“Then I went to Frog Plain (Kildonan), in charge of Boucher.  In going to the plain I was again threatened by one of the party, and saved by Boucher, who conducted me safely to Frog Plain.  I there saw Cuthbert Grant, who told me that they did not expect to have met us on the plain, but that their intention was to have surprised the Colony, and that they would have hunted the Colonists like buffaloes.  He also told me they expected to have got round unperceived, and at night would have surrounded the Fort and have shot everyone who left it; but being seen, their scheme had been destroyed or frustrated.  They were all painted and disfigured so that I did not know many.  I should not have known that Cuthbert Grant was there, though I knew him well, had he not spoken to me.”

“Grant told me that Governor Semple was not mortally wounded by the shot he received, but that his thigh was broken.  He said that he spoke to the Governor after he was wounded, and had been asked by him to have him taken to the Fort, and as he was not mortally wounded he thought he might perhaps live.  Grant said he could not take him himself as he had something else to do, but that he would send some person to convey him on whom he might depend, and that he left him in charge of a French-Canadian and went away; but that almost directly after he had left him, an Indian, who, he said, was the only rascal they had, came up and shot him in the breast, and killed him on the spot.

“The Bois-brules, who very seldom paint or disguise themselves, were on this occasion painted as I have been accustomed to see the Indians at their war-dance; they were very much painted, and disguised in a hideous manner.  They gave the war-whoop when they met Governor Semple and his party; they made a hideous noise and shouting.  I know from Grant, as well as from other Bois-brules, and other settlers, that some of the Colonists had been taken prisoners.  Grant told me that they were taken to weaken the Colony, and prevent its being known that they were there—­they having supposed that they had passed the Fort unobserved.

“Their intention clearly was to pass the Fort.  I saw no carts, though I heard they had carts with them.  I saw about five of the settlers prisoners in the camp at Frog Plain.  Grant said to me further:  ’You see we have had but one of our people killed, and how little quarter we have given you.  Now, if Fort Douglas is not given up with all the public property instantly and without resistance, man, women and child will be put to death.’  He said the attack would be made upon it that night, and if a single shot were fired, that would be a signal for the indiscriminate destruction of every soul.  I was completely satisfied myself that the whole would be destroyed, and I besought Grant, whom I knew, to suggest or let them try and devise some means to save the women and children.  I represented to him that they could have done no harm to anybody, whatever he or his party might think the men had.  I entreated him to take compassion on them.  I reminded him that they were his father’s country-women and in his deceased father’s name, I begged him to take pity and compassion on them and spare them.