BOOKS.

THE RED RIVER EXPEDITION.* Tim is a plain, uncoloured history (rather too much uncoloured indeed) of a great work, undertaken in obedience to a principle

of the highest importance in the political ethics of our empire, and completed with a success which left nothing to be desired. Executed, as it was, at a time when the late disastrous European war was attracting so universally the attention of the civilized world, and incapable from its very nature of offering much to compare with the portentous -tableaux which continued, with a rapidity of succession almost' greater than the most insatiable demand, to engross the public intetest, the Red River Expedition was, from first to last, condemned to an undeserved obscurity. The Abyssinian Expedition was more fortunate. Not surely more worthy or more necessary in its object, not inure unexcep- tionably executed, not even more important in the physical difficul- ties it presented, yet requiring a gigantic expenditure of nearly twenty times that of the less pretentious effort of a similar nature which imperial dignity has demanded from our dependencies in the Now World, the Abyssinian Expedition has taken a place, not undeservedly, among the great achievements of British determination. But, it may well be doubted if the more celebrated undertaking of the two be that likely to prove the most pregnant of useful example in the future. Around Fort Garry the lives and liberties of many of her Majesty's subjects had been suddenly laid at the mercy of a re- bellious and hot-headed faction, animated, for thi3 most part, by blood hostile and alien to that of our own well-disposed colonists. The imperial authority had been denied, if not wholly unreason- ably, at least with ominous rudeness, and an advantage had been taken of the seeming inaccessibility of the district of Manitoba, as far as external force is concerned, which if not immediately met by stern and decisive action, might, by its precedent, have generated a wide-reaching evil. It would have proved most de- plorable, as far as the good ends of our mission in British America are considered, and most stultifying to our claim of maintaining there, throughout our few and scattered dependencies, an authority of more than a merely nominal nature. A brief statement of the facts of which Captain Huyshe's volume treats will not be out of place in stimulating the attention of readers to a subject on which we can recommend that gentleman's narrative for more minute reference, as calculated, by the spirit of sober truth in which it is written, to repay such attention faithfully.

Rather more than fifty years before the events which gave rise to this expedition took place, Lord Selkirk had selected for a baud of Scotch emigrants, and purchased from the Hudson's Bay Company, the district now known as the Red River settlement, situated around and about the confluence of the Assinalsoitie and Red Rivers (which point is the position of Fort Garry the stronghold), some forty miles south of the southern wing of Lake Winnipeg, and about sixty miles north of the boundary between British and American territory. Menaced by hostile and not unwarliko tribes of Indians on every side, ou the south and east by the Chippewas or Ojibboways, who, though speaking the poetic tongue of "Hiawatha," are a debased and cruel race, and by the more dangerous Stone Indians on the north ; objected to the inroads of what proved an almost more fatal enemy, the voracious locust ; troubled also by the quarrelsome rivalry of the Hudson's Bay and the North-West Trading Companies, the little colony had for many years an existence as precarious as might be expected. But the remarkable fertility of the soil, and the additional strength which each year's immigration supplied, chiefly in an infusion of French blood, enabled it ultimately to triumph over all obstacles, and to boast, before the year 1869, of a population of nearly 15,000 souls scattered along the banks of both riv,ers. Intermarriage with the native Indians had long been common, and the colonists at this date were composed mainly of " halfsbreede," a term which they * The Red Muer Expeciiiion. By Captain td, L. 1Layuke. London and New York : Macmillan and Co. 1571. seem never to have regarded as one of reproach, glorying, if any- thing, rather more in their Indian than in their European admix- ture. Separated by a country on most sides almost impassable, and by a distance of over 1,200 miles from the centres of Canadian civilization, the small community had long enjoyed equal liberty and obscurity, but, on the completion of the Act of Confederation of the British North-American provinces in 1867, the growing settlements in the north-west could not escape notice, and pro- ceedings were commenced to unite the north-west territory to the Dominion Government of Canada. The Hudson's Bay Company's privileges and territorial rights in this quarter were satisfied by a payment of 2300,000; and in September, 1869, the Hon. William MacDougall was appointed Lieutenant-Governor of the North- West Territories, and dispatched to Fort Garry to " assist " the transfer, his precise functions being apparently firstly to explain, if not partly announce, and then compel assent to it. Strangely enough, however real the advisability of this change, the colonists did not at first exactly see it. They had before constituted a Crown colony ; they were now to be changed into a mere colony of a colony, and that without having been consulted themselves in the matter. They were to be transferred, as Captain Huyshe expresses it, ',Bon gra, inal gra," as so many head of cattle. The old Scotch and English settlers would probably have ac- quiesced after a little, if it had boon left to them to decide. They did not object to the match, only to the manner of wooing; but the hot and hostile spirit of the Franco-Indians, and, as is too usual, of the Irish population also, had to be conciliated, and the result was that Colonel MacDougall, as he was about to enter the territory from the American side, was met by a French half- breed with a letter, which briefly informed him that lie could not do so without permission from the National Committee of the Red River, a body which had come into existence a few days before. The ruling spirit in this self-constituted assembly was Louis Riel, a Frenchman of the Communistic type, lawless and unscrupulous, but not, from the first, badly intentioued or devoid of principle. Yet there is little doubt that to become sole ruler of the country was the end which he had in view, and that, had he succeeded, he would have proved himself a cruel and capricious tyrant. In the sketch of Riel's face inserted in this book there is a marked appearance of vigoer and activity, combined with much cautious thought and judgment. It is not the face of a self-interested intriguer so much as that of one loving rebellion, and, perhaps, impatient of the obscurity from which, at least, his ill-justified attempt has succeeded in rescuing him. The eyes arc firm and the brow powerful, the features regular and handsome, and notwithstandiug some heaviness approaching to coarseness in the lower part of the face, which is uncovered by hair except on the upper lip, there is an appearance of considerable dignity and natural cultivation. Such was the man who, shortly assum- ing the position ,of President of the Assembly, necessitated by his persevering opposition to Imperial authority the arduous en- terprise, as Captain Huyshe justly describes it, of conducting 1,200 men a distance of over as many miles, through a country destitute of supplies, before almost unknown except to Indians and trappers, and involving the carriage of boats, guns, ammunition, stores, and provisions over no less than forty-seven "portages," as aro named the intervals of land, sometimes a few yards, sometimes forty-eight or fifty miles in length, between the various limits of water transit.

