An Act for Extending Jurisdiction of the Courts of Justice in the Provinces of Lower and Upper Canada , to the Trial and Punishment of Persons guilty of Crimes and Offences within certain Parts of North America adjoining to the said Provinces. [43 George III, Cap. 138J.
London. George Eyre and Andrew Strahan. 1803. folio, 31.2cm, The First Edition, [3p.], pp 1433-1435., caption title and woodcut Royal coat-of-arms, a fine copy. (cgc). Item #40692
Not located in T PL nor in Peel. The term "Indian Territories" was first used in the Quebec Act of 1774, in reference to the region of northwest America outside of the boundaries of the Province of Quebec and the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) territory of Rupert's Land. The said regions did not fall within the jurisdiction recognized by the Quebec courts, but were loosely under the watchful eye of the British. In the years that followed the American Revolutionary War, the fur trade based out of Montreal experienced a resurgence under the aegis of a handful of entrepreneurial merchants. Some were Empire Loyalists, others Scottish merchants, and still others British adventurers. Competition was fierce, and some of these men united to form the North West Company (NWC) in 1779. Violence grew, murders and destruction of property became common, and it became obvious that the criminal and civil legal jurisdiction of the Indian Territories needed to be defined in order to regulate the fur traders. This act, the Canada Jurisdiction Act, stipulated that those British subjects who committed offenses in the Indian Territories could be tried and sentenced in Lower Canada or in Upper Canada in the same manner as if the crimes were committed in either of the provinces. It also authorised the governor to appoint Justices of the Peace within the Indian Territories. Thus this Act became the fundamental instrument for dispute resolution between the HBC and the NWC.
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