nine

Prior Bad Acts

The best predictor of future action is prior behavior. To understand a man’s choices, you need look no further than his past, where his character is forged by the incidents and accidents of his days. Dr. McLoughlin’s barbs regarding Simpson’s biased investigation stuck because everyone involved — the letter’s author, recipients, and subject — knew Simpson had done the exact same thing many times before. The Governor’s dismissal of the Siveright matter was one example, but Simpson’s tendencies were most evident during his “investigation” into the strange death of his cousin Thomas.

The cousins were born sixteen years apart and grew up in the same tiny house in the village of Dingwall, but they had never been close. Still, Simpson kept a paternalistic eye on his kin, and when Thomas came of age, the Governor convinced him to join the HBC in 1831.

In his demagogic character book, Simpson atypically heaped praise on his nepotistic hire, calling Thomas “Perfectly correct in regard to personal conduct & character.” This high regard faded after the young man settled into his dual roles as Simpson’s “Secty and Confidential Clerk during the busy Season…and Shopman, Accountant & Trader at Red River Settlement during the Winter.”

And speaking of character, the Simpson boys offer compelling proof that narcissism is genetic. Thomas had an ego to rival Sir George’s and an entrenched sense of entitlement born of being “considered one of the most finished Scholars in Aberdeen College.” Despite his lowly rank, Thomas possessed something his cousin did not: a college diploma, a fact he lorded over Simpson at every opportunity. Thomas was also as indiscreet as he was arrogant, openly mocking George Simpson’s management acumen in his dispatches home: “Entre nous, I have often remarked that his Excellency miscalculates when he expects to get more out of people by sheer driving; it only puts everyone in ill humour.” Thomas even hinted that “when the Governorship of the country became vacant, he himself would be the person best adapted to fill it,” a sentiment unlikely to endear him to the post’s current occupant. Whatever his endgame, Thomas was messing with the wrong egomaniacal tyrant.

Thomas revealed his true colours at the Red River settlement. Just prior to Christmas Day, 1834, a Metis employee came to Thomas’s office asking for an advance in his pay. Thomas held the same racist views as his cousin and saw the request as sheer impertinence. He proceeded to beat the man unconscious. Thomas’s brother Alexander later downplayed the severity of the assault, saying only that the man “got the worst of the scuffle, coming off with a black eye and a bloody nose,” but it was no mere scuffle. To prevent a full-scale Metis rebellion, “Simpson was forced to remove him from authority with breathtaking speed.”

Simpson needed to find a suitable placement for his hotheaded relation, a posting sufficiently remote to shield Thomas from possible criminal charges. His solution was to send his cousin north, as far north as it was possible to go. He appointed Thomas second-in-command of an Arctic expedition captained by famed navigator Peter Warren Dease, a man Simpson once dismissed as “not calculated to make a shining figure.” Their mission was to explore the uncharted northernmost coastline of Rupert’s Land. The foray had the added benefit of fulfilling one of the oft-ignored covenants of the HBC’s charter: to map the territory and identify trading routes.

To Simpson’s befuddlement, Thomas met with great success on the expedition, mapping over 150 miles of coastline in the first three years, as well as filling in the western tail of the Northwest Passage. Indeed, Thomas was so self-satisfied he petitioned his cousin to extend both his contract and the financial support of the expedition. Simpson refused, although he took credit for the expedition’s success when he met with his Russian counterpart, Baron von Wrangel. Thomas was livid when he learned Simpson had hoarded the glory, and in a full-throated tantrum he would not live to regret, he went over the Governor’s head. He appealed directly to the HBC’s London Committee, informing them George Simpson’s “jealousy of his rising name was not but ill disguised.” In a second missive sent directly to his cousin, Thomas declared: “Fame I will have, but it must be mine alone.” The war of the Simpsons had begun.

Thomas’s playground antics were no match for his cousin’s Machiavellian games. The London Committee promptly drafted a letter to Thomas, granting his extension. The letter also contained their heartiest congratulations, as Thomas had recently been awarded the Royal Geographic Society’s Gold Medal in recognition of his Arctic discoveries. Simpson intercepted the Committee’s reply to Thomas and switched the missive into the wrong dispatch bag, leaving his cousin on tenterhooks in Red River for a letter that would never come.

By June 1840, Thomas could wait no longer. He left the settlement and headed for St. Paul, intent on sailing to London and making his case directly to the Committee. The route to St. Paul ran through Sioux territory, a treacherous region with standing warnings for travellers to be armed and on alert. Two weeks later, Thomas’s body was discovered south of Fort Garry. The cause of death was a single gunshot wound to the head.

