THE RED RIVER EXPEDITION. 211 



been. There is only one solution to be arrived at, 

 which is, that it has long been very badly served 

 and administered abroad. 



The enemies of the Company were numerous in 

 Canada, and had made themselves felt even within 

 its own territory of Rupert's Land. Every year 

 added to their numbers. Those born there said their 

 poverty was owing to the country being cut off from 

 all outside trade and emigration by the direct action 

 the Company took to keep things in statu quo. All 

 Canadians or others who penetrated into the country 

 and settled there joined this discontented party, 

 which had assumed such importance previous to the 

 arrangements being made for the transfer of the 

 country, that had the Company refused to comply 

 with it and persisted in its former policy of seclu- 

 sion, it would soon doubtless have had all power 

 forcibly wrested from it by the Canadian party 

 within its own territories. 



Unfortunately the arrangement entered into had 

 an air of purchase about it, and a cry resounded 

 throughout the North-West that its inhabitants were 

 being bought and sold like so many cattle. With 

 such a text the most commonplace of democrats 

 could preach for hours ; and poor indeed must have 

 been their clap-trap eloquence if an ignorant and 

 impressionable people such as those at Red River 

 had not been aroused by it. 



The surveyors were at work all through the 



