The eleven men, seeing that resistance on their part would be useless, took to their heels. The Nor'westers fired; one of the fleeing men was killed and John Bourke was severely wounded. For the numbers engaged the carnage was terrible. Of the party which had left Fort Douglas with Governor Semple there were but six survivors. Michael Heden and Daniel M'Kay had run to the riverside during the _mêlée_. They succeeded in getting across in a canoe and arrived at Fort Douglas the same night. Michael Kilkenny and George Sutherland escaped by swimming the river. In addition to John Pritchard, another prisoner, Anthony Macdonell, had been spared. The total number of the dead was twenty-three. Among the slain were Rogers, the governor's secretary, Doctor Wilkinson, Alexander M'Lean, the most enterprising settler in the colony, and Surgeon James White. The Irish colonists suffered severely in proportion to their number: they lost {101} seven in all. The Nor'westers had one man killed and one wounded. This sanguinary encounter, which took place beside the highway leading along the Red River to Frog Plain, is known as the massacre of Seven Oaks. There was much disappointment among the Nor'westers when they learned that Colin Robertson was not in the colony. Cuthbert Grant vowed that Robertson would have been scalped had he been captured. 'They would have cut his body into small bits,' said Pritchard, 'and boiled it afterwards for the dogs.' Pritchard himself was carried as a prisoner to Frog Plain, where the Nor'westers made their encampment. A savage spirit had been aroused. Pritchard found that even yet the lust for blood had not been sated, and that it would be necessary to plead for the wives and children of the colonists. He remonstrated with Cuthbert Grant and urged him not to forget that the women of the settlement were of his dead father's people. At length the half-breed leader softened, and agreed that Pritchard should act as a mediator. Grant was willing that the settlers should go in peace, if the public property of the colony were given up. Pritchard made three trips between Grant's headquarters and the fort {102} before an agreement was reached. 'On my arrival at the fort,' he said, 'what a scene of distress presented itself! The widows, children and relations of the slain, in horrors of despair, were lamenting the dead,[2] and were trembling for the safety of the survivors.' On the morning of June 20 Cuthbert Grant himself, with over a score of his followers, went to Fort Douglas. It was then agreed that the settlers should abandon their homes and that the fort should be evacuated. An inventory was made of the goods of the colony, and the terms of surrender were signed by Cuthbert Grant as a clerk and representative of the North-West Company. Contrary to Grant's promises, the private effects of the colonists were overhauled and looted. Michael Heden records that even his clothes and blankets were stolen.