Documents from birth of B.C. put on auction block

The B.C. mainland became a Crown colony on Aug. 2, 1858. A month later, Colonial Gov. James Douglas issued a proclamation at Fort Hope, making it illegal to sell or give “spirituous or other intoxicating drinks to Native Indians.”
The document called for anyone who violated the law to be “mulcted in the penal sum of not more than twenty pounds, not less than five pounds, for each and every offence.”
Mulcted is an arcane, 1858 way of saying “fined.” If the pers