EMIGRATION AND THE COLONIES 857
similar fashion by the abandonment of the system which AD. 18
bad secured them a monopoly of the English sugar trade.
There was ample excuse for the feeling, which spread through
the Colonies, that their interests and sentiments were entirely
ignored ; and their loyalty was in consequence subjected to
8 very severe strain.
During this period of indifference and estrangement,
however, there was a stream of emigration which increased
in volume, from all parts of the British Isles to the trans-
oceanic Colonies. The first considerable movement was Zmigra-
organised by Lord Selkirk, as a means of assisting the SS
tenantry who were displaced from the Sutherland estates in 5
1803. One batch of emigrants was settled in Prince Edward's
Island ; and a much more ambitious scheme was carried out,
in conjunction with the Hudson’s Bay Company, for planting
territory on the Red River in Rupert's Land. The immi-
grants were not all well adapted for the rough and laborious
life of pioneers, and they suffered from the bitter quarrels
between the Hudson's Bay Company and their rivals in the
fur trade—the North West Company, who inherited the
business which had been organised by the French—till the
two bodies were amalgamated in 1821. The settlement had
been recruited from the ranks of foreign soldiers, who had
taken part in the war of 1812, and despite political com-
plications with the United States, its success was so far
assured as to direct serious attention to this form of enter-
prise.
The pressure of circumstances led to the formation of the oa as
Canada Company, which was organised in Scotland, for effect- Company,
ing settlements in the Huron tract. Among its most promi-
nent men were John Galt and William Dunlop, who were
drawn from the literary coterie which was associated with
Blackwood’s Magazine. The settlers were men of a different
type from the poverty-stricken and broken-spirited High-
landers, on whose behalf Lord Selkirk had exerted himself, as
they had both the means and the capacity to face the diffi-
culties of pioneer lifel. A similar middle-class se$tlement
! The home conditions which have rendered any considerable section of the
population desirous to emigrate have varied greatly at different times. (See
