Beckles Willson

The English Government Intervenes—Selkirk at Red River—Makes a Treaty with the Indians—Hostilities at Peace River—Governor Williams makes Arrests—Franklin at York Factory—The Duke of Richmond Interferes—Trial of Semple's Murderers—Death of Selkirk—Amalgamation.

Tidings of the brutal massacre of the 19th of June, and the subsequent acts of robbery and bloodshed in the wilderness, reached London in due course, awakening the Imperial authorities to the necessity of at once terminating a strife which had now become chronic. In February, 1817, therefore, while Lord Selkirk was still at Fort William, the Governor-General of Canada received a despatch from the Home Government, which contained the following passage:—

You will also require, under similar penalties, a restitution of all forts, buildings and trading stations, with the property which they contain, which may have been seized, or taken possession of by either party, to the party who originally established or constructed the same, and who were in possession of them previous to the recent disputes between the two companies. You will also require the removal of any blockade or impediment by which any party may have attempted to prevent the free passage of traders, or other of his Majesty's subjects, or the natives of the country, with their merchandise, furs, provisions or other effects throughout the lakes, rivers, roads, and every other usual route or communication heretofore used for the purpose of the fur-trade in the interior of North America, and the full and free permission of all persons to pursue their usual and accustomed trade without hindrance or molestation. The mutual restoration of all property captured during these disputes, and the freedom of trade and intercourse with the Indians, until the trials now pending can be brought to a judicial decision, and the great question at issue, with respect to the rights of the companies, shall be definitely settled.

Fort William restored to the Nor'-Westers.

The Governor-General appointed Colonel Coltman and Major Fletcher, two military personages of high character, to act as commissioners, in order to carry out the Imperial Government's intentions. Coltman and Fletcher left Montreal in the same month that Selkirk evacuated Fort William. No sooner had Lord Selkirk and his party left this great trading post than the Sheriff of Upper Canada arrived, and by virtue of a writ of restitution took possession and restored it to its original owners. The commissioners, confronted by this fact, continued their journey on to Red River, arriving at Fort Douglas while Lord Selkirk was still in that locality. They proceeded to execute their commission, and to endeavour to restore the region to law and order. The merchandise, provisions and furs were in the course of the summer apportioned to their respective proprietors; the channels of communication were opened, and in time the commissioners were enabled to return to Canada, flattering themselves with the hope that the orders of the Prince Regent would be everywhere obeyed. The commissioners made a most circumstantial report of their mission, of which both parties complained that neither had received justice, which (as Senator Masson truly observes) was a very good reason for supposing that the report was just and impartial.

Unhappily, this hope of theirs was not destined to be fulfilled. Fort Gibraltar had been destroyed, but the North-Westers at once set about erecting buildings for carrying on their trade. Selkirk meanwhile devoted himself to the affairs of his colony, making provision for the soldiers of the De Meuron and Watteville regiments according to the contract mutually entered into. He allotted each man a plot of land either in the vicinity of Fort Douglas, or on the other side of the river, close at hand; and the officers were stationed amongst them. This was done so that in case of any necessity arising, a signal from headquarters would enable the whole body to join their commanders in the fort at short notice. Everything was effected which, in his opinion, could conduce to the well-being of the colony. Selkirk now turned his attention to the Indians, whom he called together within the walls of the fort, and after bestowing amongst them presents, concluded the following treaty with them:—

Treaty with Red River Indians.

As a matter of fact, the Saulteaux Indians, who were given precedence in the above treaty, had no real claim to the lands on the Red River, which were possessed by the Crees alone. This latter tribe afterwards took great offence at this circumstance and made various threats to recede from their covenant and claim their lands from the settlers. These threats, however, were not carried out. Selkirk having in this manner arranged all to his satisfaction, bade farewell to Red River, and accompanied by a guide and a few friends, directed his course southward across the frontier into American territory. He made his way to New York and there embarked for England.

It has been remarked that his Majesty's commissioners flattered themselves that in the formal and peaceful manner described, law and order was to be introduced into the North-West.

It is true that the proclamation of the Prince Regent and the creation of the commission of inquiry had quieted much of the turbulence, and that all who came in contact with the recognized officers were ready to submit to their authority; but it was by no means so in the more remotely situated departments.

Attack on Fort Vermilion.

