MASTERS AND SERVANTS: THE HUDSON’S BAY COMPANY AND ITS PERSONNEL, 1668-1782 By Scott P. Stephen A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of History University of Manitoba Winnipeg, Manitoba © January 2006 i MASTERS AND SERVANTS: The Hudson’s Bay Company and its Personnel, 1668-1782 Editorial Note iii Acknowledgments iv List of Abbreviations v Abstract vi Ch. 1 Introduction: Early Modern Contexts & Recent Scholarship 1 • Periodization 9 • Comparisons to Contemporary Long-Distance Trading Companies 12 • A Note on Terminology 17 • The HBC as Enterprise & Employer: A Brief Survey of the Secondary Literature 28 • Household Models in the Secondary Literature 41 Ch. 2 Early Days, 1668-1686: “No Certain Method for Any thing” 49 • Uncertain Beginnings: The First HBC Posts 50 • Seamen and Landsmen: Uneasy Relations 60 • Recruitment Issues: “no certain method for any thing” 65 • Sources of Recruitment: Londoners, Scotsmen, and “Country Lads” 80 • Conclusion 89 Ch. 3 Dark Days, 1686-1714: Conflict and Uncertainty 91 • “Constant Perill from the French” 92 • For King and Company 97 • Recruitment in the Shadow of War 108 • Retention of Personnel 121 • Conclusion 126 Ch. 4 Rebuilding, 1714-1743 128 • Churchill River Ventures 129 • “A sufficient number of labouring hands”: Recruiting for Rebuilding 133 • “Though all names and eaters, they are not all workers”: Considerations of Recruitment and Retention 150 • Conclusion 164 ii Ch. 5 Experimentation and Transition, 1743-1782 167 • Henley House 170 • Inland Wintering 186 • Inland Expansion: Taking the Fight to “the Cursed Pedlars up Country” 192 • Recruitment 200 • Difficulties in Recruitment 210 • Conclusion 213 Ch. 6 Covenants and Contracts in Hudson Bay 216 • Signing On: Covenants and Contracts 216 • “Their times being out”: Choosing to Leave the Service or Stay in the Bay 223 • Bargaining to Stay – or to Go Home 227 • Conclusion 246 Ch. 7 Wages, Perquisites, and Gratuities 247 • The Issue of Private Trade 263 • ‘Pensions’ and “Charity” 276 • Conclusion 278 Ch. 8 Household-Families and Household-Factories 280 • Patronage, Brokerage, and Friendship 282 • Patriarchal Household-Families 292 • Tensions within the Household Model 300 • Conclusion 316 Ch. 9 Master-Servant Relationships 317 • Master-Servant Rhetoric in the HBC 317 • “Diligent men” and “Idle Fellowes”: Sorting the wheat from the chaff in Hudson Bay 338 • “Evil Examples” and “Good Examples” 351 • Public and Hidden Transcripts in Hudson Bay 361 • Conclusion 368 Ch. 10 Conclusion 369 Bibliography 383 iii EDITORIAL NOTE I consider the language used by the HBC Committee and their servants to be of central importance in this study. Therefore, every effort has been made to preserve the spelling and punctuation of the archival sources quoted here, although the limitations of WordPerfect (or perhaps the limitations of my skills with WordPerfect) have required me to expand some abbreviations. Where I have quoted from published editions of primary sources which have modernized the text, I have not tried to undo those changes. Wages are quoted per annum: thus, a man engaged at £10 was paid £10 per annum. A man engaged at £3-4-5-6-8 was paid £3 in his first year, £4 in his second, and so on. All dates are given New Style: thus, 11 February 1681/2 is here written as 11 February 1682. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Needless to say, I have incurred many debts during the research and writing of this dissertation. I would like to acknowledge the financial assistance of the University of Manitoba – particularly the Department of History, St. John’s College, and St. Paul’s College – through various fellowships, and of the University of Winnipeg through various teaching opportunities. Chris Kotecki and the rest of the staff of the Hudson’s Bay Company Archives (Manitoba Archives) have been very helpful. The faculty and staff of the History departments at both the University of Winnipeg and the University of Manitoba, especially Barry Ferguson and Carol Adam, have always been very supportive. I would like to thank the members of my examination committee: Dr. Garin Burbank, Dr. Jack Bumsted, Dr. Russell Smandych, Dr. Karen Jensen, and in particular my external examiner, Dr. Patricia McCormack. My advisor, Jennifer S.H. Brown, and her husband Wilson have encouraged me throughout with words of wisdom and cups of tea. I am eternally grateful for the seemingly endless patience of my parents, my sister and her husband, and the rest of my family: in particular, M.B. and my wonderful wife Susan have always been there for me in ways too numerous to mention. Finally, I would like to dedicate this work to two very special people whom I dearly wish could have lived to see its completion: John Elgin Foster (d. 1996) and Montana, Queen