The cardinal mistake in the contest between Hudson's Bay Company and Nor'westers, between feudalism and democracy, was now committed by the governor of the colony, Miles MacDonell. The year 1813 had proved poor for the buffalo hunters. Large numbers of colonists were coming, and provisions were likely to be scarce. Also, note it well, while the War of 1812 did not cut off supplies through Hudson Bay to the English Company, it did threaten access to the West by the Great Lakes, and cut off all supplies by way of Detroit and Lake Huron for the Nor'westers. Was MacDonell scoring a point against the Nor'westers, when they were at a disadvantage? Who can answer? Selkirk had ordered him to expel the {389} Nor'westers from his lands, and if the violent contest had not begun in this way, it was bound to come in another. What MacDonell did was issue a proclamation in January of 1814, forbidding taking provisions from Selkirk's territory of Assiniboia. It practically meant that the Plain Rangers must not hunt buffalo in the limits of modern Manitoba, and must not sell supplies to the Nor'westers. It also meant that all the upper posts of the Nor'westers--the fur posts of Athabasca and British Columbia, which depended on pemmican for food--would be without adequate provisions. The Plain Rangers were enraged beyond words, and doubly outraged when some Hudson's Bay men began seizing buffalo meat at Pembina River, which was beyond the limits of Selkirk's territory. Writes Peter Fidler, one of the Hudson's Bay factors, "_If MacDonell only perseveres, he will starve the Nor westers out_." [Illustration: FORT DOUGLAS]