Governor Simpson led the investigation into Thomas’s death, and his efforts were cursory at best. His official ruling was that the wound was self-inflicted, Thomas having “committed suicide while of unsound mind, after murdering two of his four Metis companions.” Eyewitnesses begged to differ. One survivor swore Thomas had shot one of his Metis travelling companions, John Bird, killing him instantly before mortally wounding a second man, Antoine Legros. A third Metis — Legros’s son, James Bruce — ran for the horses and rode back to the main camp. When a search party returned to the scene the next day, they came upon the remains of Legros and Bird. Lying beside them was Thomas, still very much among the living. From that moment on, accounts differ, but all agree that in the minutes that followed, Thomas died of a gunshot wound to the head.

There is no question George Simpson was instrumental in covering up the event, but writer James Raffan wonders whether the Governor’s culpability ran even deeper. Raffan reasons that “if Simpson had wanted a full and impartial investigation” of his cousin’s death, he could have simply ordered one. Raffan also questions why Simpson buried his cousin in a pauper’s grave alongside the two men Thomas had murdered. Raffan is not alone in thinking Simpson had a hand in Thomas’s death — historians Marjory Harper and Vilhjalmur Stefansson reached the same conclusion independently, although all three stop short of saying Simpson’s finger was on the trigger.

Sir George certainly had the final word on Thomas’s legacy, as he controlled the public dissemination of the Arctic expedition’s accomplishments. He arranged to have a chronicle published that extolled the foray’s successes, and he distributed the credit as he saw fit. Many took exception to Simpson’s revisionist history, including John McLean, who marked his protest for posterity: “Mr. Dease’s name is mentioned in the published narrative of the expedition, where he is represented as being employed merely as purveyor. It might have been said with equal propriety that Mr. [George] Simpson was employed merely as astronomer.” The Governor’s efforts to besmirch his cousin’s memory did not stop there. Simpson also went to great lengths to repress many of Thomas’s accomplishments, squelching any hope Thomas might achieve his long-desired fame posthumously. His campaign to snuff out his cousin’s light ultimately failed, and in an ironic footnote, the citizens of Dingwall have since elevated Thomas to far greater heights of infamy than George Simpson.

Simpson’s unchecked autocracy received a cruel validation when Queen Victoria knighted him for his limited contributions to the Arctic expedition, and the undeserved investiture caused his head to balloon. The ginger-haired whoreson was now Sir George Simpson, and those in his presence were never permitted to forget it. Once knighted, he began to rewrite his own history, crafting a biography worthy of the man he had become. To mask all traces of his ignoble birth, Simpson designed (or pilfered) a heraldic crest featuring a falcon volant resting on a garland of Scottish thistle. An unfurled banner bore his freshly coined motto, Alis nutrior, which translates roughly to “fed by their wings,” or as one wag interpreted it, “It is sometimes pleasant to act like a madman.” He even had the crest carved into his dining room chairs and stitched into some tapestries.

Simpson was made a knight bachelor, an honour bestowing the non-hereditary title of Sir to the recipient alone. He was now a paladin, but the glory was short-lived and his detractors gleefully crowed, “The bauble perishes with him.” Far more galling to Simpson was the fact his superior, HBC Governor John Henry Pelly, was made a baronet, a title that would pass to his sons. It was a perverse display of aristocratic injustice, but Sir George still resented others sharing in his unwarranted accolades.

The investment ceremony was held in the throne room at Buckingham Palace on January 25, 1841. No written account survives of the event’s particulars, but one historian envisioned the scene as a comedic clash of tiny titans, imagining that Simpson wore heels under his pearl grey spats, raising him to a dizzying five foot seven inches and allowing him to tower over the diminutive monarch, who stood a mere five feet tall. No doubt Sir George accepted his knighthood with his usual preening, receiving as his due that which others had achieved. His critics were more willing to call out the Governor, including John McLean, who seethed, “Sir George owes his ribbon to the successful issue of the Arctic expedition conducted by Messrs. Dease and [Thomas] Simpson. His share of the merit consisted of drawing out instructions for those gentlemen, which occupied about half-an-hour of his time at the desk.”

The Governor’s callous indifference to the fate of his own cousin formed the template for all future death investigations conducted under his watch, including John McLoughlin’s. Simpson’s corrupt handling of Thomas’s demise filled Dr. McLoughlin with despair and trepidation, for if Simpson cared so little for his own blood killed in the Company’s service, could Dr. McLoughlin reasonably expect more when the victim was kin to another?