What had taken place was this: The Hudson Bay
Company very prudently required that the money should be paid down, and
that the whole sum of 1,500,000_l_. should be ready on a given
day, which he believed was yesterday. Of course the intending
purchasers could not carry out that transaction in the course of a
week, and they, therefore, applied to the International Financial
Association to assist them. The Association agreed to do so, and the
money either had been paid or would be on a day arranged upon. A
prospectus would be issued tomorrow morning, and the shares would be
thrown upon the market, to be taken up in the ordinary way upon the
formation of companies. These shares would not remain in the hands of
the Association, but would pass to the Proprietors, as if they had
bought their shares direct from the Hudson Bay Company. Of course the
Company would only enjoy the rights which those shares carried, and no
more. They would, in fact, be a continuation of the Company; but their
efforts would be directed to the promotion of the settlement of the
country: the development of the postal and transit communication being
one of the objects to which they would apply themselves. Of course, the
old Governor and his colleagues, having sold their shares, ceased to be
the governing body, and a new council, consisting of most respectable
persons, had been formed that afternoon.
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