[91] In the course of a letter reporting on the disputes between the Hudson's Bay Company and the North-Westers, Commissioner Coltman attributed the disasters in the territories to the Company having held in abeyance its right to jurisdiction and that this neglect was the reason for passing the act of 1803. This letter is in the Canadian Archives, _v._ Report 1892. [92] "I have," writes Sir Alexander Mackenzie from London, 13th April, 1812, "finally settled with that Lord (Selkirk). After having prepared a bill to carry him before the Lord Chancellor, it was proposed to my solicitor by the solicitor of his Lordship that one-third of the stock that was purchased on joint account before I went to America, amounting to £47,000, and the balance of cash in his Lordship's hands, belonging to me, should be given up to me; of this I accepted, though I might have obliged his Lordship to make over to me one-third of the whole purchase made by him in this stock, which at one time I was determined to do, having been encouraged thereto by the house of Suffolk Lane and countenanced by that of Mark Lane. But these houses thought it prudent to desist from any further purchases." Mackenzie says that by a verbal understanding with Mr. McGillivray, his purchase of the Hudson's Bay stock belonged to the North-West Company, and that, if Mr. McGillivray himself had been there, a sum of £30,000 might have been invested in that stock, "all of which Lord Selkirk purchased, and if he persists in his present scheme, it will be the dearest he yet made. "He will put the North-West Company to a greater expense than you seem to apprehend, and had the Company sacrificed £20,000 which might have secured a preponderance in the stock of Hudson's Bay Co., it would have been money well spent." [93] The district thus granted was called Assiniboia, a name undoubtedly derived from the Assiniboine tribe and river, yet alleged by some at the time to be taken from two Gaelic words "osni" and "boia"--the house of Ossian. [94] "None of the young men," says McDonnell, "made any progress in learning the Gaelic or Irish language on the voyage. I had some drills of the people with arms, but the weather was generally boisterous, and there were few days when a person could stand steady on deck. There never was a more awkward squad--not a man, or even officer, of the party knew how to put a gun to his eye or had ever fired a shot."