As to numbers the census of 1849 

 given by Boss states that there were 

 in all 5,391 of a population. The 

 population of the settlement in 

 1870, in the year \\ hen Manitoba was 

 formed, has usually been stated at 

 about 12,000, of \vhom 5,000 were 

 French halfbreeds, 5,000 Englsh half- 

 breeds and 2,000 whites. It should 

 be stated that the whites were not 

 all oonf ined toKildonan and St. John's 

 but were to some extent scattered 

 through the other parishes. The fig- 

 ures given by Hargrave in his "Red 

 Eiver" somewhat differ from these. 



Here, however, isolated and compos- 

 ite, was a small oommunity, governed 

 by a council nominated by the Hud- 

 son's Bay company, which had grown 

 up from being a few hundred in 1817 

 when Liord Selkirk visited the colony 

 to the figures named in 1869, the last 

 year in which the Hudson's Bay com- 

 pany held sway in the country. 



Here religion and education had 

 early come and with their softening 

 and elevating influences had reduced 

 the isolated dwellers of the Selkirk 

 settlement., the wild hunters of the 

 plains, and the wandering trippers of 

 the prairies into a community having 

 many striking characteristics. 



In this community rose to the posi- 

 tion of leaders a number of men of 

 very different powers and various in- 

 fluence. We shall endeavor this even- 

 ing to sketch the lives and work of a 

 few of them; and our choice of sub- 

 jects will be from the different ele- 

 ments of the population. 



JOHN PRITCHARD. 

 Fur Trader and Agent. 

 The name of John Pritchard carries 

 us back in the Eed River to the be- 

 ginning oi this century— to a time 

 even before the coming of the Selkirk 

 Colony. His descendants to the 

 fourth generation are still found in 

 Manitoba^ and are well known. He 

 was bom in 1777 in a small village 

 near the town of Shrewsbury, in 

 Shropshire, England, and received his 

 education in the famous grammar 

 school of the town named. Early in 

 this century he emigrated to Mont- 

 real, almost certainly before 1804. 

 At that time the fei-ment among the 

 fur traders was great. The old North- 

 west company of Montreal had split 

 into sections, and to the new company 

 or X Y company young Pritchard was 

 attached We first hear of him at 

 the mouth of the Souris river in 1805, 

 and shortly after in charge of one of 



the forts at that point where the 

 Souris empties into the Assiniboine. 

 One of his letters is extant giving an 

 account of his being lost without 

 companion or food on the prairie be- 

 tween the Pipestone and the Souris. 

 For forty days he survived, living on 

 the roots of the prairie turnips, a 

 prairie chicken, and now and then a 

 frog. He at last found himself at 

 Whitewater lake, in the Deloraine 

 district, and by the help of an Indian 

 reached Fort Riviere la Souris, not 

 havingr as he says himself, "the ap- 

 pearance of an inhabitant of this 

 world." 



Probably Pritchard never took kind- 

 ly to the combined Northwest com- 

 pany, for we find him a few years 

 after as one of the garrison occupying 

 Fort Douglas, although he represents 

 himself as being a settler on the Red 

 River. Elsewhere a full account has 

 been given of the causes of the Red 

 River troubles from 1814 to 1817. The 

 Northwest company of Montreal had 

 occupied the Northwest before the 

 Hudson's Bay company left the Bay 

 and penetrated the interior. From 

 the year 1774 when the Hudson's Bay 

 company erected Fort Cumberland on 

 the Saskatchewan almost within hail- 

 ing distance of the Nor'-Wester fort 

 the fiercest rivalry continued. For 

 nearly forty years this fur trading 

 contest lasted until matters assumed 

 a new form when Lord Selkirk, deter- 

 Inined to establish his colony, under 

 Hudson's Bay. company auspices on 

 the banks of Red River. 



Lord Selkirk's first settlers arrived, 

 by way of Hudson Bay, at tlie Eed 

 River in 1812, and took up holdings 

 on the Red River, near the site of the 

 present city of Winnipsg. Several 

 parties arrived in the years succeeding 

 by the same route, until the Se kirk 

 settlement in 1814 numbered about 

 two hundred souls. In that year a 

 "jauntily-dressed" officer of the 

 Nor'-west company, named Duncan 

 Cameron, succeeded in inducing about 

 one liundred and fifty of the settlers 

 to desert the Red River and take up 

 their abode in the western part of Up- 

 per Canada. Governor Macdonell had 

 erected buildings within what are now 

 the limits of the city of Winnipeg ; but 

 the Nor'-w esters resisted his author- 

 ity, and even took the governor pris- 

 oner ; and their chiefs, one of whom 

 was Cuthbert Grant, on June 25th, 

 1815, issued the mandate : "All set- 

 tlers to retire immediately from the 

 River, and no appearance of a colony 

 to remain." In that year, however, 

 another party of Highland colonists 



