Hudson's Bay Company. Containing a variety of facts, observations and discoveries, tending to shen, I. The vast importance of the countries about Hudson's Bay to Great Britain, on account of the extensive improvements that may be made there, in many beneficial articles of commerce, particularly in the furs, and in the whale and seal fisheries, and II. The interested views of the Hudson's Bay Company, and the absolute necessily of laying open the trade, and making it the object of national encouragement, as the only method of keeping it out of the hands of the French. To which is added, an Appendix; containing, 1. A short history of the discovery of Hudson's Buy, and of the proceedings of the English there, since the grant of the Hudson's Bay charter; together with remarks on the papers and evidence, produced by that company before the committee of the Honourable House of Commons, in the year 1749. II. An estimate of the expense of building the stone fort, called the Prince of Wales's Fort, at the entrance of Churchill river. III. The soundings of Nelson river. IV. A survey of the course of Nelson river. V. A survey of Seal and Gillam's Island, and VI. A journal of the winds and tides at Churchill river, for part of the years 1746 and 1747. The whole illustrated by a draught of Nelson and Haye's rivers; a draught of Churchill river, and plans of York fort and Prince of Wales's fort. London, 1752, 8vo. pp. 175. The present state of Hudson's Bay, containing a full description of the settlement and the adjacent country; and likewise of the fur trade, with hints for its improvement, &c. to which are added, remarks and observations made in the inland parts, during a residence of nearly four years; a specimen of five Indian languages and a journal of a journey from Montreal to NewYork. By Edward Umfreville, eleven years in the service of the Hudson's Bay Company, and four years in the Canada fur trade, London, 1790, 8vo. pp, 230.

These three works resemble each other in two points, though written at different periods in enmity to the Hudson's Bay Company, and in being very uninteresting. The monopoly of that company seems quiet and durable. The

fur trade of the north, is now principally in the hands of the Canada merchants; but, if the monopoly of the Company did not interfere, more advantage might be derived from some branches of the fisheries in Hudson's Bay. The stock of the Company is in the hands of a very few individuals, who conduct their affairs unnoticed by the publick, and who' lock up the vast and dreary regions included in their charter, making no settlements, and only sending about 700 tons of shipping, one voyage annually. The long title pages of the two first, are a complete table of contents. A great part of them is taken up with shewing the probability of a northwest passage, a question that has since been fully decided in the negative.

The only passages of interest in Umfreville's book, are a description of a most horrible massacre of the wretched Esquimaux, by a party of northern Indians whom he accompanied; and a very singular and cruel adventure that befel three of their factory men, who were sent out on an excursion to kill game. In crossing a river, they passed over upon the ice, and when at a long distance from the shore, they found themselves to be on a floating field of it. This drifted with the tide out of the mouth of the river into the bay, the flood tide brought it back, but it did not reach the shore; the ebb carried it out again; and in this manner they were floated about for a week, and this in the month of January, on the shores of Hudson's Bay. Two of them perished, the third escaped to the shore on the eighth day, the ice having fortunately grounded on the side of the river. He reached the fort and survived, though with the loss of some of his limbs.

In Mr. Dobbs' work there is a mysterious story, which was new to me, but which may perhaps have been investigated by others. It is in the letter of Admiral da Fonte, giving an abstract of his voyage, made by order of the king of Spain, to intercept adventurers, who, after the example of Hudson, were endeavouring to find a north-west passage. He sailed from Lima in 1640.- The 17th (of July) they came to an Indian town, and the Indians told their inter• preter, Mr. Parmentiers, that a little way from them lay a great ship, where there had never been one before they 'sailed to them and found only one man advanced in years, ' and a youth; the man was the greatest man in the mechani

In reflecting on this choice, a complaint that has been often urged, occurred to recollection. It has been said that one reason why we have not produced more good poems, was owing to the want of subjects, and though

The poet's eye in a fine phrensy rolling,

Glances from Heaven to earth, from earth to Heaven,

and makes the universe his domain, yet that the appropriate themes of other countries had been exhausted by their own poets, and that none existed in ours. Thinking this opinion to be unfounded, the attempt to prove the latter part of it to be so, may furnish a theme for this discourse, during the few moments, that I can presume to solicit your

attention.

The early history of illustrious nations, has been the source of the great master pieces of poetry: the fabulous ages of Greece are the foundation of the Illiad and Odyssey, and the same period gave Virgil his hero for the Æneid. Many modern epicks have taken the heroes of the earlier periods, and revolutions of modern times. The American Revolution may some centuries hence, become a fit and fruitful subject for an heroick poem; when ages will have consecrated its principles, and all remembrance of party feuds and passions, shall have been obliterated-when the inferiour actors and events will have been levelled by time, and a few memorable actions and immortal names shall remain, the only monuments, to engage and concentrate the admiration of a remote posterity.

