Excerpt from Canada and Its Provinces, Vol. 22: A History of the Canadian People and Their Institutions, by One Hundred Associates; The Pacific Province

As until the founding in 1849 of the colony of Vancouver Island, which was limited in its area, there were no settlers north of the 49th parallel, the application of Canadian law was supererogatory in the extreme. The only white popu lation were the servants of the Hudson's Bay Company, and the latter was a law unto itself. There were no justices of the peace or officers of the law apart from the officers of the company. Violations Of the company's rules were punished by the company, but it is difficult to say what would have happened in the case of the perpetration of serious crime by servants of that corporation. To have brought a criminal within the Operation of the Canadian law would have meant his deportation to Eastern Canada, and that was out of the question. In such a case we may assume that the Hudson's Bay Company did deal, or would have dealt, with it in its own way. As between the Indians and the white men, it resolved itself into a matter of summary vengeance. If an Indian killed a Hudson's Bay Company's servant, he was killed in turn. It was an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth - the only kind of justice which appealed to the Indian's moral intelligence. Among themselves the natives settled everything according to this primitive code, and it must be remembered that they still possessed sovereign tribal rights. H. H. Bancroft has written a volume on popular tribunals, in which he related a great many instances of the crude methods of administering justice on the Pacific mpe in early days, but few of these relate to the country north of the 49th parallel. From the beginning, except in a few instances, law and order were respected under British rule.

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