HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY, the great fur-trading and later landholding and adminis trative company of Northwest Canada, incor porated 1670. It originated in the dissatisfac tion of two French Protestant employees of the French fur-trading monopoly at Quebec, Gro seilliers and Radisson, over its unwillingness to extend the trade to Hudson Bay. After vainly trying to induce Boston merchants and the French court to take up their scheme for so doing, they gained the ear of a company of London merchants and Prince Rupert, cousin of Charles II; brought a load of furs from the bay; and on 2 May 1670 Rupert and 17 associ ates received from Charles a charter for ((The Governor and Company of Merchants-Adven turers trading into Hudson's Bay?' It had the monopoly of the right to trade in the bay or on its coasts, and could expel any one entering the territory without its license; could build forts, send out ships of war and privateers and declare war and make peace with any non Christian people. Its capital was flO,MO, di vided into 34 shares with an extra one for Prince Rupert, and in 1676 it imported some f19,000 worth of furs, sending in return #650 worth of goods to the Indians. The profit was high on the petty capital paid in, but the gross amount vas not large for a century. In 1748 the trade was carried on with four ships and employed about 120 men in all, including the garrisons at its forts. The furs and other im ports amounted to over 130,000, the exported goods to f5,003 and the costs of business over 117,000. The average profit was 40 per cent on capital, but the sum was trivial. Moreover, the company had great losses and tribulations from the French rivalry and assaults, especially in the national wars. The French laid claim to the territory on the strength of a mythical expedi tion of Jean Bourdon in 1656, and in 1682 and 1686 captured several of the company's forts. The two countries' trading posts shared in the long war ended by the Peace of Ryswicic in 1697, captured each other's forts, and the treaty yielded Port Nelson to the French, to the great damage of the company. The War of the Spanish succession inflicted frightful hardships on both sides; the company claimed a loss of over f100,000, hundreds of trappers and em ployees starved to death and the Indians turned cannibals. The Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 finally resigned all French claim to the Hudson's Bay territory and thence till the cession of French Canada in 1763, the monopoly gave the company an easy life and good profits, though still on a small scale. But when that cession opened up access to Hudson's Bay from. both land and sea, the possibilities of trade were incalculably en larged. Despite the clandestine rivalry of Mon treal traders who intercepted their boats, the gross volume of trade increased, and it was not crippled by the ravages of France in 1782, as part of the war begun in 1778, when they captured and partly ruined the massive stone Fort Prince of Wales at the mouth of Church ill River and altogether destroyed property valued by the company at half a millidn pounds.
But a much worse rivalry was at hand, organ ized and powerful: the Northwest Company (q.v.), started on a co-operative plan in 1784 by an association of Scotch merchants in Mon treal. The Declaration of Rights having guar anteed free and open trade to all British subjects, this company invaded its rival's terri tory, and the trade competition for many years merged into actual war. In 1821 they had done each other so much harm that they consolidated, and Parliament in view of the evils of competi tion empowered the Crown to issue licenses for the °Indian which was exercised in favor of the new company. Meantime explora tion had been steadily enlarging the territory; Samuel Hearne for the old company had reached the Arctic in 1771, Alexander Macken zie for the new one reached the Pacific in 1793. With the United States, its rivalry for the far Northwest was strenuous and persistent; it planted posts in the Oregon district, repelled settlers and there was much danger of war till the boundary settlement of 1846 quieted the dispute. In 1849 it secured a grant of Van couver Island. This was the time of its palmi est growth. In 1846 it had 513 employees and 35 officers, in 1856 it had over 3,000 employees and officers together, with 152 posts. Its trade monopoly expired by limitation in 1859, but there was also a great desire to settle the North west Territories, with which the fur-trade and administrative rights of the company were in compatible. The company, liable to be dispos sessed by force if it refused to come to terms, agreed in 1869 to transfer its territorial rights to the Dominion of Canada for f300,000 and one-twentieth of the lands set out for settle ment by the government for the next 50 years. It retained its posts and its rights of trade. The transfer to Canada, and the survey of lands for settlement, was immediately followed by the Riel rebellion (9.v.). The company, de spite its lapse of administrative powers, remains the most potent influence for law and order in the unsettled parts, through its relations with the Indians. Consult Bryce, 'History of the Hudson's Bay Company' (1900) ; Willson, The Great Company' (1900); Cawston and Keane, Chartered Companies) (1896). For the Northwest Company, consult Irving, (Astoria.' HUE, hoo-a, French Indo-China, the capital of Annam, on the river Truong, 10 miles from its mouth in the Gulf of Tonking. It is sur rounded by Vaubanian fortified walls, five miles in circumference, the internal city being built on a rectangular plan with wide and straight streets. The chief building is the royal palace, containing a famous museum of ancient Annam ite art, mainly in gold and jade jewelry. Hue is the seat of a French political resident, and at Thuan-an, the port at the river mouth, there is a French garrison. Pop. 60,600, of whom less than 400 are Europeans.