The Canadian population numbered about three hundred, with perhaps a hundred adults, and they, conscious that they represented the coming régime, were not disposed to conciliate either the company or the native settlers. It was mooted among the half-breeds that they {163} were to be swamped by the incoming Canadians, and much resentment was aroused among them against the assumption of authority by the Dominion government. To make matters worse, a Canadian surveying party, led by Colonel J. Stoughton Dennis, had begun in the summer of 1869 to make surveys in the Province. This created alarm among the half-breed settlers, whose titles did not rest in any secure legal authority, and who were fearful that they were about to lose their possessions. Thus it came about that they resolved upon making a determined attempt to resist the transfer of the country to Canada. Underrating the difficulty and impatient of delay, McDougall took the unwise step of issuing a proclamation, from his temporary headquarters at Pembina, assuming control of the territory and calling upon the inhabitants to recognize his authority. He supposed, of course, that the transfer would be made, according to agreement, on December 1, and did not know that the Canadian government had declined to accept it or pay over the purchase-money until assured that peace and good order prevailed. The advices from Ottawa to McDougall were delayed, and he felt himself {164} obliged to act without definite knowledge of the position of affairs. After months of agitation the Métis under Louis Riel took command of the situation, armed their fighting men, seized Fort Garry, put a number of prominent white residents under arrest, and formed a provisional government. They sent word to the new governor not to enter the country; and when he advanced, with his official party, a short distance over the frontier, he was forcibly compelled by the insurgents to retreat into the United States. The rebels at Fort Garry became extremely menacing. Louis Riel, the central figure in this drama, was a young French half-breed, vain, ambitious, with some ability and the qualities of a demagogue. He had received his education in Lower Canada, and was on intimate terms with the French priests of the settlement. His conduct fifteen years later, when he returned to head another Métis rebellion farther west and paid the penalty on the scaffold, indicates that once embarked on a dangerous course he would be restrained by no one. That he was half, or wholly, insane on either occasion is not credible.