The right to the fur trade in America had been granted--given away, as the English of the time thought--by the hand of Charles II of England. In prodigal fashion Charles {23} conceded, in 1670, a charter, which conveyed extensive lands, with the privileges of monopoly, to the 'Company of Adventurers of England trading into Hudson's Bay.' But if the courtiers of the Merry Monarch had any notion that he could thus exclude all others from the field, their dream was an empty one.