ROSS'S BED RIVEE SETTLEMENT. ° IN this book there are faults
of arrangement, of treatment, and of temper • but the subject is novel, curious, and not without inte- rest, while a strong sense of the real obtains throughout. Scotch emigrants, Hudson s Bay Compaay's servants, Indians, half- breeds, French Canadians, with an occasional glimpse of an Ante; rican trader, form the dramatis persona). The scene is in the centre of the North American continent, in about the 50th degree of North latitude ; but the reader who refers to the map had bet- ter look for Lake Winnipeg, into the Southern part of which the streams that water the Red River Settlement fall. The story is that of the struggles of a small colony some forty-five years old, including famine, frost, snow, flood, the plagues of birds, grasshoppers or locusts, and mice, with an attack of severe pesti- lence—the " bloody flux " of the old navigators, which swept away great numbers. There were a few quarrels among them; selves, arising from such a mixture of races, sometimes ending in bloodshed ; there are plenty of complaints against the masters of the settlement, which strike us as displaymg, more clearly the fault-finding disposition visible in Mr. Ross's former works, " The Fur-Hunters" and the "Colombia River."
An economical error was committed in founding the oolonyi from its position and the extreme and inhospitable nature of the climate. The temperature varies from 106 degrees in summer -to 40 degrees below zero in winter, and Mr. Ross has seen it at 46°. The remote situation of the colony not only shuts it out from trade or markets, but almost from communication with the world, except through the Hudson's Bay trading vessels or an occasional visitant from Canada. If the colony was to be founded at all, the Red River was the best place ; and every effort seems to have been made by money and schemes to secure its comfort and prosperity. According to Mr. Ross, it cost the founder, Lord Selkirk, 85,0001 in about a dozen years ; since his death, the Hudson's Bay Com- pany have been at continual expenses with it. Now three, now four, now five thousand pounds, have been spent for experimental farms or similar undertakings. Horses, bulls, implements, seem to have been imported at the Company's charge ; and besides the annual payment of salaries, they took off the corn and other pro- ductions the colonists could raise, at a liberal price. The census of 1849 gave a total of 5391 persons ; this number Mr. Ross esti- mates to have increased to 6500 in 1855. As a large proportion, however, consists of half-breed and Canadian hunters, who would • The Red Ricer Settlement : its Rise, Progress, and Present State. With some Account of the Native Races, and its general History to the Present Day. By Alexander Ross, Author of " The Fur-Hunters of the Ear West," ¢c. Published by Smith and Elder.
be in the country, colony or no colony, and who make the Red River Settlement their head-quarters, without contributing much to its wealth or wellbeing, it may safely be said that, after com- mon government expenses and trading supplies are deducted, every adult male in the colony has cost as much as would. have set him up in business in a small way..
The foundation of the settlement, in 1811, was attributed to various motives,—opposition to the celebrated North-Western Fur Company ; the Hudson Bay Company's desire to keep their retired servants in their territory ; Lord Selkirk and his friends avowed a religious object—a wish to convert the Indians, and spread edu- cation over Rupert's Land. This last Mr. Ross thinks was really the true motive ; and if small success has attended the attempt, it does not seem to have been for lack of means or trying. There are seven churches and twelve schools, besides more clergy- men than Mr. Ross thinks are wanted in the settlement, as well as a couple of bishops. It is probable that all the motives were in operation ; and further, the Company might properly wish to raise provisions in their own territory, for their people at the various forts, instead of having to import them.
The first emigrants were well chosen ; consisting of Highland families, accustomed to hardship, privations, and a severe climate. or could any other persons have struggled through. From some oversight or mismanagement, difficult to reconcile with the libe- rality of Lord Selkirk or the experience of the Hudson's Bay Company's servants, provisions seem to have failed them shortly after their arrival at their location. They were immediately be- Set, frightened, and fleeced, by the agents of the North-Western Company.
" But a few hours had passed over their heads in the land of their adop- tion, when an array of armed men, of grotesque mould, painted, disfigured, and dressed in the savage costume of the country, warned them that they were unwelcome visitors. These crested warriors, for the most part, were employes of the North-West Company ; and as their peremptory mandate to depart was soon aggravated by the fear of perishing through want of food, it was resolved to seek refuge at Pembina, (a settlement within the American frontier,) seventy miles distant, whither a straggling party, whom theyrv, at first took for Indians, promised to conduct them. The settle- ment of this contract between parties ignorant of each other's language furnished a scene as curious as it was interestihnst; the language employed on the one side being Gaelic and broken Eng • on the other an Indian jargon and mongrel French, with a mixture of signs and gestures, wry faces, and grim countenances. The bargain proved to be a hard one for the emigrants. The Indians agreed to carry their children and others not able to walk ; but all the rest, both men and women, had to trudge on foot; while all their little superfluities were parted with by way of recompense to their guides. One man, for example, had to give his gun, an old family piece that had been carried by his father at the battle of Culloden which ruder any other circumstances no money would have purchased. One of the women also parted with her marriage-ring ; the sight of which on her finger was a temptation to the Indians, who are remarkably fond of trinkets. The journey to Pembina exhibited a strange perversion of things : the savage, in aristocratic independence, was completely equipped and mounted on a fine horse, while the child of civilization, degraded and humbled, was compelled to walk after him on foot. No sooner had the gipsy train- got under way„ than the lords of freedom scampered on ahead, and were soon out of sight with the children, leaving the bewildered mothers in a state of anxious foreboding, running and crying after them for their babes. This facetious trick, as their guides doubtless thought it, was often played them ; but without any other harm than a fright. In other respects the emigrants suffered greatly, especially from cold, wet, and walking in English shoes: their feet blistered and swelled, so that many of them were hardly able to move b the time they had rear hM their destination. "Ally things considered, the Indians performed their contract faithfully, and with much indulgence to their followers ; who acquired a better know- ledge of their character as they proceeded."
