He became
one of the Secretaries of the Treasury; and, in 1831, had to organize
the eventful election of that year. His great powers and never-failing
energy, devoted in early life to the fur trade and its conflicts,
became of infinite value to the country, in many momentous struggles,
at home, for liberty and progress. It amused me much when, by chance,
meeting Mr. Ellice, after we had bought and paid for his Hudson's Bay
property, to see the kind of astonished stare with which he regarded
me. I think the purchase of the Hudson's Bay Company was a mystery to
him. I remember meeting him at the Royal Academy a few months before
his death. He stopped opposite to me, as if to study my features. He
did not speak a word, nor did I. He seemed in a state of abstraction,
like that of a man endeavouring to recollect a long history of
difficulty, and to realize how strangely it had all ended,--by the
negociation I had brought to a head.
CHAPTER X.
_The Select Committee, on Hudson's Bay Affairs, of_
1857.
This Committee was appointed "to consider the state of those British
possessions in North America which are under the administration of the
Hudson's Bay Company, or over which they possess a licence to trade."
Lord John Russell, Mr.
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