Excerpt from The Great Company, 1667-1871: Being a History of the Honourable Company of Merchants-Adventurers Trading Into Hudson's Bay It is easy to perceive that the day is not far distant when that map showing the area of the Com pany's rule will be dotted with villages, towns, and cities; the forests of Rupert's Land uprooted; its plains tilled by the husbandman, flocks and herds roaming its valleys, miners in summer and winter vexing its pine-clad hills. Yet what few spots there are in this vast region which can cease to bear testimony for generations to come to the labours and heroisms of the servants of the Great Company? Here - there wherever indeed we choose to cast our glance, traces confront us of the indomitable fur-hunter who, often frozen and hungry, always in remoteness and solitude, lived here his life, and lent his name to lake, mountain, and river, to settlement, creek, or hill. With regard to the official motto of the Company, concerning which there have arisen some amusing mis conceptions, I should like to hazard a word. Many who have not believed Pro pelle cutem a quotation from a classical Latin author, have fancied that it was adopted latterly in allusion to Sir J. H. Pelly, Bart, who was Governor of the Company for thirty years, from 1822 to 1852. The meaning of the motto is not, as commonly rendered, A skin for a skin, but We seek (or want) the skin for the sake of the fur, some verb being understood to govern the accusative case cutem. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.