Later, however, they changed their opinion, and entered into negotiations with the federal government. But at the moment when all things had been arranged without bloodshed, the English colonists, who were very numerous around Lake Winnipeg, rose in insurrection against the half-breeds. The president of the latter, Louis Riel, who took upon himself the _rôle_ of dictator, had the leading mutineers seized, and their chief, named Scott, was tried, condemned and shot. Far from establishing his authority, this execution discouraged the natives themselves, and when two battalions of militia under Col. Wolseley arrived on the ground, they were welcomed as liberators by the half-breeds, and Riel, with his leading accomplices, fled to the United States. A compromise was then effected, and Manitoba was annexed to the Dominion as an autonomous province. It sends to Parliament two senators and five representatives. Winnipeg contains 30,000 inhabitants, and property has increased its value to an extraordinary degree, as the following anecdote will show: A parishioner of Archbishop Taché, obliged to leave the country, sought the archbishop, and excusing himself for not being able to pay the rent of his church pew, offered as part payment a small piece of land; “scarcely what would pay for a low mass,” timidly said the poor man. Ten years later that land brought $14,000. In spite of the expenses occasioned by her canals and railroads, the people of the Dominion are, perhaps, among all the tax-payers of the civilized world, those upon whom the smallest rates are levied. There is no standing army, only a simple militia of about 50,000 men. The total expenses of government in 1884 amounted to $28,730,157. The receipts for the same year were $36,800,000. The minister of finances, in making out his estimates for the year 1885 placed them as follows: Expenses, $29,811,639; receipts, $31,000,000, which were to be raised as follows: Duties, $20,000,000; excises, $5,500,000; postoffice returns, $1,900,000; public works, $3,000,000; interest on investments, $750,000; other sources, $800,900. Duties on goods supply the source of two thirds of all the receipts. In 1880 they adopted a very strict system, which, without any distinction, exacts duties from English goods as from any other nation. On the other hand, England has granted to them the right of concluding treaties of commerce with foreign nations.