20 

 Rogers, Mr. James White, surgeon, Mr. Alexander McLean, 

 settler, Mr. Wilkinson, private secretary to the governor, and 

 Lieut. Holt, of the Swedish navy, and fifteen servants were 

 killed. Mr. J. P. Bourke, storekeeper, was wounded, but 

 saved himself by flight. The enemy, I am told, were sixty- 

 two persons, the greater part of whom were the contracted 

 servant? and clerks of the Northwest company. They had 

 one man killed and one wounded. The chiefs who headed 

 the party of our enemy were Messrs. Grant and Fraser, Antoine 

 Hoole and Bourassa : the two former clerks and the two lat- 

 ter interpreters, in the service of the Northwest company." 

 Boucher's story. 



The above declaration and the following are published in 

 a book entitled " Statements Respecting the Earl of Selkirk's 

 Settlement, etc.," written by Selkirk's relative, a Mr Halkett, 

 a director of the Hudson's Bay Company committee, and it is 

 from this source that most historians have drawn their infor- 

 mation relating to the Selkirk side of the case. 



The man named Boucher, mentioned by Pritchard in his 

 affidavit, was taken as a piisoner to Montreal, and while there 

 made the following declaration, on the 29th of August, 1816, 

 before a justice of the peace : 



" Voluntary declaration of Francois Firmin Boucher, 

 accused on oath of having, on the 19th of last June, killed at 

 the colony of the Red River, twenty-one men, among whom 

 was Governor Semple, says : ' That he did not kill any person 

 whatever ; that he was sent, four days before the death of 

 Governor Semple, by one of the partners of the North-west 

 Company, Mr. Alexander McDonell, from Portage la Prairie, 

 to carry provisions to Frog Plain, about three leagues lower 

 than the fort at the Forks of Red River. That he and his 

 companions, to avoid being seen by the Hudson's Bay settlers, 

 passed at a distance from the Hudson's Bay fort. That, with 

 a view of weakening the Hudson's Bay party, the Bois-Brules 

 wanted to carry away some of the Hudson's Bay settlers — 

 and, assisted by the deponent to interpret for them in English, 

 they went and carried one off. That, as they proceeded 



