After speaking of the disastrous effect of the Napoleonic wars on the social relations of Europe he alludes to the extreme suffering in Central Europe, and in Switzerland particularly, owing to a failure of crops from excessive rains in 1816, and says: "the people wearied of struggles which resulted in their impoverishment, listened eagerly to the story of a peaceful and more prosperous country beyond the sea." A few years earlier Thomas Dundas, Earl of Selkirk, a distinguished nobleman of great wealth had purchased from the Hudson Bay Company a large tract of land in British America, extending from the Lake of the Woods and the Winnipeg River eastward for nearly two hundred miles, and from Lakes Winnipeg and Manitoba to the United States boundary, part of which is now embraced in the province of Manitoba and in which are the fertile lands bordering on the Red and Assinniboine Rivers. It formed a part of "Rupert Land," named in honor of Prince Rupert or Robert of Bavaria, a cousin of King Charles II of England and one of the founders and chief managers of the "Hudson Bay Company." In the year 1811 he had succeeded in planting a large colony of Presbyterians from the North of Scotland on the Red River, near its junction with the Assinniboine; this was followed four years later by another but smaller colony from the same section of Scotland. In consequence of the stubborn competition and the bitter dissensions between the Hudson Bay Company and the Northwest Company of Montreal, these were compelled to abandon their new homes, nearly all of them removing to Lower Canada. This Scotch settlement having proved almost a total failure Lord Selkirk turned his attention to the Swiss, for whom he entertained a great regard. By glowing accounts of the country, and by the offer of great inducements, which were endorsed by the British government whose policy it was to favor these emigration schemes, he succeeded in persuading many young and middle aged men to emigrate to this new world. The colony numbered two hundred persons, nearly three-fourths of whom were French or of French origin, they were Protestants and belonged to the Lutheran church. Some of the families were descendants of the Hugenots of Eastern France, all were healthy and robust, well fitted for labor in a new country; most of them were liberally educated and possessed of considerable means. Among the more prominent were Monier and Rindesbacher, Dr. Ostertag, Chetlain and Descombes, Schirmer, afterwards a leading jeweller at Galena, Illinois, Quinche and Langet. In May 1821, they assembled at a small village on the Rhine near Basle and in two large flat-boats or barges, floated down the Rhine, reaching a point near Rotterdam where a staunch ship, the "Lord Wellington" was in readiness to take them to their new home towards the setting sun. Their course lay North of Great Britain and just South of Greenland to Hudson Strait. After a