1844.] BED RIVER SETTLEMENT. 401 



tached portions, which may afford to the industrious cultivator the 

 means of subsistence, and also, in time, of procuring some foreign 

 luxuries ; but they produce no precious metals, no cot'. on, no coffee, 

 no rice, no sugar, no opium ; nor are they, like India, inhabited by 

 a numerous population, who may be easily forced to labor for the 

 benefit of a few. 



With regard to colonization - — it has been already said that a very 

 small proportion of the territories belonging to, or held under license 

 by the Hudson's Bay Company, is capable of being rendered produc- 

 tive by cultivation. The only place east of the Rocky Mountains, in 

 which attempts have been made to found permanent agricultural 

 settlements, is on the Red River, between the 49th parallel of lati- 

 tude, there forming the northern boundary of the United States, 

 and Lake Winnipeg, into which that river empties. Of the cession 

 of this country by the Hudson's Bay Company to Lord Selkirk, and 

 the unfortunate results of his first efforts to colonize it, accounts- 

 have been already given. New efforts, with the same object, but 

 with no better results, were afterwards made by the son and suc- 

 cessor of that nobleman ; and the territory was at length, in 1836, 

 retro-ceded to the Company, which has, with much difficulty and 

 expense, established on it about six thousand persons, nearly all of 

 them Indians and half-breeds, under what conditions as to tenure of 

 the soil, is not known.* The land produces wheat, rye, potatoes, 



* Mr. Pelly,. the governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, in a letter addressed 

 on the 10th of February, 1837, to Lord Glenelg, the British secretary for the colo- 

 nies, says, " This rising community, if well governed, may be found useful at 

 some future period, in the event of difficulties occurring between Great Britain and 

 the United States of America, who have several military posts, say those of the 

 Sault Saint Mary, Prairie du Chien, and the River Saint Peter's, established on 

 their Indian frontiers, along the line of boundary with British North America." On 

 the other hand, Mr. Thomas Simpson, an officer of the Hudson's Bay Company, in 

 his interesting account of the discoveries effected by himself and his companion, 

 Dease, in 1838 and 1839, states that the settlers on the Red River have " found 

 out the only practicable outlet for their cattle and grain, in the fine level plains 

 leading to the Mississippi and the St. Peter's, where there is a promise of a 

 sufficient market among the Americans," particularly as " the bulky nature of the 

 exports, a long and dangerous navigation to Hudson's Bay, and above all, the 

 roving and indolent habits of the half-breed race, who form the mass of the po- 

 pulation, and love the chase of the buffalo better than the drudgery of agriculture, 

 or regular industry, seem to preclude the possibility of this colony rising to im- 

 portance." He moreover adds, that the Scotch, who compose a small, but the 

 only useful portion of the community, carefully avoid all amalgamation with the 

 others ; in order to prevent which, they generally retire to the United States, so 

 soon as they have by industry and economy accumulated a moderate amount of 

 property. There being fortunately no prospect of " difficulties occurring between 

 Great Britain and the United States," we may hope that the little colony on the Red 

 River, will flourish, and profit by its vicinity to the great state of Iowa. 



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