For a time, he seemed to promote all the views of his late adversaries; he yielded a ready and gracious acquiescence in their wishes; he lavished his bows, and smiles, and honied words on them all; and played his part so well, that the North-Westers thought they had actually gained him over to their own side; while the gentlemen of the Hudson’s Bay Company branded him as a traitor, who had abandoned his own party and gone over to the enemy.

The Committee received several hints of the Governor’s “strange management,” but they only smiled at the insinuations, as they perfectly understood the policy.  His well-digested schemes had, in due time, all the success he anticipated.

Having thus completely gained the confidence of the North-West partners, his policy began gradually to unfold itself.  One obstreperous North-Wester was sent to the Columbia; another to the Montreal department, where “their able services could not be dispensed with;” and thus in the course of a few years he got rid of all those refractory spirits who dared to tell him their minds.

The North-West nonconformists being in this manner disposed of, Sir George deemed it no longer necessary to wear the mask.  His old friends of the Hudson’s Bay, or “sky-blue” party, were gradually received into favour; his power daily gained the ascendant, and at this moment Sir George Simpson’s rule is more absolute than that of any governor under the British crown, as his influence with the Committee enables him to carry into effect any measure he may recommend.  That one possessed of an authority so unbounded should often abuse his power is not to be wondered at; and that the abuse of power thus tolerated should degenerate into tyranny is but the natural consequence of human weakness and depravity.  The question is—­Is it consistent with prudence to allow an individual to assume and retain such power?  Most of the Company’s officers enter the service while yet very young; none are so young, however, as not to be aware of the privileges to which they are entitled as British subjects, and that they have a right to enjoy those privileges while they tread on British soil.  The oft repeated acts of tyranny of which the autocrat of “all Prince Rupert’s Land and its dependencies” has lately been guilty, have accordingly created a feeling of discontent which, if it could be freely expressed, would be heard from the shores of the Pacific to Labrador.

Unfortunately, the Company’s servants are so situated, that they dare not express their sentiments freely.  The clerk knows that if he is heard to utter a word of disapprobation, it is carried to the ears of his sovereign lord, and his prospects of advancement are marred for ever; he therefore submits to his grievances in silence.  The chief trader has probably a large family to support, has been thirty or forty years in the service, and is daily looking forward to the other step:  he too is silent.  The chief factor has a situation of importance in which his vanity is gratified and his comfort secured; to express his opinion freely might risk the sacrifice of some of these advantages; so he also swallows the pill without daring to complain of its bitterness, and is silent.