A book entitled "Red River Settlement," published by Sheriff Ross, some years after this time, is really a lively and correct account in most respects of the Selkirk colony. We have gleaned from his writings, and from the information communicated to Dr. Burns by him, the main facts leading up to the coming of John Black to the Highland colony. No doubt, late into that first night, the religious story of the forty years preceding, was told by the old fur trader to the youthful missionary. We may well rehearse the tale of disappointment now to be turned to joy. The Scottish settlers of Red River were chiefly emigrants from the north of Scotland, brought to the country during and before the year 1815, by the Earl of Selkirk. They had a clergyman of their own persuasion promised by his lordship at the time of leaving their native country, the Rev. Mr. Sage, but he remained behind them for a year in order to perfect himself in the Gaelic language. He was expected to follow them. Next year, however, came and passed away and with it no clergyman; and up to the time of Mr. Black's coming no Presbyterian minister had ever visited Rupert's Land. In the winter of 1815-16 the settlers had to abandon the colony for want of food, and they betook themselves to the plains for buffalo, and to the lakes for fish, and wintered among the natives in all directions. In 1816, after their return to the settlement, they were driven from the colony at the muzzle of the gun by the Northwest fur traders, who did not want a farming settlement in Rupert's Land, and they spent the following winter three hundred miles to the north of the colony, at the foot of Lake Winnipeg. Led by the vicissitudes of his settlers, Lord Selkirk visited his colony in 1817, made a treaty with the Indians, and made promises to his settlers, among other things, to send them a minister of their own faith. Much encouraged by his lordship's visit, the people settled down to work, when they were invaded by a grasshopper scourge, and had been compelled again to leave their farms and seek subsistence by the chase of the buffalo on the plains.