THE EED RIVER EXPEDITION. 331 



things quiet, and prevent any collision between the 

 loyalists and those who had recently been in arms 

 against her Majesty. If military rule had been 

 resorted to, quiet and peace could have been easily 

 maintained ; but it was considered essential for polit- 

 ical reasons to keep the military element in the back- 

 ground as much as possible, and to make it appear 

 tlat law and order were maintained there in the 

 same manner as in the other Canadian provinces. 

 Tie difficulty of doing so may be partially appreciated 

 wien it is remembered that all the former machinery 

 of government had disappeared, and even the few 

 magistrates who remained were afraid or disinclined 

 to act. There was no law officer of any description ; 

 so that in reality order was kept by the moral effect 

 produced by the presence of the troops, and by the 

 consciousness that they would be used at any moment 

 ij necessary for the suppression of disturbance. There 

 vere occasionally rumours of armed bodies of rebels 

 collecting on the frontier, or in the plains to the west ; 

 but as soon as the people generally perceived that no 

 arrests were being made by the military, and that 

 even the few leading rebels who had been captured 

 by our skirmishers in their advance upon the Fort 

 had been released without any trial whatever, public 

 confidence revived. Even the poor ignorant French 

 half-breeds, who had been misled by their priests for 

 political objects, accepted the position, and settled 

 down to their ordinary occupations. In such sparsely- 



