From the library of abolitionist William Wilberforce, a fine copy of Halkett’s defence of Lord Selkirk’s Red River settlement against the aggressions of the North West Company.
This is the first published edition of the text, though it was preceded by a privately issued edition of the same year, which is without imprint. This edition also included a vindication of the North West Company’s A Narrative of Occurrences in Indian Countries.
The author, John Halkett (1768-1852) was a shareholder in the Hudson’s Bay Company and the cousin of Lord Selkirk’s wife. The Red River Settlement was a Scottish colonisation project, granting land in what is now Manitoba and North Dakota to establish a foothold for Scots who had been displaced by the Highland clearances. The grant, made by the HBC to Selkirk, was for 300,000 square kilometres of land in the Winnipeg basin, around the Red and Assiniboine Rivers.
From the very start there was friction with the local North West Company traders, who feared that the settlement would jeopardise their ability to subsist and trade freely in the region. This culminated in several violent incidents, including in 1815 the murder of Robert Semple, the colony’s governor.
Selkirk was elected to the House of Lords in late 1806, and when Wilberforce’s bill for the abolition of the slave trade was debated the following year, he spoke articulately in its favour. Though the causes of abolition and of colonisation may not seem easy allies, Selkirk saw Wilberforce as an inspiration in his philanthropic efforts. Equally, Selkirk appealed to Wilberforce’s evangelical sympathies when seeking support for his own bills in the Houses of Parliament, as they pertained to the Red River Settlement. It is therefore natural that Wilberforce would have kept an interest in the situation of the settlement as it developed.
Sabin, 20704; TPL, 1093.
