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Updated: June 8, 2025
The trouble brewing for the settlement was freely discussed among the Nor'westers. About the middle of March 1816 Alexander Macdonell sent a note to Duncan Cameron from Fort Qu'Appelle. 'A storm is gathering in the north, declared Macdonell, 'ready to burst on the rascals who deserve it; little do they know their situation. Last year was but a joke.
In his eyes the Hudson's Bay Company was endowed with all the virtues; and he never properly analysed the motives or recognized the achievements of its great rival. Had he but ordered his representatives in Assiniboia to meet the Nor'westers half-way, distress and hardship might have been lessened, and violence might very probably have been entirely avoided.
Stormy days were coming. Once Governor Macdonell had published his edict, he did not hesitate to enforce its terms. Information had been received at Colony Gardens that the Nor'westers had stored a quantity of provisions in their trading-post at the mouth of the Souris, a large southern tributary of the Assiniboine.
To this island he was now dispatched, with instructions to visit other sections of the Highlands as well. Robertson had formerly held a post under the North-West Company in the Saskatchewan valley. There he had quarrelled with a surly-natured trader known as Crooked-armed Macdonald, with the result that Robertson had been dismissed by the Nor'westers and had come back to Scotland in an angry mood.
The two were now at close quarters, and Governor Semple had seized the bridle of Boucher's horse. 'Scoundrel, do you tell me so? he said. Pritchard says that the governor grasped Boucher's gun, no doubt expecting an attack upon his person. The French Canadian leapt from his horse, and at this instant a shot rang out from the column of the Nor'westers.
After it had been discovered that the Grand Portage was situated partly on land awarded by treaty to the United States, the Nor'westers, in 1803, had erected a new factory thirty or forty miles farther north where the Kaministikwia river enters Thunder Bay.
But Selkirk had reckoned without the partners of the North-West Company of Montreal, who were not prepared to permit mere herders and tillers to disturb the Indians and the game. The Nor'Westers attacked the helpless colonists and massacred a score of them. Selkirk retorted in kind, leading out an armed band which seized the Nor'Westers' chief post at Fort William.
It puzzled the Nor'westers to learn that the river Fraser had explored in 1808 was not the Columbia. Where, then, were the upper reaches of the great River of the West which Gray and Vancouver had reported?
The Nor'westers, who now had a right to voice their opinions, fumed and haggled. Other share holders flared into vigorous protest as the Earl of Selkirk's plan was disclosed. In the midst of the clash of interests, however, the earl's following stated his proposal succinctly.
This had been done in the case of the charges against Selkirk, and Sir John Sherbrooke, after consulting with the home authorities, decided to refer Selkirk's charges against the Nor'westers, in connection with the events of 1815 and 1816 on the Red River, to the court of the King's Bench at its autumn sitting in York.
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