Note 5 — Chapter I · HISTORICAL.

Joseph Robson, who had been employed as a stone mason and engineer in the construction of Fort Prince of Wales at Churchill between 1733 and 1748, and had been up Nelson river for a distance of forty or fifty miles, was one of the chief witnesses. Being asked as to the number of British subjects in the Company’s settlements, he said that the first year he was at York Fort there were 36 persons there, and at Churchill 44 or 45; that he never saw any British subjects there, except the Company’s servants, nor any other people desirous to “fix” there, or that the Company had ever offered encouragement to British subjects to “settle” there. He expressed the opinion that some of the country about Hudson bay might be settled and inhabited, if people would go up the rivers till they found a better climate, and there erect settlements. He declared that he did not doubt that he himself could find three or four hundred British subjects, who would willingly go there to live winter and summer, and, he added, he would go for one. He added that speaking from his own experience, the cold of the Hudson bay winter might be endured without any inconvenience, their clothing being adapted to the climate. He had suffered more from cold in England, than ever he did at Hudson bay. It was true that flesh will freeze, but he never knew any person to lose his fingers from frostbite at Churchill or York.