Governor Robertson, Semple's lieutenant, had delegated his authority to Clarke, another ex-employee of the North-West Company. This trader now sought upon Lord Selkirk's authority to penetrate, with an effective force, and a quantity of merchandise, into the very heart of the territory occupied by the North-Westers. One of Clarke's first acts on arriving at Peace River was to attack Fort Vermilion, with the design of acquiring a supply of provisions; but here he met with so vigorous a resistance that he was constrained to beat a retreat without having succeeded in his project. On the other hand, two partners, Black and McGillivray, on the pretence that Robertson had incited the savages to massacre some of their number, and that their men would refuse to serve if an example were not made, took him prisoner to Fort Athabasca, and there confined him during an entire winter. There were numerous examples of the abuse of force and the utter abandonment to lawlessness during this and the following year.

Arrest of Nor'-Westers.

Upon most of those Northmen named in the warrants issued at the instance of the Earl of Selkirk, it had been impossible to serve papers owing to their absence in the distant fur country. Williams, Semple's successor as Governor of the colony of Assiniboia, was consumed with a desire to effect the arrest of all those persons himself. It is possible that he also wished to avenge the incarceration of Robertson. Taking with him a number of De Meuron soldiers and two pieces of cannon, Governor Williams departed to lie in ambush for the North-Westers at a portage called Grand Rapids, which spot it was necessary for the enemy to pass in order to enter Lake Winnipeg. Beyond question, the North-Westers had no suspicion of what was in store for them, inasmuch as the party did not arrive in a large body, but in small detachments, and successively, often at an interval of several days. As fast as they arrived, however, Governor Williams and his soldiers were on the watch. It was new work to the veterans, but they entered into it with a zest and spirit. The North-Westers were seized and disarmed, being subjected to considerable violence. Some were permitted to continue their route; others were dispatched to York Factory, on the Bay. Here they were, during many weeks, detained as prisoners and treated with scant courtesy, up to the arrival of a certain British naval officer. This was Lieut. Franklin, who was then about to undertake his celebrated land voyage to the Arctic Sea. Franklin had in his possession several letters of introduction to partners in the North-West Company. Under these circumstances the consideration, not to say compassion, which he evinced for the Hudson's Bay Company's prisoners was much in their favour. McTavish and Shaw, two of the North-West partners, were granted permission to return to England as passengers on the ship which had brought Franklin, but the others were not so fortunate. Duncan Campbell was sent to Canada, via Moose Factory and Michipicoten, and there placed at liberty. As to Benjamin Frobisher, there was no accusation or warrant of arrest against him, but it was felt that he should not escape punishment for his long hostility to the Company, as well as for the violent and crafty resistance which he had offered in the first instance to his arrest. Frobisher is described as being a man of great strength and herculean stature. On numerous occasions he had had the good or ill-fortune to come in contact with the servants of the Hudson's Bay Company, and there were many to testify that he had on such occasions not emerged with the loss either of prestige or property. His whole ambition now, whilst suffering from a severe wound in the head, was to escape from his captors. The nearest North-West post was distant about five hundred miles as the crow flies, but this circumstance had little restraining power upon his project. Two of his French-Canadian companions, Turcotte and LÉpine, endeavoured to dissuade him, but without success; and at length they consented to participate in the escape should it be possible to elude the vigilance of their captors. They succeeded in doing this on the 30th September; launched themselves in an old canoe, into which they had stored some pounds of pemmican saved from their rations, and so commenced their painful journey.

Flight of prisoners from York Factory.

For two whole months these three fugitives from York Factory travelled through the wilderness. They suffered from cold and hunger, even devouring the buffalo skins that the Indians had left suspended in the trees as an indication of their route. At last the doughty Frobisher arrived at such a state of weakness that he was fain to lie down without further power of exertion. The trio were then not more than two days' journey from Lac L'Orignal, near Lake Bourbon, where the North-Westers had a post. Frobisher begged his companions, whose greater power of endurance and devotion to their superior had led to their carrying him on their shoulders, to leave him and seek assistance. This they did, after having deposited their burden at the side of a fire, and grilled a morsel of buffalo skin for his nourishment. Four days later they reached the fort, and a search party did not arrive on the spot until the 27th of November. Their eyes were greeted by the corpse of Frobisher, partly burnt, and extended at full length on the ground. Within his scanty clothing was found a journal, which he had kept ever since his arrest at Grand Rapids, and in which he had recorded his daily sufferings.[106]

After considerable delay the news of Frobisher's escape and subsequent death was spread throughout the West. A courier arrived at Fort William in hot haste with the news of the affair at Grand Rapids. The utmost indignation prevailed. Many of the partners, fearing a descent of the Hudson's Bay soldiery, left in disorder for Montreal. The agents of the Company instantly addressed themselves to the Duke of Richmond, then Governor of Canada, representing to him that if the civil authorities did not interfere to compel respect for the orders of the Prince Regent, the fortunes of the North-West co-partnery would suffer a great and irreparable blow.

Envoys of the Government enjoin peace.