of Cats (d. 2002). v LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS DCB Hayne, David M. and Francess G. Halpenny, gen. eds. Dictionary of Canadian Biography (Toronto: University of Toronto Press,1966-1983), vols. I-V. Letters Davies, K.G. and Johnson, A.M., eds. Letters from Hudson Bay 1703-40, introduction by Richard Glover. London: Hudson’s Bay Record Society, 1965. L.O. 1680-1687 Rich, E.E. and A.M. Johnson, eds. Copy-Book of Letters Outward &c, Begins 29th May, 1680; Ends 5 July, 1687. Introduction by E.G.R. Taylor. Toronto: Champlain Society for the Hudson’s Bay Record Society, 1948. L.O. 1688-1696 Rich, E.E. and A.M. Johnson, eds. Hudson’s Bay Copy Booke of Letters Commissions Instructions Outward 1688-1696. Introduction by K.G. Davies. London: Hudson’s Bay Record Society, 1957. Minutes Rich, E.E., ed. Minutes of the Hudson’s Bay Company, 1671- 1674, with introduction by Sir John Clapham. Toronto: Champlain Society for the Hudson’s Bay Record Society, 1942. Minutes, First Part ----------. Minutes of the Hudson’s Bay Company, 1679-1684: First Part, 1679-1682, with introduction by G.N. Clark. Toronto: Champlain Society for the Hudson’s Bay Record Society, 1945. Minutes, Second Part ----------. Minutes of the Hudson’s Bay Company, 1679-1684: Second Part, 1682-1684, with introduction by G.N. Clark. Toronto: Champlain Society for the Hudson’s Bay Record Society, 1946. Nixon “Report to the Governor and Committee by John Nixon, 1682," Royal Society, The Boyle Papers (Misc.), XL; printed as Appendix A in E.E. Rich & Alice M. Johnson, eds., Minutes of the Hudson’s Bay Company 1679-1684: First Part, 1679-82 (Toronto: Champlain Society for the Hudson’s Bay Record Society, 1945), 239-304. vi ABSTRACT During its long first century (1670-1782), the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) developed personnel practices not on the basis of abstract policy but by patching together experiments and expedients. Its initial vulnerability increased the value of loyal and experienced servants, and frequent shortfalls in wartime recruitment allowed old hands to demand and receive higher wages and gratuities. Peace after the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 allowed the Company to prune its payroll and to resume the carefully optimistic expansion that French attacks had interrupted in 1686. This required a larger labour force, but recruitment processes remained relatively unchanged from previous years (although Orkneymen became increasingly prominent). Expanding operations in the mid-eighteenth century imposed greater regularity on existing ad hoc methods of recruiting and retaining personnel, but labour needs did not expand rapidly enough to unduly strain those methods. Increasing inland travel and trade after 1743 placed new demands on servants by requiring that ‘extraordinary’ labour become ‘ordinary’. The Committee discovered that this could only be done with ‘encouragement’, the slow pace of which hampered inland ventures into the 1780s. Inland operations changed the nature of HBC service and influenced the way master, factor, and servant interacted; they also illuminated the practices and assumptions which had been prevalent since Utrecht and probably before. The HBC drew its labour force from the competitive labour ‘market’ of early modern Britain: the movement of men to and from the Bay was an aspect of domestic labour mobility. The relationship between the Committee and their employees was that vii of master and servants, heavily influenced by the circumstances of trading in Hudson Bay. Labour relations within HBC posts were framed by the dominant social construct of early modern Britain, the patriarchal household-family, made up of a master (the patriarch) and a family of kin, apprentices, and servants. Men at all levels of the Company hierarchy could try to shape the reality of their HBC experiences, but did so in terms of commonly accepted ideals. Deferential behaviours and strong vertical ties existed alongside tension and negotiation: the Committee and their servants all understood the nature of ideal master-servant relationships, but they also had experience of the realities of life in various kinds of households. The Company’s servants internalized and practised the expected values of deference and submission, but did so without abandoning or deferring their own self- interest; indeed, they could use their mastery of the language to advance their own interests. The household-factory was the fundamental social unit of HBC establishments. Although membership changed, the institution maintained continuity over time. Furthermore, each household-factory was internally held together, and bound to other household-factories and to the London Committee by ties of patronage, brokerage, and