Undelivered Letters to Hudson's Bay Company Men on the Northwest Coast of America, 1830-57 by Judith Hudson Beattie, Helen M. Buss

bined with Dill's marital problems, "made the thought of another political campaign unbear able in thefallof 1934" (p. 160). This book will be of interestto general audi ences and should be on the shelvesof those read erswith interestinpolitics and electricutilities. Undelivered Letters to Hudsons Bay Company Men on the Northwest Coast of America, 1830-57 Edited by Judith Hudson Beattie and Helen M. Buss University of British Columbia Press, Vancouver, 2003. Illustrations, maps, notes, index. 512 pages. $85.00 cloth, $34.95 paper (Canadian), Reviewed by Barbara Belyea University ofCalgary, Calgary, Alberta The undelivered letters in thiscol lection were addressed to employees of the Hudson's Bay Company stationed on thenorth west Pacific coast between 1830and i860. Since thesemen were itinerant workers under short termcontracts,over twohundred lettersfailed to reach theirintendedrecipientsandwere returned to theHBC's headquarters inLondon. Now these private lettersfrom "ordinary people . . .have been delivered tous" (p.407). Judith Hudson Beattie's longstanding inter est intheundelivered lettersis well servedbyher matchless knowledge of the HBC Archives.Helen M. Buss contributesa specialization in"life writ ing."They present the lettersin twoways ? as annotated documents and as storiesoverheard, as it were, inwhat the writers chose to communi cate. It isdifficultto consider the letter writers sim ply as "ordinarypeople," as the editors claim (p. 7). The lettersdisplay a range ofwriting compe tence that reflectson eachwriter's gender, class, and region; infact,the levelof literacycould vary within a single familyor circle of acquaintance. Many writers were self-consciousabout theirskills but labored to express themselves, assembling the letter byword and phrase, repeating formu las that were strictlyliterary, not borrowed from theirdaily speech. "Dear Sun,"wrote thefatherof aKentish employee, "Withpleshur iTakemy pen TooWright a Line Too you [h] Oping you [h]ave Bean preserved From Dangers soGrat Crosing That Grate Oshing [ocean]" (p. 361). Most writers communicated no more than "home news,"usually a catalog ofmarriages and deaths, always a comment onmoney or the lack of it. Yet these intensely personal letters, aswell as the few that indicatewider interestsand aware ness,document economic and socialmovements of theperiod. A Londoner toldhis son that"the old Houses inyure streetisall pulled Down for theRailway" (p. 217) ? indicating the effecton individual livesofa recentinventionthat,together with steamships, revolutionized transportation during thisperiod. Political events importantfor social reform were also noted. Letter-writersob served that "the bill of Reform ispassed after great resistance from the torypart" (p. 28) and that "thare is great disturbens on acc[oun]t of the reformBill" (p. 36),made law in 1832.The writers of these lettersledprecarious lives,and a longperiod of economic depression meant that theycould at best "rub a longfrom day to day" (p. 377).A letter fromOrkney details the seasonal work thatkeptmany familiesgoingfrom year to year. When health andmoney failed,thesepeople facedmisery, years of employment abroad, or emigration. "Thare isnothing new here itis likea toun to let,"complained thewife of a ship's car penter (p. 158). "Any thing would be better than staying in thisunfortunate country," wrote an Irishman in 1848 (p. 203). Readiness to leavewas Reviews 451 fueled not only by hard times at home but also by lettersfrom abroad that told of land innew colonies, adventures ingoldfields, and alliances with "black girls."The brother of a laborer at FortVictoria wrote of strollingby theDeptford docks in 1850:"i see thehudson bay compnay... ship... thaytold me there was about 100Fameiley come out in the ship [.] i wish i was one of them" (p. 366). Much has been written about "chain migration"; these lettersreveal itsfirstlinks. The Undelivered Letterscollection iscompel lingforitsglimpse intothe livesof modest people facedwith harsh conditions of estrangementand uncertainty. It also corroborates other fur-trade documents that make only brief and incidental reference to the sailors, laborers, and tradesmen who constituted the vastmajority ofHBC em ployees.The collection indicateshow technical in novations and political reforms were viewed by the social classes who stood to gainmost from them. For these reasons, Undelivered Letters is indispensable foranyone interested in these as pects of nineteenth-century British society and empire. The book's editorial apparatus isan oddmix, however. Although the editors state that their "main aim has been to letthegeneral reader en joy the flowof the letters,uninterrupted by... footnotes, while supplyingfullreferencesforthose who wish topursue furtherresearch...

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