How Successful Was The Hudson Bay Company

Alan Day once said, ‘as a target, nothing matched the Northwest Passage in prestige’, thus the 18th century saw several attempts to continue the search for a northwest passage; the sea linking the North Atlantic Ocean with the North Pacific Ocean. The main reason for these explorations was to strengthen Britain’s trade routes by determining a shorter sea route to the Far East to fulfil Western European consumer demands for products from Asia. Thirty years prior to the decision to resume exploration for the Northwest Passage, discoveries had been delayed due to the Hudson Bay Company’s choice to prioritise trade. This essay will assess the importance of the Hudson’s Bay Company in determining the success of Knight, Middleton, Moor and Smith,

Hearne, and Cook, or whether there were other, more important factors. The Company was certainly important as voyagers relied on its support in order to survive through the treacherous winters and to gain access via Hudson Bay.

However, other factors, most importantly the voyagers’ ability to winter, also played key roles in their successes and failures. There is certainly a correlation between the dangers of wintering and the need for support from the Company; without this support, voyagers had little chance of surviving throughout the winter as they relied on Hudson Bay posts as shelter. This proved to be a great problem, particularly for early voyagers including Knight and Middleton, who faced tough negotiations with the Hudson’s Bay Company. Of course different factors affected different explorers more drastically than others. Cook avoided Hudson Bay by travelling from the East and Hearne dealt with the dangers of wintering very well. The Company was certainly the most antagonising factor for eighteenth century expeditions as it caused more issues than necessary. However, wintering was more damaging as it caused the death of various voyagers and greatly limited their capabilities. Overall, different factors affected individual voyagers to varying extents, but the Hudson’s Bay Company was certainly pivotal to the success of eighteenth

century exploration.
Before analysing the importance of the Hudson’s Bay Company, I will outline what its job was.

Established in 1670 as ‘a highly dispersed organisation with headquarters in London and operations thousands of miles away in modern Canada’, the Hudson’s Bay Company was chartered by a “Company of Adventurers” to ‘trade furs along the shores of Hudson Bay and its large offshoot, James Bay.’ The Company quickly settled into a routine whereby its bay-side garrisons traded with Indians who travelled on canoes to trade their furs via rivers that broke up in the summer months. It was believed that the most cost-efficient way of bringing furs from the Cree, the most populous and home to numerous Aboriginal people in Canada, was not the lengthy canoe journey along the St. Lawrence, but the shorter route via ship from the Hudson Bay coasts. With this concept came the beginnings of the Hudson’s Bay Company. It remains today the longest continually operating company in North America. In the eighteenth century it was in the Company’s best interests to discover a northwest passage in order to improve their own trade and expand. Despite this goal to find the Northwest Passage, ‘little was accomplished’ until a hundred years after its charter, when ‘Samuel Hearne, a British explorer with the company, went overland as far west as the Coppermine River and demonstrated that there was no short passage to the western