The Duke was then at Little York. He lost no time in dispatching one of the officers of his suite, Major MacLeod, with a budget of dispatches for delivery at the chief forts of the North-West. In these he enjoined obedience to the laws. MacLeod was accompanied, at the last moment, by Sir Charles Saxton. The envoys of the Governor reached Fort William and pressed on to the Grand Rapids, where they learned that Williams had raised the blockade of the river, and had left for the Bay with his soldiers and prisoners. It was too late in the autumn to follow them, so there was nothing left but to arrange to have their dispatches forwarded to the parties in the interior, and to return immediately to Little York. The alarm of the partners in Canada was matched by that of their agents in London. They addressed themselves to the Imperial Government, soliciting his Majesty's interference in order to put an end to the outrages and lawlessness, as they expressed it, of Lord Selkirk and the Hudson's Bay Company. They recalled that they had often demanded that the rights of the Company should be submitted to law, and warned the authorities that when their rivals mocked the orders of the Prince Regent, it would be impossible for themselves to confide their persons and their property to the protection of an authority with a seat so remote and exacting, so reluctant an obedience.

"What is to become of us," they demanded, "if we are to have no protection for our servants in these wild regions of the North?"

"You have no right in these regions," was, in effect, the retort of the Company. "They are vested in us by Royal charter, and the sooner you apprehend this truth the better."

Whereupon the partners declared that if the Hudson's Bay Company or Lord Selkirk continued to exercise illegal powers, which had for their end the destruction of the commerce of their rivals, it was inevitable that more bloodshed should follow. Such protestations had the desired effect. The Government entered into correspondence with the directors of the Company and ordered that they should exert themselves to the utmost to prevent a repetition of lawlessness, else the consequences must be on their own head.

Trial of Semple's murderers.

The trials which took place at Little York and at Montreal had been very costly to both parties. Those relating to the Semple massacre were not tried until 1818.[107] Application had been made to the Governor-in-Chief of Canada in the previous March (1817) to have them removed to Upper Canada, and this naturally caused delay, the Governor judging it expedient to consult the Home Government in the matter. A favourable reply was received on the 24th of October, and warrants under the Great Seal were issued to try the cases at York. The North-Westers were finally brought before the court, and indictments found against them for participating in the affairs of the 11th of June, and the 28th of June, 1815; for larceny at Qu'Appelle River on the 12th of May, and the Semple massacre on the 19th of June, 1816. It surprised nobody in Canada that the jury in each case brought in a verdict of not guilty, however it may have astonished the British public.

McGillivray, who had been waiting two years for trial, and now finding the further indictments abandoned, caused Lord Selkirk, Miles McDonnell, and eighteen others, to be indicted for the part they took in the capture of Fort William. The Earl had also several civil suits entered against him, one of which was by William Smith, the constable whom he ejected from Fort William, "taking hold of him and pushing him out of doors, and afterwards keeping him in close custody in the fort, under a military guard." The constable got a verdict of £500 damages against the Earl. Daniel McKenzie also entered suit against Lord Selkirk, and received a verdict of £1,500.

Prosperity at Red River.

Whilst these various proceedings were in progress, the Red River colony was struggling against adversity. In the winter of 1817 they were forced to resort again to Pembina, owing to a scarcity of food. The next year, when a considerable area of land had been planted, and followed by a favourable summer, the July sky suddenly darkened, and a cloud of grasshoppers descended upon the earth. Every green thing perished before them. In greater despair and wretchedness than ever, the colonists again migrated across the border. The same disaster occurred in the ensuing year, and if it had not been for the bounty and care of the Company, many would have perished. It was not until 1822 that the Red River colony, now recruited by French, Irish, German and Swiss, as well as Scotch settlers, began to take on a flourishing condition; but the news of this prosperity was not destined to reach the ears and gladden the heart of its founder. Selkirk had reached England disheartened, and with a well-founded grievance against the Canadian authorities, who, he declares, and with justice, had not accorded him the encouragement to which he had a right; and against the Canadian tribunals, from whom it had been impossible to obtain justice.

The health of the Earl, shattered by the anxieties and episodes which have been recorded, rendered it necessary that he should seek repose in the south of France. But his ailment was mortal. He breathed his last at Pau, in the month of April, 1820, surrounded by his wife and children, leaving behind him many friends, and numerous admirers of his intellectual qualities and his courage. The Great North-West of to-day is his monument.

The death of its principal Adventurer strengthened, on the part of the Company, the sentiment for peace; and by removing the chief obstacle hastened an amalgamation of interests of the rival traders. None then could nor can now but perceive, if they examine the situation broadly, that the complete annihilation of the North-West Association was a mere matter of time. None recognized this more than their agents in London, who had repeatedly made overtures to Lord Selkirk for amalgamation, but which were by him rejected as often as made.

