[GARRY ] DIARY OF NICHOLAS GARRY 163 
Families must take up their Quarters with the Meurons,* who, though 
they have behaved bravely in defending the Colony, are still little 
better than a lawless banditti and, almost to a man, Drunkards. So 
little Reflexion or Forethought has the Governor Mr. Alexander 
McDonell that he contemplates with Satisfaction the placing the Fami- 
lies with such Characters, considering the young Women will find Hus- 
hands, little reflecting on the Misery they will be thus exposed to in 
their future Lives. All these Reflexions produced the most melancholy 
Feelings in my mind. The Colonists have been ill-selected, Captain 
de May, Lord Selkirk’s Agent in Switzerland, having more considered 
Quantity than Quality, (he receives a Sort of Head Money). ‘The 
greater Part of the Colonists do not appear to me to be fitted for the 
cultivation of the Country. Many of them both male and female were 
discovered to be bad Characters. Many of them however are excellent, 
particularly one Family, where there are six Daughters who merit a 
better Fate than will probably await them. But their Difficulties as to 
Travelling in this inclement Season may not cease on their Arrival at 
Fort Douglas. If Provisions are scarce they must proceed to Pamina,? 
about 70 Miles distant a Point where the River unites with the Red 
River where there is a Colony. These Plains, which the Buffalo resorts 
to in such Numbers will always furnish an inexhaustible Supply of 
Food, unless the Indians should fire the Plains when however the 
Inhabitants would have a Resource in Fish with which the Rivers and 
Lakes abound. The Fish are taken out of the Ice in Winter exposed to 
the Air when they are frozen to Death in a second and in this State are 
preserved the whole Winter. If the Colonists are obliged to go to 
Pamina they must live under Tents. Mr. de Husser accompanied the 
Colonists and I do not in my Life ever recollect in so short an Acquaint- 
ance to have regretted so much a Departure and to this Regret was 
added much Anxiety for him in the Certainty of his Sufferings; for with 
his feeling excellent Heart the Misery of his Countrymen will be a 
constant Source of Heart Bleeding and painful Feelings. I have seldom 
been so much pleased and every Moment of my Acquaintance added to 
my Regard.5 

1 Men of the disbanded de Meuron regiment, Germans, Swiss and Piedmontese, 
sent to the Red River settlement by Lord Selkirk. See the Great Company. B, 
Willson (London, 1900), vol. ii., p. 178. 
2 Pembina. As the colonists had to do in 1817. 
3 These forebodings as to the fate of the colonists were unhappily justified. As 
Dr. Macoun says in ‘‘ Manitoba and the Great North West” (1882), c. xxv., p. 442, 
‘ A number of poor Swiss were brought to the Colony in the fall of 1821, but these 
“‘ being altogether unacquainted with manual labour, suffered severely. Before 
“‘ they reached the Colony winter had set in, and they suffered frightful hardships 