sea.’
At the beginning of the eighteenth century and after a long period of stalled exploration, James Knight, an official of the Hudson’s Bay Company, grew convinced that discovery must be made by sea, and that he needed to persuade the Company to finance a voyage from England. This is the first example of the importance of the Company in the search for the Northwest Passage as Knight relied on it to agree to fund his proposed voyage. The Governor of the Company at this time in 1712, Sir Bibye Lake, ‘was not the sort of man to be easily tempted by schemes which carried no guaranteed return’, demonstrating the control the Company had over the voyagers’ proposed plans. After years of protracted negotiations, finally in May 1719, an agreement was reached for Knight to embark on an expedition to ‘discover Gold and other Valuable Commodities to the Northward.’ The suggestion here is that the Company was still more interested in trading opportunities rather than the search for the Northwest Passage. Knight decided to requisition two vessels for a search into the northwest corner of Hudson Bay, where he hoped to track copper deposits he had heard rumours about; however, this turned out to be the Coppermine River. He sailed on June 5th 1719, but neither he nor his ships were ever seen again and his disappearance remains unresolved to this day. Although there is some evidence that he reached Marble Island where an Inuit apparently gave him food, one of his vessels possibly become trapped in a shallow harbour. Despite speculation, the scarcity of human remains at the site means his and his crew’s death remains a mystery.
The question remains as to what caused the ultimate death of Knight and his crew. It could be argued that the Hudson’s Bay Company could not have prevented the fate of the men. Therefore, although Knight’s expedition was essentially unsuccessful, the support of the Company was vital in allowing the voyage to go ahead and provided most of the financial support necessary. Knight did contribute an eighth of the cost of the expedition however, which implies the Company still reserved full support.
After Knight’s failure, the Company was reluctant to allow another expedition of the same criteria to voyage in search for a northwest passage. However, if a northwest passage was discovered, ‘the Company feared that it could do little to prevent ships using it from trading in Hudson Bay, and that its charter might prove only a frail barrier against such activities.’ This fear caused the Company to remain involved in the search for a northwest passage, despite lacking enthusiasm which led to attacks from various supporters of further exploration, most notably the Company critic, Arthur Dobbs. In 1730 he began an attack on the Company, accusing it of failing to explore its granted territories and reaping great profits. Dobbs’ enthusiasm lay in the advantages the discovery passage could bring: the opening to British traders of the continent west of the Hudson Bay; access to Chinese and Japanese markets; a short-cut that would enable British warships and privateers to descend in times of war, unnoticed, on Spanish possessions in the South Sea. Dobbs suggested the Company’s annual ships take a brief detour to Ne Ultra in search of the passage, but in 1733, during a trip to London, he realised the Company did not share his enthusiasm for discovery. Luckily, Dobbs discretely allied with a respected Company seaman, Christopher Middleton, who had joined the Company with the hope that a northwest passage would one day be discovered.
It was through Dobbs’ perseverant negotiations with the Company that Middleton was finally granted the support necessary to complete his voyage. The publication of Dobbs’ “Account of the Countries adjoining to Hudson Bay” ‘marked the beginning of a campaign against the HCB and its monopolistic rights, and the Northwest Passage was one of the weapons used in that attack.’ As a result, ‘the Company’s closely-guarded standard of trade with its Indian suppliers appeared in print’, and Dobbs exposed the Company for making a huge 2000% profit. After much difficulty, first with the Company and then with Parliament, it was King George II who eventually permitted the ‘first-ever British naval expedition to sail in search of the Northwest Passage.’
However, despite having been given the go ahead from the King, Middleton still sought support from the less enthusiastic Company. It was reluctant to assist an expedition that might ‘adversely affect its trade’, and began an intense exchange of letters with government ministers whereby it asked them to ‘prohibit Middleton from sailing into the southern parts of Hudson Bay, interfering with its trade, or wintering at any of its posts unless in gravest danger.’ These restrictions had also been enforced on Knight’s expedition. After gaining some sympathy from Wager, Middleton managed to force the Company to surrender and give him a terse order to the post factors to help him as far as they could.
It is evident that the Hudson’s Bay Company was a prominent factor in the success of Middleton’s voyage as it was only with its eventual support that he was confident that he would be able to safely winter. However, it was in fact Middleton’s inefficient preparation for winter that led to the numerous fatalities faced by his crew. This suggests that it was wintering that was the most determining factor in the failure of this expedition as the Company eventually, albeit reluctantly, provided Middleton with the support he needed.
Like Middleton, both Moor and Smith were aware that they would require the support of the Hudson’s Bay Company in order to survive the winter, so they negotiated with the Company to winter at York Fort; an original fur-trading post set up by the Company, built in 1684 and was used for business for over 270 years. However, there were far too many people in Moor and Smith’s voyage to winter there, with almost double the capacity of the fort attempting to stay. The same issues were encountered with Middleton’s voyage, with too many people and not enough supplies to last them the entire winter.
Both Moor and Smith were former Company employees and their diaries represent the ‘most detailed eighteenth-century accounts of this trade.’ This primary evidence helps historians judge accurately whether the successes and failures of Moor and Smith were down to the Hudson’s Bay Company or other factors. Importantly, unlike during the times of Knight’s and Middleton’s expeditions, the Company suspected that the real reason for the Moor Smith expedition was commercial sabotage. The Company remained as reluctant to provide support as they had been prior to this voyage, and perhaps found this even more exasperating as it believed without doubt that there were wider, commercial motives behind the expedition. Again this antagonising relationship certainly did not help Moor and Smith in their hope for success, however nor did Moor and Smith overcome the challenge of how to endure a winter without scurvy negatively impacting the health and morale of the crew, similar to the issue faced by Middleton. The Hudson’s Bay Company was certainly crucial, but vital preparation was also crucial after gaining the Company’s support, which Moor and Smith failed to achieve. Nevertheless, they were successful in ruling out certain straits off Hudson’s Bay which prevented future voyages from wasting time on later expeditions.
Stuart asserts that ‘Samuel Hearne’s exploits as an explorer, fur trader, and author have been appreciated for more than two centuries.’ He planned numerous overland expeditions and his decision to take overland routes allowed him to take advantage of the natives, and put him closer to potential resources. He was the ‘first European to reach the Arctic coast of North America, travelling on foot with a group of Chipewyan Indians from Churchill to the mouth of the Coppermine River’. Hearne, unlike previous explorers, received more support from the Company and therefore was overall more successful. This is telling when assessing the importance of the Company in leading voyagers to success or failure. He was provided with a shelter from which he could base himself, Prince of Wales Fort, a stone star fort at the mouth of the Churchill River, as well as goods to gift to natives, forming a strong relationship and avoiding potential threats they posed to his safety. On 17th or 18th July 1771, Hearne took possession of the coast at the mouth of the Coppermine River on behalf of the Hudson’s Bay Company. Without the Company’s support, Hearne could not have achieved this. Moreover, Hearne managed to chart a large area of Northern Canada, rule out Hudson Bay as a start point for a Northwest Passage and also write a journal which was influential throughout Britain, providing both geographical and survival knowledge.
Hearne’s success was arguably due to the different approach he took to other voyagers; he chose to explore overland and in the process he formed a good relationship with the Hudson’s Bay Company and natives which proved helpful and eventually made important discoveries without fatality.
Cook was the final voyager of the eighteenth century, but unlike all other explorers he avoided liaisons with the Hudson’s Bay Company. He has been credited as ‘one of the greatest and best known navigators of Great Britain or any other nation.’ Perhaps his avoidance of the Hudson’s Bay Company was pivotal to his success; despite ultimately facing his fate in Hawaii where he was murdered, his exploration contributed to George Vancouver’s statement in his 1798 journal that he had removed ‘every doubt’ about the existence of a passage ‘between the North Pacific, and the interior of the American continent, within the limit of our researches.’
In conclusion, it is clear that the support of the Hudson’s Bay Company was vital to the success of eighteenth century exploration. Although Cook was successful through avoiding the Company, earlier voyages required the backing of the Company in order to have confidence that they would have shelter during the winter and possibly funding throughout. Despite the failures of various expeditions, it was not the fault of the Company. Instead, factors, most notably voyagers’ ability to effectively winter was pivotal to the success, or ultimate failure of eighteenth century exploration.