On the 24th of November, 1869, Rid l took possession of Fort Garry. It is the opinion of Captain liuyslie, that suspicions of a grave nature rest upon the officials of the Hudson's Bay Company who constituted at the time the established authority within the settlement. He asserts

"The uniform SUOCOSS of the insurgents in all their plans points undoubtedly, not only to advice and aasiatance from their own clergy (which is too notorious to need any argument), but also to sympathy, if not collusion, on the part of some of the officers of the Hudson's Bay Company at Fort Garry. It is impossible to acquit the latter of all blame. Their utter inertness and laissez-aller policy cannot be explained away by the illness of the Governor. Ho had the advice of a council, composed of many of the leading residents, to whom the prevalent feel- ing of discontent must have boon well known, but yet nothing was done to cheek the rising spirit of rebellion, which soon passed beyond the control of its originators. Nothing could have been easier than to have prevented Biel'a occupation of the fort, by simply shutting the gates against him. Without the fort, and its stores of money, arms, ammuni- tion, and provisions, the eineute must have falion to the ground of itself, and collapsed for want of the necessaries of life. The only rational inference can bo, that the Company's officials at Fort Garry wore secretly pleased to lind that Canada was not going to have such an easy time of it Ile she expected, and loth to how the government el the country them- selves, they looked on with indifference at the troubles which welcomed their successors."

