[3] He served as a fourth officer in the Indian marine from 1813–1814, and was commander of the Duke of York from 1821 - 1822.
The 1850s were a time when the Canadian Government were trying to break the monopoly which the Hudson's Bay Company held over trade in the Red River and Saskatchewan Districts.
[4] Shepherd's previous experience as Chairman of the East India Company helped in devising a strategy to negotiate the best terms possible for the Hudson's Bay Company.
The former at that time had trading influence over one fifth of the world's population and governed most of the subcontinent of India, whilst the latter owned 3,000,000 square miles of North America and was the largest land owner in the world.
[3] No other person has ever, in a commercial capacity, governed or been ultimately directly responsible for, so much of the world or such a large proportion of the world's population as John Shepherd was as a result of his appointments to the most senior positions in these two companies.