Robertson’s letters--unpublished--contain the most graphic description of the West as a coming empire that I have ever read. There is no mistaking where Selkirk got his inspiration--why he decided to send settlers to Manitoba instead of Ontario. More of Robertson will follow in a subsequent chapter. CHAPTER XXVII 1813-1820 THE COMING OF THE COLONISTS CONTINUED--MACDONELL ATTEMPTS TO CARRY OUT THE RIGHTS OF FEUDALISM ON RED RIVER--NOR’WESTERS RESENT--THE COLONY DESTROYED AND DISPERSED--SELKIRK TO THE RESCUE--LAJIMONIERE’S LONG VOYAGE--CLARKE IN ATHABASCA. Yearly the Hudson’s Bay boats now brought their little quota of settlers for Red River. On June 28, 1813, more than ninety embarked in _The Prince of Wales_ at Stromness. Servants and laborers took passage on _The Eddystone_. On the third ship--a small brig--went missionaries to Labrador, Moravian Brethren. More diverse elements could not have made up a colony. There were young girls coming out alone to a lawless land to make homes for aged parents the next year. Sitting disconsolate on all their earthly belongings done up in canvas bags, were an old patriarch and his wife evicted from Scottish home, coming to battle in the wilderness without children’s aid. Irish Catholics, staid Scotch Presbyterians, dandified Glasgow clerks, rough, gruff, bluff, red-cheeked Orkneymen, younger sons of noble families taking service in the wilds as soldiers of fortune, soft speaking, shy, demure Moravian sisters and brethren--made up the motley throng crowding the decks of the vessels at Stromness. As the capstan chains were clanking their singsong of “anchor up,” there was the sudden confusion of a conscription officer rushing to arrest a young emigrant. He had been the lover of a Highland daughter and had deserted following her to Red River. Then sails were spread to a swelling breeze. While the young girl was still gazing disconsolately over the railing toward the vanishing form of her lover, the shores began to recede, the waters to widen. The farewell figures on the wharf huzzahed. Men and women on deck waved their bonnets--all but the old couple sitting alone on the canvas sacks. Tears blurred their vision when they saw the hills of their native land fade and sink forever on the horizon of the sea.