From the close of the 16th to the middle of the 18th century many most interesting events took place on this continent, and circumstances have concurred with time in casting a shade of obscurity resembling that of antiquity, over the transactions of that period; while, by the great revolutions which have since happened, the connexion between those days and our own is interrupted, and they are so disconnected with the present era, that no passionate feeling is blended with their consideration; they are now exclusively the domain of history and poetry. All the communities then standing have passed away, or exist under new relations. The remarkable Confederacy of Indian tribes under the name of the five nations is extinct. The foundations of the French Empire in America

have been torn up, the possessions that were once French are now held by the British, and the English colonies have become an independent nation. All these changes have insulated this portion of history, and divested it of the irritation attendant on recent political affairs.

The

The region in which these occurrences took place, abounds with grand and beautiful scenery, possessing some peculiar features. The numerous waterfalls, the enchanting beauty of Lake George and its pellucid flood, of Lake Champlain, and the lesser lakes, afford many objects of the most picturesque character; while the inland seas from Superiour to Ontario, and that astounding cataract, whose roar would hardly be increased by the united murmurs of all the cascades of Europe, are calculated to inspire vast and sublime conceptions. The effects too of our climate composed of a Siberian winter and an Italian summer, furnish peculiar and new objects for description. circumstances of remote regions are here blended, and strikingly opposite appearances witnessed in the same spot, at different seasons of the year-In our winters, we have the sun at the same altitude as in Italy, shining on an unlimited surface of snow, which can only be found in the higher latitudes of Europe, where the sun in the winter rises little above the horizon. The dazzling brilliance of a winter's day, and a moon-light night, when the utmost splendour of the sky is reflected from a surface of spotless white, attended with the most excessive cold, is peculiar to the northern part of the United States. What too can surpass the celestial purity and transparency of the atmosphere in a fine autumnal day, when our vision and our thoughts seem carried to the third heaven;' the gorgeous magnificence of their close, when the sun sinks from our view, surrounded with varied masses of clouds, fringed with gold and purple, and reflecting in evanescent tints, all the hues of the rainbow.*

* There is no climate in the world that presents more remarkable contrasts than that of the middle and northern parts of the United States. Boston, for instance, is in the same latitude with Rome, the cold in winter is occasionally as intense, and the snow as deep as at Stockholm and St. Petersburg; but the sun hardly gleams on them in the winter months, while here his rays are shed from the same altitude as in Italy, and interrupts during the day that severity of cold, induced

A most remarkable feature in the landscape at this same season, and which those who see it for the first time must behold with astonishment, is the singular appearance of the woods; where all the hues of the most lively flowers, the vivid colours of tulips, are given to the trees of the forest,

by the prevalence of the winds in the western quarter, coming to us over a continent of such vast extent covered with dense forests which shadow the earth, and prevent the sun from warming and drying its surface. Our climate affords some of the worst, and some of the finest weather that can be felt in any part of the world. The spring generally is the most capricious and disagreeable, the autumn the mellowest and most serene. Persons who are in the habit of remarking the appearance of the atmosphere, cannot fail of admiring the extreme beauty of the sky at most seasons of the year. To witness the same effects, it is necessary in Europe to get into the same latitudes. The climate of England, modified by an insular situation, and the wide spread cultivation of its surface, is peculiarly temperate, but constantly vapoury and humid. France and Germany colder and warmer than England, are still more temperate than the United States; it is necessary to cross the Alps, to find the same bright and beautiful atmosphere that surrounds us. In England it is seldom that any distant object can be seen distinctly, and there is always such a degree of haziness in the air, that even neighbouring objects are never so clearly defined as they are under a purer sky; the artists of the Continent commonly reproach the artists of England with carrying this imitation of nature in their own country, into their representations of the scenery of others, and in their engravings, (the remark was made particularly in criticising that magnificent work, Stuart's Antiquities of Athens,) giving the misty, indistinct outline, which they were accustomed to, and which is not without its beauties, but which was entirely foreign to the appearance of objects in Greece. This same effect of great distinctness, which is common to the south of Europe, may very often be seen here, especially in the summer. Any person may judge of this in a clear day, by regarding elevated buildings, looking from the sun, and observing with what sharpness and distinctness their edges and angles are marked, and how bold the relief, and distant the sky recedes. The most careless eye can hardly fail to be struck with the beauty of an evening sky, after sunset, and the appearance of the western horizon, when the darkness has encroached on the eastern. On a summer or autumnal evening, when there are no clouds, as the twilight is advancing, the purity, transparency, brilliancy and harmonious subsiding and blending of the warmer tints from where the sun has set, to the fine chiaro oscuro of the opposite point, where the shadows of night are approaching, will afford a few minutes of delightful contemplation to the lover of nature. In contending for this splendour of our atmosphere which, has sometimes been denied it, I am well aware of all its disadvantages, and would gladly take a little loss brilliance and a little more comfort; but, as we are fully sensible, and are habitually repining at its inconveniences, it is well to know what compensation may be derived from its beauties. To the poet and the artist it is replete with picturesque effect.