| Summary: | COMPENDIUM OF HISTORY AXD BIOGRAPHY. their wives, children and property to Lake Winni-peg. Guarded jealously from the assaults of their foes by these taciturn braves, the settlers again de-parted from their homes, like the Acadian farmers of Grand Pre, of whom Longfellow said they set out "friendless, hopeless, homeless." After they had embarked on the batteaux pro-vided for them, they looked back in sorrow and pain, and beheld the flame and smoke that, started by in-cendiary torch, was destroying their mill and the houses they had builded. But it was not long, when in their asylum on the north end of Lake Win-nipeg, they were visited by Colin Robertson, a prin-cipal character in the Hudson's Bay Company, who offered to lead them back to their farms and homes from which they had been so unceremoniously and cruelly ejected. This they accepted, and returned under his leadership, and their number was consid-erably augmented by some fresh arrivals from "bon-nie Scotland." During the winter the majority of them remained at Fort Pembina, and hunted the buffalo on the prairies of northern Minnesota and Dakota. Early- in the spring of 1816 they returned to Kildonan. In the meantime, the good Earl of Selkirk, hearing of the distress of his colony, crossed the ocean, but on his arrival in New York, in the autumn of 18 15, heard how they had been driven from their homes. He proceeded at once to Mon-treal, where he found some of his colonists, who had been seduced by the people of the Northwest Com-pany, in great indigence and neglect. While in that city he received the information that Robertson had taken his people back to their homes, and that they had again settled down to develop the land. He im-mediately sent back, by Laguimoniere, the courier who had brought the news, the word of his arrival in this country, and to announce his coming in tKe early spring. The messenger never reached his destination with the message. Near Fond du Lac, Minnesota, one night he was waylaid, beaten, robbed of his dispatches and his canoe, and taken prisoner. An Qjibway chief, in June, 1816, testified at Sandy lake, that a trader named Grant, offered him two kegs of rum and considerable tobacco if he would send some of his men and capture the bearer of dis-patches to the Red river. Shortly after this the messenger Laguimoniere was brought in prisoner by a negro and some Indians of the Ottawa tribe. In the spring of 1816, Duncan Cameron, on his return to the scene of his former persecution of in-nocent settlers, was placed under arrest, by Colin Robertson, and taken north to the shores of Hudson's Bay for shipment to London, to stand trial. Not being able to procure military aid of the British government in Canada, Lord Selkirk hired four officers and eighty privates of the discharged Meuron regiment, twenty of the DeWatteville reg-iment and several members of the Glengary Fen-cibles, all of whom had served in the late war with the United States. His contract with these men was that they were to receive monthly wages for navi-gating the boats to the Red river settlement, to have lands given them if they wished to stay there or a free passage home if they desired to return. On reaching the Sault Ste. jMarie, he learned that once more his colony had been broken up by the lawless fur traders. It seems that in the spring of 1816, Governor Robert Semple, an amiable, but injudicious and tact-less man, who was governor of the factories and ter-ritories of the Hudson's Bay Company, came to the Red river. In April he sent one Pambrun to a trading post in a neighboring river, and as that party was returning with five boats, a quantity of furs and pemmican, they were attacked and captured May 12, by an armed party of the friends and employes 01 the Northwest Company. They said this was in re-taliation for an attack made by Colin Robertson on their fort at at the confluence of the Assiniboine and Red rivers the previous fall. The lawless clement in all the wide country began to flock to the head-quarters of both of the rival fur companies. Un the i8th of June, 1816, a party of "North-westers" left Fort Qui Appele, under the command of Cuthbert Grant, Lacerpe, Frazer, Hooley and Thos. McKay. These marched toward Red river. Warned by friendly Indians of the approach of a hostile force, vigilant watch was kept for the arri-val of the advancing enemy. June 19, at about five o'clock in the afternoon, the lookouts announced the appearance of a body of mounted men. With a spy glass the governor discovered that tlie party son-sisted of sixty or seventy horsemen. With a reck-less disregard of the commonest dictates of caution or prudence, he proceeded to sally out of the fort with twenty men and met them. About half a mile on his road he met some of the settlers hurrying to the fort. These reported that the approaching party were armed with artillery. The governor sent back to the fort for a field piece. Without waiting for it however, he pressed on, and was soon surrounded. One Boucher, the reckless, drunken son of a Mont-real innkeeper, was put forward as spokesman by Internet Archive
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