To Edward Ellice, a leading partner, an enterprising merchant, and a rising parliamentarian, belongs the chief credit of bringing about this union. This young man was the son of Alexander Ellice, a wealthy London merchant, and himself directly interested in the Canadian fur-trade. In 1803, when a lad of but fourteen, young Ellice had gone out to Canada, and animated by a love of adventure, had entered into the life of a trader, under the auspices of his father's friends. Ellice was quick to grasp the tendency of affairs. The terrible struggle of recent years made by the Northmen had told severely upon them.[108]

The partners met at Fort William, in July, 1820, and a stormy session served to reflect their vexed plight. Dissensions exhibited themselves; the minority, at least, felt that in their London agents—Ellice and the McGillivrays—coming to terms with the Hudson's Bay Company, lay their only hope of salvation.

Union of the two Companies.

Without, however, consulting the powers at Fort William, these agents in London were acting on their own account. Conferences with the Chartered Adventurers took place daily. By the time the partnership between the Northmen themselves expired, in 1821, the negotiations had attained the form of an agreement. Delegates had been sent from Fort William to confer with their English representatives as to the future of the interests of the North-West Company. Ellice received them cordially in his office in Mark Lane and showed them an instrument which he called the Deed Poll. This document bore the names of the Governor, Berens, and the Committee of the Honourable Hudson's Bay Company, on the one part, and the McGillivrays and Ellice, on the other. The astonished delegates gazed upon the signed and sealed instrument, and recognized that the North-West Company had ceased to exist. "Amalgamation," cried one of them, "this is not amalgamation, but submersion. We are drowned men."

A coalition and partnership had been agreed upon for twenty-one years, on the basis that each should furnish an equal capital for conducting the trade. This Deed Poll, which bore date of March 26, 1821, provided that the expenses of the establishment should be paid out of the trade, and that no expense of colonization or any commerce not directly relating to the fur-trade, was to fall upon the Company.

The profits were to be divided into one hundred equal parts, of which forty were to be shared between the chief factors and chief traders, according to profit and loss. If a loss should occur in one year on these forty shares it was to be made good out of the profits of the year ensuing. A general inventory and account was to be made out annually on the 1st of June. If profits were not paid to any parties within fourteen days of that date, interest was to be allowed then at the rate of five per cent.

When the Deed Poll was signed, it was stipulated that twenty-five chief factors and twenty-eight chief traders should be appointed, to be named in alternate succession from the Hudson's Bay and the North-West Company's servants. Both were placed on an equal footing, the forty shares out of the hundred being again subdivided into eighty-five shares, in order that each of the twenty-five chief factors should receive two (or 2/85ths), and each of the chief traders one of such shares. The remaining seven shares, to complete the eighty-five, were set apart for old servants, to be paid them during a term of seven years.

Plan of union.

The chief factors were to superintend the business of the Company at their respective stations, while the chief traders under them were to conduct the commerce with the Indians. The third class was the clerks, who were promoted to factorships and traderships, according to good conduct and seniority, but whose clerical salaries ranged from £20 to £100 per annum. The chief factors and traders, who wintered in the interior, were granted, in addition to their share of profits, certain personal necessaries free of cost. They were not, however, permitted to carry on any private trade on their own account with the Indians. Strict accounts were required of them annually. The councils at the various posts were empowered to mulct, admonish or suspend any of the Company's servants. Each year three chief factors and two chief traders were granted twelve months leave of absence. A chief factor or chief trader, after wintering three years in the service might retire, and hold his full share of profits for one year after so retiring, with half the share for the four succeeding years. If he wintered for five years, he was granted half profits for six years on retiring. Retirements of chief factors and chief traders were made annually by rotation, three of the former, or two of the former and two of the latter. The heirs of a chief factor or chief trader who died after wintering five years received all the benefit to which the deceased or himself would have been entitled had he lived, or in proportion otherwise. Everything was thus regulated, provision was effected for everything. The Northmen, rough, enterprising, adventurous, as many of them were, found themselves part of a huge machine, operated with sleepless vigilance of a governor and committee in London. As for the profits, they were to be estimated after the entire expenses, both in London and the fur country, were deducted. They were then to be divided into fifths, of which three-fifths went to the proprietary and two-fifths to the chief factors, chief traders and clerks, who were to be thenceforward known as the "fur-trade" or the "wintering partners."

No wonder that many of the Northmen were constrained to cry out, in the language of one of their number[109]: "Alas, the North-West is now beginning to be ruled with an iron rod!"