Selkirk’s letters show, he had in view from the very beginning of the life of the Colony.  The courage and generosity of the executors of Lord Selkirk shown to all these enterprises reflects the greatest credit upon them.  True, the concession of so wide an area of fertile land was worth it, and the pledges made to the Selkirk settlers demanded it, but as in hundreds of other enterprises undertaken by British capitalists on the American continent, the choice of men foreign to the country and its conditions, the lack of conscience and economy on the part of the agents sent out, the dissension and jealousy aroused by every such attempt, as well as the absence of the means of transport by land and sea through the methods supplied by science to-day, resulted in a series of dismal failures, which placed an undeserved stigma upon the character of the soil, climate, and resources of Assiniboia.  It took more than fifty years of subsequent effort to remove this impression.

These experiences took place under those governors who succeeded Alexander Macdonell—­the Grasshopper Governor.  The first of them was Captain Bulger, an unfortunate martinet, though a man of good conscience and high ideals.  He had a most uncompromising manner.  He quarreled with the Hudson’s Bay Company officer at Fort Garry on the one hand, and with old Indian Chief Peguis on the other.  A whole crop of suggestions made by the Captain on the improvement of the Colony remain in his “Red River Papers.”  Bulger’s successor was Governor Pelly, a relative of the celebrated Governor of the Hudson’s Bay Company.  The new Governor lacked nerve and decision, and was quite unfitted for his position.  His method of dealing with an Indian murderer was long repeated on Red River as a subject for humor, when he instructed the interpreter to announce to the criminal:  “that he had manifested a disposition subversive of all order, and if he should not be punished in this world, he would be sure to be punished in the next.”  The hopelessness of carrying on the affairs of the Colony apart from those of the general affairs of the Hudson’s Bay Company, was now seen, and on the suggestion of Governor Simpson, the management was placed in the hands of governors immediately responsible to the company.  This change led to the appointment as Governor of Donald McKenzie.  This old trader had taken part in the formation of the Astor Fur Company, and was in charge of one of the famous parties, which in 1811 crossed the continent, as described by Washington Irving.  Ross Cox says of this beleaguered party:  “Their concave cheeks, protuberant bones, and tattered garments indicated the dreadful extent of their privations.”  The old trader thus case-hardened faced bravely for eight years the worries of the Colony.

CHAPTER XV.

And the flood came.