The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists: The Pioneers of ManitobaBryce, George
History
The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists: The Pioneers of Manitoba
Bryce, George
Red River Settlement
His work done among his Colonists, he left them never to see them again.
He went south from Fort Douglas to the United States, visited, it is
said, St. Louis, came to the Eastern States, and rejoined in Montreal
his Countess and children who had in his absence lived in great anxiety.
One of his daughters, afterwards Lady Isabella Hope, told the writer
nearly thirty years ago that she as a girl remembered seeing Lord
Selkirk as he returned from this long journey, coming around the Island
into Montreal Harbor paddled by French voyageurs in swift canoes to his
destination. His attention was immediately given to law suits and
actions brought against him in the courts of Upper Canada. These legal
conflicts originated from the troubles about the two centres--Fort
Douglas and Fort William--where the collisions had taken place. The
influence of the Nor'-Westers in Montreal was so great that the U.E.
Loyalists of Upper Canada sympathised with them against the noble
philanthropist. Justice was undoubtedly perverted in Upper Canada in the
most shameless way. Weak in body at the best, Lord Selkirk by his
misfortunes, losses and legal persecution began to fail in health. With
the sense of having been unjustly defeated, and anxious about his
Colonists in Red River, he returned with his family to Britain to his
beloved St. Mary's Isle. He sought for justice from the British
Parliament, but could there get no movement in his favor. A copy of a
letter to him from Sir Walter Scott, his old friend, is in the hands of
the writer, but Sir Walter was himself too ill at the time to lend him
aid in presenting his case before the British public. Heart-broken, he
gave up the struggle. With the Countess and his family he went to the
South of France and died on April 8th, 1820, at Pau, and his bones lie
in the Protestant Cemetery of Orthes.
He had not fought in vain. He had broken down single-handed a system of
organized terrorism in the heart of North America, for the Nor'-Westers
never rose to strength again. They united in a few years with the
Hudson's Bay Company. He established a Colony that has thriven; he
cherished a lofty vision; he made mistakes in action, in judgment, and
in a too great optimism, but if we understand him aright he bore an
untainted and resolute soul.
"Only those are crown'd and sainted
Who with grief have been acquainted
Making Nations nobler, freer."
"In their feverish exultations,
In their triumph and their yearning,
In their passionate pulsations,
In their words among the nations
The Promethean fire is burning."
"But the glories so transcendent
That around their memories cluster,
And on all their steps attendant,
Make their darken'd lives resplendent
With such gleams of inward lustre."
CHAPTER XII.
SOLDIERS AND SWISS.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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