Term: Company of One Hundred.
Definition: the group of French investors in Quebec and Montreal who possessed from the King the sole legal right to buy and sell furs; they licensed this right to traders for a share of the expected profits, and unlicensed black-market traders who worked independently (see "coureurs de bois") could be jailed, fined and have their property confiscated when they returned from the wilderness.
[Source: Thwaites, Reuben Gold. Stories of the Badger State (N.Y.: American Book Co., 1900).]