Their difficulties were by no means over ; the North-West Com- pany continuing to trouble them by open hostility and covert treachery. Four times, in fact, had the work of settlement to begin anew; and when the Hudson's Bay Company finally tri- umphed over their rivals and bought them out, natural evils con- tinued to beset the colonists ; in one year, for example, they had snow in June and frost in August. In 1826, they were visited by a tremendous inundation, which nearly ruined the colony.
"The winter had been unusually severe, having begun earlier and con- tinued later than usual. The snows averaged three feet deep, and in the woods from four to five feet. The cold was intense, being often 45' below zero • the ice measured five feet seven inches in thickness. Notwithstand- iiig this, the colonists felt no dread till the spring was far advanced, when the flow of water, from the melting of the accumulated snow, became really alarming. On tie 2d of May, the day before the ice started, the water rose nine feet perpendicular in the twenty-four hours ! Such a rise had never before been noticed in Bed River. Even the Indians were startled ; and as they stared with a bewildering gaze put theirhands to their mouths exclaiming, ' Yea ho ! yea ho !' an expression of surprise, What does this mean ? what does this mean ? ' On the 4th, the wadr overflowed the banks of the river, and now spread so fast, that almost before the people were aware of the danger it had reached their dwellings. Terror was de- picted on every countenance ; and so level was the country, so rapid the rise of the waters, that on the 5th all the settlers abandoned their houses and sought refuge on higher ground. " At this crisis, every description of property became of secondary con- sideration, and was involved in one common wreck, or abandoned in despair. The people had to fly from their homes for the dear life, some of them saving only the clothes they bad on their backs. The shrieks of children, the low- ing of cattle, and the howling of dogs, added terror to the scene. The Com- pany's servants exerted themselves to the utmost, and did good service with their boats. The generous and humane Governor of the colony, Mr. D. M`lienzie, sent his own boat to the assistance of the settlers, though him- self and family depended on it for their safety, as they were in an upper story, with ten feet of water rushing through the house. By exertions of this kind, and much self-sacrifice, the families were all conveyed to places of safety ; after which the first consideration was to secure the cattle, by driving them many miles off, to the pine hills and rocky heights. The grain, fur- niture, and utensils, came next in order of importance ; but by this time, the country presented the appearance of a vast-lake, and the people in the boats had no resource bet to break through the roofs of their dwellings, and thus save what they could. The foe new drifted in a straight course from point to point, carrying destruction before it ; and the trees were bent like willows by the force of the current." Religion and religious differences form a prominent topic in the story of the Red River Settlement. By an early agreement, the Scotch were to have a minister of their own persuasion ; but he never made his appearance. Mr. Ross attributes an improper zeal for the Church of Vng oe land to Lord Selkirk's agent and the Com- pany. It would rather appear to be habit and indifference; than over-zeal, that sent out clergymen of the English Church, as for ten years there was no minister of religion at all in the place ; and the Papist " Governor, when applied to, treated the matter quite in the style of the old school of Colonial Governors. "No communication being made to the colony either by Lord Selkirk or his agent Mr. Pritchard, application was made time after time to Alexander M'Donell,. who had been recently appointed Governor of the colony, but equally without result. That gentleman, himself a Papist, did not take much mterest in Presbyterian politics ; but told the Scotch, by way of con- solation, that they might live as he himself did, without a church at all."
In addition to the regular story of the colony told in the form of annals, the reader will find a variety of miscellaneous topics treated in the volume. There are pictures of half-breeds and Indians ; with descriptions of the buffalo-huntings that take place upon a large scale every summer ; a pursuit which Mr. Ross says demoralizes the people, and deranges the colony, by carrying off all the labour, and raising its price ; the .people of French and Indian races never settling to regular work, if they can by possibility ex- ist in any other way. We also catch some glimpses of the Americans across the border, into the of their efforts to infuse discon- tent with their Government nto the simple-minded people of -the colony. How simple they must be, a few facts will-indicate. For a quarter of a century there were no laws, for nearly thirty years (1811-1839) the settlement was without a lawyer ; disputes being settled amicably, or by the strongest. It may be judged. that the practitioner did not go of his own accord, but was sent by the Company as Judge and Recorder. With him came strife—we imagine in the ratiocinative form ; for something like shooting men, and mistakes in meum and tuum, had prevailed from the beginning. Even at this present time of writing,- there is " no land- tax, no landlord, no rent-days, nor dues of any kind to church or state." There is, however, a small black cloud threatening the future of Red River in the matter of imports and indebtedness. The " united invoices" of the importers in a given year " amounted to 11,0001. sterling I. Nay, we might select ten in- dividuals out of the petty traders whose united book-debts at this time amount to 37501. "; and the historian goes on to ask, " Will any one say that the system has not become monstrous and intolerable ?" Alas, Mr. Ross, fifty years' residence in the wilder- ness has narrowed your ideas. If an average credit of 8751. among the foreign importers disturbs your mind, what would you say if you were suddenly transported from the banks of the Red. River to Basinghall Street ?
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