The only opposition offered at the time to Riel's movement was

in an attempt of some 300 English and Scotch half-breeds, under Lieutenant Bonito; to rescue prisoners whom Riel held in cap- tivity in defiauce of all right or even prudence. It led, however, only to the capture of Boulton, who narrowly escaped with his life, and of another, one Thomas Scott, who was condemned by a mock tribunal and shot on the same day, in spite of serious warn- ing on the part of Mr. Donald Smith, whom the Ottawa Govern- ment had sent to conciliate the settlement and explain the intentions of Canada. Riel's retort was that Scott had been insolent to him and the "soldiers," and that an example was necessary to obtain respect for the settlement from the Canadian Government. Matters are now at a climax; no one still cares to interfere with the designs of Riel, and the constitutional party is obliged to look for deliverance from his despotic rule to the suc- cess of a contingent of troops from Canada, where the news of Scott's execution had excited universal indignation. Nor did Canada re- spond tardily to this appeal. In accordance with the suggestion of the Deputy Quartermaster-Geueral in Canada, Colonel Wolseley, a force of 1,900 men, of whom two-thirds were Militia, consisting of the let or Ontario Rifles and the 2nd or Quebec Rifles, and the rest regular troops composed of the 60th Royal Rifles and detachments of Royal Artillery and Royal Engineers, was at once organized and brought under pre- paration. The physique of the men selected was especially con- sidered, and in Ontario much odium was incurred by medical officers from disappointed volunteers whom the former were com- pelled to reject. So great was the desire to serve in Ontario that many who could not obtain commissions as ofh.cers entered the ranks as privates, to an extent hardly conducive to that respectful distance which discipline requires between officers and soldiers. In Quebec, owing to the strength of the French element, the work proceeded much more slowly. The French hesitated to serve against their rebel countrymen, the English Canadians dis- liked serving under French officers ; but, on enlistment from Ontario being permitted, this nominally French battalion was at last completed with scarcely fifty Frenchmen in its ranks. Soon daily drill at Toronto throws the rough citizen soldiery into shape, an honourable esprit de corps is raised between the two battalions, and a land-transport service being organized for the carriage of the matariel over the portages, the expeditionary force is in readiness to start. The new Commander-in-Chief in succession to the late Sir Charles Windham had arrived in Canada early in April, and at once confirmed popular hope and expectation by the selection of Colonel Wolsoley as leader of the expedition, au appointment for which that gentleman's high reputation for command and large experience in India, in the Crimea, and in China, clearly pointed him out.

On the morning of the 21st of May, Colonel Wolseley and staff and the advanced guard of the expeditionary force started from Toronto. Between Toronto and Fort Garry, in almost a direct line, a continuous chain of rivers and lakes forms an evi- dent and, for the first half of the journey, a comparatively easy mode of transit. Starting from Toronto, the extreme south- easterly limit of the route, 91 miles of rail brings the traveller northwards to Collingwood, a town on the southern shore of Georgian Bay, and from this, for 634 miles in a north-westerly direction, extends that vast network of lakes or freshwater seas, con- sisting of Georgian Bay, with lakes Huron, Michigan, and Superior, which covering, as it does, an area equal in extent to that of the whole of England and Wales, is without a parallel on the face of the earth. As Captain Huyshe remarks, the whole of Ireland might ,be put into Lake Superior, though we cannot equally endorse the proposition that "one its almost tempted to wish it might be." Perhaps at this point in Ids diary the Feadau menace against the expedition was throwing Captain Huyshe into a somewhat trucu- lent humour. However, in either souse of the word, the remark cannot be considered characteristic of that gentleman's humour, of which, in the one sense, it is a vary uufavourable, and in the other sense, truth compels us to record, a rather favourable specimen.

As far, then, as the north-westerly limit of Lake Superior the conveyance of two or three battalions of troops should not be a very arduous matter. Front Coning wood to Fort William, Thunder Bay, at the head of Lake Superior, the steamers Algoma and Chicora ply more often than once a week to conduct the traffic, which is every year becoming more abuudant. But ahnost'at the very point of the starting of the force a difficulty sprang up with regard to the passage into Lake Superior, which threatened serious obstruction to the expedition. At the narrow junction of the waters of Lakes Huron. and Superior there are eerlaiu rapids which, eta is usually the case, are very pretty to look at, but not equally agreeable to pass. The consequence is that laud transit, or a " portage," for a few miles, which, with military "impedi- menta," it is needless to ,say, is a ,matter,of ,considerable labour, inust be made hero, unless advantage be takenof, a canal belong- ing to the United States, which, on their side of the rapids, the channel being the' boundary-line between British and American territory, unites the two lakes through the town of Sault Ste. Marie. Whether with or without good reason, probably the latter, the British authOrfties have failed to provide shadier communication on their side. jAt first the American authorities refused to open the canal. Foet:unately the urgent remonstrances of Mr.. Thornton induced the Washington Cabinet, in the face of a large section of the American people who sympathized ,with,Riel's Provisional Govern- ment to withdraw the restriction before worse had resulted than great expense, trouble, and delay in the convoying across by the Canadian side of several ship-loads of stores. But a greater danger was atilt to arise from the conveyance of the stores through American territory. The hostility of the Fenian body was gathering force, which soon found vent in the raid of that date on the lluntingdon border, and if it had not been for the vigilant foresight Of Colonel Wolseley, there is no doubt, es:cording to Captain Iluyshe, but the stores now accumulated by permission at Sault ,would have been destroyed, and the expedition delayed, very possibly for ,another year. . It is 'difficult to understand how, the British Government should have failed to provide a secure, mode of transit on the Canadian side, and so left itself dependent on the courtesy of the United States for proper access to one of its own dependencies ; but , the above-mentio,ned difficulty, will best demonstrate the

