United States or Bahrain ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
I got there all right, an' was sittin' in the hall chattin' wi' the head man Macdonell they called him about the trade and the Injuns. Macdonell's two little child'n was playin' about, a boy an' a girl, as lively as kittens, an' his wife a good-lookin' young 'ooman was lookin' arter 'em, when the door opens, and in stalks a long-legged Injun. It was Wapaw.
"From the time the puncheons of rum reached the colony in the fall, till they were all drunk dry, nothing was to be seen or heard about Fort Douglas but balling, dancing, rioting and drunkenness in the barbarous sport of those disorderly times." Macdonell's method of reckoning accounts was unique.
To transport so many persons, with all their belongings and with sufficient provisions, seven or eight hundred miles inland was an undertaking formidable enough to put Captain Macdonell's energies to the fullest test. The only craft available were bark canoes, and these would be too fragile for the heavy cargoes that must be borne. Stouter boats must be built.
George Simpson, who was the new Governor of the United Hudson's Bay Company, was for two years Macdonell's contemporary, and he in one of his letters says: "Macdonell is, I am concerned to say, extremely unpopular, despised and held in contempt by every person connected with the place, he is accused of partiality, dishonesty, untruth and drunkenness, in short, by a disrespect of every moral and elevated feeling."
Brock's small force those actually at his side were Chisholm's and Cameron's companies of the Toronto and York volunteers a mere handful of perhaps eighty all told. These, together with Macdonell's men, who were at the foot of the hill on the right, now numbered less than 190 of all ranks. For an instant there was a pause. Brock spoke hurriedly to his aide.
The tenor of this letter would indicate that only a portion of the Nor'westers were ready to adopt extreme measures against the settlement. 'Something serious will undoubtedly take place, was Macdonell's callous admission. 'Nothing but the complete downfall of the colony, he continued, 'will satisfy some, by fair or foul means a most desirable object if it can be accomplished.
In order to get a seat on a train people walk up the line and bribe the officials at the place where it is standing to allow them to get on board. 8 February. A "platteforme" having been found for my car, I and M. Ignatieff of the Red Cross started for Baku to-day. We found our little party at the Métropole Hotel. Went to the MacDonell's to lunch. He is Consul.
It was clear that, in defiance of Macdonell's decree, they meant to send food supplies out of Assiniboia to support their trading-posts elsewhere. The fort at Souris was in close proximity to Brandon House on the Assiniboine, a post founded by the Hudson's Bay Company in 1794. Macdonell decided on strong action.
The U.E. Loyalists of Upper Canada and Nova Scotia draw upon our sympathies in their sufferings of hunger and hardship, but they afford no parallel to the discouragement, dangers, and dismay of the Selkirk Colonists. Alexander Macdonell's party of seventy or eighty mounted men easily carried out this work of destruction. There was one fly in the ointment for them.
On reaching Lac des Allumettes on the same evening, our attention was arrested by the voices of Indians, singing on an island. We immediately pulled in for the spot, and found a large camp of Algonquins, men, women and children, all in a state of intoxication; from whom I learned, though with much difficulty, the whereabouts of Macdonell's retreat.
Word Of The Day