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
And now let us see what the "eaters of pemmican" proceeded to do after
their forcible occupation of Fort Garry. Well, it must be admitted they
behaved in a very indifferent manner, going steadily from bad to worse,
and much befriended in their seditious proceedings by continued and oft
repeated bungling on the part of their opponents. Early in the month of
December, 1869, Mr. M'Dougall issued two proclamations from his post at
Pembina, on the frontier: in one he declared himself Lieutenant-Governor
of the territory which Her Majesty had transferred to Canada; and in the
other he commissioned an officer of the Canadian militia, under the
high-sounding title of "Conservator of the Peace," "to attack, arrest,
-disarm, and disperse armed men disturbing the public peace, and to
assault, fire upon, and break into houses in which these armed men were
to be found." Now, of the first proclamation it will be only necessary to
remark, that Her Majesty the Queen had not done any thing of the kind,
imputed to her; and of the second it has probably already occurred to the
reader that the title of "Conservator of the Peace" was singularly
inappropriate to one vested with such sanguinary and destructive powers
as was the holder of this commission, who was to "assault, fire upon,
and break into houses, and to attack, arrest, disarm, and disperse
people," and generally to conduct himself after the manner of Attila,
Genshis Khan, the Emperor Theodore, or any other ferocious magnate of
ancient or modern times. The officer holding this destructive commission
thought he could do nothing better than imitate the tactics of his French
adversary, accordingly we find him taking possession of the other
rectangular building known as the Lower Fort Garry, situated some twenty
miles north of the one in which the French had taken post, but
unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, not finding within its walls the
same store of warlike material which had existed in the Fort Garry
senior.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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