desirability of at once supplying such an omission, ,

The real difficulty, however, of the route commenced after leaving Thunder Bay,, on penetrating the hitherto almost un- known country, which,,except for a fort or shanty here and there, stretches between Lake ,Superior and Lake Winnipeg with all the charm ,(to those at a comfortable distance) of primeval savagery. Across this a continuous river flows of some 450 miles in length, through ',varied and Picturesque scenery, now narrowing into dangerous rapids, now opening 'into the broad waters of great lakes, as Lake Shebandowan, Lac des Mille Lacs, Rainy Lake, or Lake of the•Woods, stUdded with innumerable islands, or stretch- ing away on every side into dark and gloomy bays. The occasional portages seem to be the most trying points in this journey; but the last of these is at length passed as they draw near to Fort Alexander, along the dangerous Winnipeg river, the grandeur of whose banks, with the beautiful Slave Falls, caps, for magnificence, all that had been passed before. Soon a second fresh-water sea, with an area of 9,000 square miles, Lake Winnipeg, opened before them, offering the prospect of a termination to their labours, and after a last and particularly pleasant experience of camping out, viz,, in the shelter of a lovely bay on Elk Island, the flotilla on the morning of the 22nd of August panes into the southern wing of the lake and makes right for Fort Garry. The work of the,ex- Pedition may now be considered as all but accomplished, for, preliminaries effected, it is but a trifle comparatively to secure its nominal object. However, as the flotilla enters the Red River, new arrives that Rid has entrenched himself firmly within the fort and is determined to fight, but as they draw nearer resistance gee= to Melt, away ,before them. Considerable ,disgust is enter-

tiiined at their 'labours being crowned by a finale so little

heroic in its. nature. Colonel Wolseley decides upon strik- ing an immediate blow, and hopes to march at once , upon the fort, but rain now' falling in torrents renders the roads impass- able. 'Keeping still to the boats therefore, the troops draw near to Winnipeg town in a thoroughly drenched condition, and disembark on the morning of the 24th at Point Douglas, from which the last two miles of the expedition are traversed in complete mental and physical discomfort, through roads uncle-deep in mud, under increasing torrents of rain, and without 'even the stimulating prospect of Riel's showing fight :— " Passing round the flank of the village, the fort appeared in sight, about 700 yards off, across the open prairie. A few stray inhabitants in the village declared that Riol and his party 'still held possession of the fort and meant to fight. The gates were shut, no flag was flying from the flag-staff, and guns were visible mounted in the bastions and over the gate- Way'thirt commanded the appi ouch from the village and the prairie over which the troops wore advancing. It certainly looked as if 'our laboura were not to be altogether in vain. 'Wel is going to fight,' ran along the line, and the men quickened their puce, and strode cheerily forward regardless of the wind and rain. M. Rio] rose in their oetimation immediately. The gun over the gateway was expected every moment to open fire, but we got nearer and nearer and still no sign ; at last we could see that there wore no mon standing to the guns, and unless it were a trap to get UH ClOHO up before they opened fire, it was evident there would be no fight after all. ' By. God he's belied!' was the cry. Colonel Wolseley sent forward some of bin staff to HUH if tho south gate were also shut ; they galloped round the fort and brought back word that the gate opening on to the bridge over the Assinabolne river was wide open and men bolting away over the bridge. The troops then marched in by the gateway and took possession of Fort Garry after a bloodless victory. The house that Rind and his ' Secretaries' dr State ' had ocenpied.Wrol found in a state of great confusion ; the broakfast-things on the table not yet cleared away, documents of all kinds, and the private papers of the ex-President lying about, betokened a hasty retroat. Those fellows had been living in great luxury ; the ' Government House ' was comfortably furnished with Mr. MacDougall's furniture, but though living in unaccustomed magnificence, they had not been able to got over their natural habits, and had allowed everything to got, into a state of dirt and disorder. The Union Jack was now hoisted, is Royal salute fired, and three cheers given for the Queeti, which wore caught up and, heartily re- echoed by a few of the inhabitants who had followed the troopa from the village. It wan still raining in torrents, and the whole place was one sea of black slimy mud ; the men wore drenched to the skin, and hod been He during the previous night. Officers and men wore, therefore, temporarily housed inside the fort."

