Sir Edmund Head, an old ex-Governor of Canada, was made Governor of the new company.

The Stock Exchange was not altogether favourable, and the remaining shares were only sold in the Winnipeg land boom of 1881.
The alien element in the new company seemed to inspire the politicians of the United States with surpassing hopes and ideas.

An offer to purchase its territorial interests was made in January, 1866, by American capitalists, which was not unfavourably glanced at by the directorate.

It was capped later on.

The corollary of the proposal was a bill, actually introduced into the United States Congress in July following, and read twice, "providing for the admission of the States of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Canada East and Canada West, and for the organization of the Territories of Selkirk, Saskatchewan and Columbia." The bill provided that "The United States would pay ten millions of dollars to the Hudson's Bay Company in full of all claims to territory or jurisdiction in North America, whether founded on the Charter of the Company, or any treaty, law, or usage." The grandiosity, to use a mild phrase, of such a measure needs no comment.