70 FORT CONFIDENCE. 



I took them on with me ; the others reached 

 England by the same mail packet that I crossed 

 the Atlantic in, and were delivered on the day- 

 after my arrival at home. 



The only letter-bag from England that we re- 

 ceived during our stay at Fort Confidence came in 

 on the 12th of April, 1849, and brought us home 

 news up to the 22nd of June, 1848, ten months 

 old. This came by the usual canoe route, and was 

 brought up from Canada with the Red River mail ; 

 but at the same time we received a single news- 

 paper, which gave us some English intelligence 

 as late as the 15th of September. The history 

 of this newspaper is that of the triumph of the 

 electric telegraph. While the English mail packet 

 was steaming up the sound of New York, on the 

 30th of September, a summary of European news 

 having been carried on shore by an express steam- 

 vessel, was in the act of being transmitted by tele- 

 graph to the banks of the Mississippi. Within a 

 few hours, it was published there in the " Galena 

 Advertiser," of which it filled one entire folio. This 

 paper, being carried over the plains to Red River, by 

 a party which set out on the day following its pub- 

 lication, was sent to Great Bear Lake, and gave us 

 the first intimation of a rebellion in Ireland. The 

 other newspapers that we received at the same 

 time were of very old date, but every paragraph 

 of them, as well as of our letters, was read again 