" Hie jan-i finis laboiMin." The troops might well feel rather disgusted, for stout though their courage may have been, and perfect their perseverance and discipline, fate had decreed that they should furnish little or nothing to contemporary history be- yond a few ephemeral " leaders,"

"Which have their days and cease to he."

Riel, Lepino, and O'Douoghue wander off in a miserable way to their homes, where they are contemptuously allowed • to remain unmolested, an insult which the ex-President and his secretaries of state 'must have felt bitterly. ' Little remained to be done requiring

the presence of troops. On the 29th of August the first detach- , ment 'of Regulars started on the return journey, and before the • end of October the Whole of the two battalions had reached Toronto or Montreal. It takes little time to state the fact, but it musthe borne in mind that the return journey presented precisely the same toils and difficulties, deprived only of the accompanying interest of novelty. The same number of portages had to be 'encountered, the seine 1,200 miles to be traversed, which Would ocCupy just about sufficient time to allow everything connected with the expedition to die out of public interest before their return. In England, ihdeed, there had never been much interest in the expedition to die out, and if any of the sturdy Canadian volun- teers had unfortunately crossed thence to this country he Would have frequently found 'himself politely called upon to explain what the object and the result of the expedition had been, and ' whether it had concerned the policy of Britain, or that of the United States. We do not 'wonder that Captain Huyshe should endeavour to raise the fame of this admirable work from the obscurity which has unjustly shrouded it, but there • is one very evident defect in his narrative which must greatly ,diminish the good in this respect which it might otherwise effect. It does not render the defect more excusable that he admits it himself. The fact is, that the book is so written that it could not command the attention of anyone not previously desirous of in- formation on the subject. It bears too striking a resemblance to a log-book. If the original notes had been expanded with a little • more zest, a little more artistic feeling, there would have been much in it calculated to attract the lively interest 'of the reader. There' is much that is worthy of minute painting in the progress through such scenes of two battalions of armed troops, now drag- ' ging their heavy stores over roads whose thick clay soil made ' every step an effort, while the hateful portage-strap galled their foreheads ; now losing themselves in the - darkness of night among unknown bays and inlets of great lakes ; now shoot- ing rapids with a whirl that takes the breath away ; often drenched to the skin, but always exemplary in their pluck, discipline, and good-humour ; but there is a dryness in the author's description throughout which accords ill with such strange and varied expe• ' riences. 'He does not, indeed, make any claim for his volume beyond what it can fairly-respond to. He writes in his preface

"The following brief account of the Rod River expedition has been mainly put together from the every-day jottings of a private journal, and lays no claim ,to any literary merit. It han been written in the hope of directing attention to the successful accomplishment of an expedition which, was attended with more than ordinary difficulties, but which was completely overshadowed from first to last by the absorbing interest of a groat Continental war," But the backwoods life of which it treats is not such as can safely be lefe,to, the imagination of readers, and for one who may desire to arrive at the uncoloured facts, there are many whose single object is enjoyment. At the seine time it is more easy to obtain over- coloured reports of such parts of the world Its few travellers visit than descriptions which, as far as they go, breathe at least the genuine spirit of truth, though leaving much to be filled in by the artistic reader's own power of conception, and if Captain Huyshe's volume onlyn.foo well verifies its engagements in being uucom- monly like a private diary, we have no doubt but, in its claims of truthfulness and real interest in so far as the facts will afford interest, it will equally satisfy expectation.