The Great Lone Land: A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of AmericaButler, William Francis, Sir
History
The Great Lone Land: A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America
Butler, William Francis, Sir
Northwest, Canadian -- Description and travel
That he meditated opposition cannot be doubted. The muskets cast away by
his guard were found loaded; ammunition had been served from the magazine
on the morning of the flight. But muskets and ammunition are not worth
much without hands and hearts to use them, and twenty hands with perhaps
an aggregate of two and a half hearts among them were all he had to
depend on at the last moment. The other members of his government appear
to have been utterly devoid of a single redeeming quality. The Hon. W.
B. O'Donoghue was one of those miserable beings who seem to inherit the
Vices of every calling and nationality to which they can claim a kindred.
Educated for some semi-clerical profession which he abandoned for the
more congenial trade of treason rendered apparently secure by distance,
he remained in garb the cleric, while he plundered his prisoners and
indulged in the fashionable pastime of gambling with purloined property
and racing with confiscated horses--a man whose revolting countenance at
once suggested the hulks and prison garb, and who, in any other land save
America, would probably long since have reached the convict level for
which nature destined him. Of the other active member of the rebel
council--Adjutant-General the Hon. Lepine--it is unnecessary to say much.
He seems to have possessed all the vices of the Metis without any of his
virtues or noble traits. A strange ignorance, quite in keeping with the
rest of the Red River rebellion, seems to have existed among the members
of the Provisional Government to the last moment with regard to the
approach of the Expedition. It is said that it was only the bugle-sound
of the skirmishers that finally convinced M. Riel of the proximity of the
troops, and this note, utterly unknown in Red River, followed quickly by
the arrival in hot haste of the Hudson Bay official, whose deprecatory
language has been already alluded to, completed the terror of the rebel
government, inducing a retreat so hasty, that the breakfast of Government
House was found untouched. Thus that tempest in the tea-cup, the revolt
of Red River, found a fitting conclusion in the President's untasted tea.
A wild scene of drunkenness and debauchery amongst the voyageurs followed
the arrival of the troops in Winnipeg'. The miserable-looking village
produced, as if by magic, more saloons than any city of twice its size in
the States could boast of. The vilest compounds of intoxicating liquors
were sold indiscriminately to every one, and for a time it seemed as
though the place had become a very Pandemonium. No civil authority had
been given to the commander of the Expedition, and no civil power of any
kind existed in the settlement. The troops alone were under control, but
the populace were free to work what mischief they pleased. It is almost
to be considered a matter of congratulation, that the terrible fire-water
sold by the people of the village should have been of the nature that it
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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