelled
to quit my lands. If they refuse, they must be treated as poachers_."
Selkirk believed that the Hudson's Bay Company charter to the Great
Northwest was legal and valid. He believed that the vast territory
granted to him was legally his own as much as his parks in Scotland. He
believed that he possessed the same right to expel intruders on this
territory as to drive poachers from his own Scotch parks. It was the
spirit of feudalism.