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Updated: June 27, 2025
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.
A third place of muster for the colony was the city of Glasgow. There the Earl of Selkirk's representative was Captain Roderick M'Donald. Many Highlanders had gone to Glasgow, that busy hive of industry, in search of work. To the clerks in the shops and to the labourers in the yards or at the loom, M'Donald described the glories of Assiniboia.
Nevertheless, Governor Macdonell, having planned as dignified a ceremony as the circumstances would allow, sent to the Nor'westers at Fort Gibraltar an invitation to be present at the official inauguration of Lord Selkirk's colony. At the appointed hour, on September 4, several traders from the fort, together with a few French Canadians and Indians, put in an appearance.
'It was of two stories, wrote M'Leod in his diary, 'with main timbers of oak; a good substantial house. John M'Leod was a man of faith. He expected that Lord Selkirk's colony would soon be again firmly on its feet, and he was not to be disappointed. A fourth contingent of settlers arrived during the month of October 1815, having left Scotland in the spring.
According to the story, Bourke was lying on the ground, seemingly asleep, when the partners, standing by a camp-fire, fell to discussing their recent coup at 'the Forks. Their talk drifted to the subject of Lord Selkirk's proposed visit to Assiniboia, and Macdonell assured the others that the North-West Company had nothing to fear from Selkirk, and that if extreme measures were necessary Selkirk should be quietly assassinated.
His club might be found in the vicinity of Pall Mall, his father's name was high and honoured in the Army List, one of his brothers had served with Wolseley in Africa, and Frank himself, having no profession, but with a taste for business and investment, had gone to Canada with some such intention as Lord Selkirk's in the early part of the century.
The officers conducted their prisoners to the Earl of Selkirk's tent. When Selkirk learned that the two other partners of the North-West Company were also in his power, he resolved upon an imprudent act, one which can scarcely be defended. Not only did he refuse his prisoner bail; he framed indictments against M'Kenzie and M'Loughlin and ordered the constables to take them in charge.
Thus it came about that among the Hudson's Bay Company fur traders, who were somewhat doubtful about Lord Selkirk's movement, and certainly among all the "Nor'-Westers," who included the French Canadian voyageur population, Governor Semple's action was looked upon as illegal and unjust in destroying Fort Gibraltar and appropriating its materials for building up the Colony Headquarters Fort Douglas.
Their object was to tell Lord Selkirk's party that settlers were not wanted on the Red River; that it was the country of the fur traders, and that settlers must go farther afield. This was surely an inhospitable reception, after a long and fatiguing journey. Plainly the Nor'westers were at it again, trying now to frighten the colonists away, as they had tried before to keep them from coming.
That such violence and bloodshed as that about Fort Douglas, should be seen by British subjects under the flag which stands for justice and equal rights made sober-minded Britons blush. While Lord Selkirk's agents on the banks of the Red River may have been aggressive in pushing their rights, yet to the Canadians was chargeable the greater part of the bloodshed. This was but natural.
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