1823.

LONG AND KEATING'S ACCOUNT OF PEMBINA.

945

Company.   It may be well to observe, that by virtue of a charter from Charles the Second, granted in 1670, to Prince Rupert and others, constituting the 'honorable Hudson's Bay Company,' tbe whole of the British dominions lying contiguous to Hudson's Bay or its tributaries, has been claimed by that company, not only as regards the monopoly of the fur trade, but also as respects tbe right to the soil, and to the jurisdiction of the country.   About the year 1813, Lord Selkirk, who was one of the principal partners, obtained from the company a grant of a considerable tract of land, including both banks of Red river, up to the Red or Grand Fork. To this he extinguished the Indian title, by the payment of a certain amount, and the promise of an annuity to the Indians. He then opened the lands for settlement, inviting a number of British subjects to go and reside upon them, and with a view to strengthen his infant colony, he engaged recruits from Switzerland and other countries, and especially increased it by a number of soldiers belonging to the de Meuron and de Yfatteville regiments, two foreign corps that were in the pay of England during the late war, and that were disbanded in Canada, in the year 1815.   Two priucipal settlements were formed, one at Fort Bouglas, which is at the confluence of the Assiniboin and Red rivers, and the other one hundred and twenty miles by water above that, and near the mouth of a small stream, named by the Chippewas, Anepeminan sipi, so called from a small red berry, termed by them anepeminan, which name has been shortened and corrupted into Pembina, (Viburnum oxycoccos.)

" The Hudson's Bay Company had a fort here, until the spring of 1823, when observations, made by their own astronomers, led them to suspect that it was south of the boundary line, and they therefore abandoned it, removing all that could be sent down tbe river with advantage. The Catholic clergyman, who had been supported at this place, was at the same time removed to Fort Bouglas ; and a large and neat chapel built by the settlers for their accommodation, is now fast going to decay. The settlement consists of about three hundred and fifty souls, residing in sixty log houses or cabins; they do not appear to possess the qualifications for good settlers; few of them are farmers; most of them are half-breeds, who, having been educated by their Indian mothers, have imbibed the roving, unsettled, and indolent habits of the Indians. Accustomed from their early infancy to the arts of the fur trade, which may be considered as one of the worst schools for morals, they have acquired no small share of cunning and artifice. These form at least two-thirds of the male inhabitants.   The rest consist