Accordingly a benevolent Scottish nobleman, the Earl of Selkirk, struck by the poverty of his peasant countrymen, obtained a grant of land from the Company and resolved to begin a settlement on a large scale at Red River. Now, at this time the Hudson's Bay Company, as a fur-trading enterprise, had a rival in Canada. This rival was known as the North-West Company of Montreal. The "Nor'-Westers," as they were called, objected to having the solitudes of the north-west invaded by farmers and shepherds, and no pains and misrepresentations were spared to prejudice the public against Lord Selkirk's scheme. They went up and down telling everybody that the country was cold and barren, half waste, half forest, unfit to be the abode of white men. "If you {276} plant a colony out there," they told Lord Selkirk, "your colonists will either freeze to death or be massacred by the savages." Nevertheless Selkirk sent out his emigrants in ships across Hudson's Bay, and they made their way from thence slowly southward to Red River. There was, besides the Hudson's Bay traders and their rivals the Nor'-Westers, another class which bitterly resented this invasion into their hunting haunts. These were the half-breed bushrangers, who were commonly called the Métis or Bois-Brulés. These men, rough and untractable, were chiefly the descendants of the French fur-hunters and trappers who had married Indian women and settled down on the shore of some distant lake or stream. In the midst of these French half-breeds there grew up also a number of Englishmen and Scotchmen hardly less fond of the wild life of the wilderness than themselves. These also took Indian wives, and when they or their children were asked whether they were English, Scotch, or Indian, they declared they were not one or the other: "We belong to the New Nation." It was only natural that amongst this rude race there should arise a leader, a half-breed to whose superior ability and natural advantages was added an education in Montreal, the seat of the co-partnery. Cuthbert Grant, which was the name this individual bore, was known far and wide amongst the hunters and trappers of Rupert's Land, and everywhere commanded homage and respect. He had risen to be one of the most enterprising and {277} valued agents of the Nor'-Westers, and was constantly admitted to their councils.