218 TRAVEL, AD VENTURE, AXD SPORT. 



cut the ground from under the feet of all the political 

 agitators there. 



During a crisis such as that which occurred in the 

 settlement in 1869, when rebellion hangs in the 

 balance, every moment is of such importance that, 

 when once the scale has gone down on the side of 

 revolution, days or months afterwards cannot com- 

 pensate for the loss. 



Men who to-day shudder at the idea of resistance 

 to the laws, or at the word disloyalty, will to-morrow 

 take office under a revolutionary government, and 

 exercise their functions with placidity when once the 

 first overt act of rebellion has been committed, and 

 they have accustomed their minds to the fact of its 

 existence. When we see around us the machinery 

 of a government at work without any opposition, 

 we are prone to accept its decrees unhesitatingly, not 

 so much from the tendency of mankind to follow 

 with the herd, as from that love of order, and that 

 respect for those whom we see exercising governing 

 functions, which is inherent in us. 



Mr M'Dougall was told to go to Fort Garry, and 

 that, shortly after his arrival, the Queen's proclama- 

 tion transferring the territory to the Dominion would 

 be published. He travelled through the United 

 States to Pembina, which is a wretched little village 

 on the frontier dividing the British and American 

 territories, but situated within the latter. He there 

 learnt that a number of French half-breeds had 



