FIRST SETTLEMENT OF RED RIVER. 173 



of these wild and reckless children of the prairies to Fort 

 Pembina, a post of the Hudson Bay Company, where 

 they passed the winter in buffalo-skin tents, and soon 

 adopted the habits of life belonging to the savage and 

 half-savage natives by whom they were surrounded. In 

 May, 1813, the emigrants returned to the neighbourhood 

 of Fort Douglas, about two miles below the present site of 

 Fort Garry, and here commenced their agricultural labours. 

 In the fall of the year they again sought refuge at Fort 

 Pembina, and after a winter of much suffering, revisited, 

 in the spring of 1814, the scene of the previous year's 

 attempt to plant themselves on the banks of Eed 

 Eiver, with a determination to make it a permanent rest- 

 ing-place. During the summer, however, their houses 

 were destroyed by the wandering half-breeds, who were 

 opposed to the establishment of a colony ; and when, in 

 October, 1815, the main body of emigrants arrived from 

 Scotland, they found poverty, ruin, and despondency pre- 

 vailing where they had hoped to meet with a warm 

 reception and comfortable homes. The provident care 

 of Lord Selkirk prevented the colonists from suffering all 

 the horrors of starvation during the inclement winters of 

 this region. His lordship had established a general store 

 of goods, implements, arms, ammunition, clothing, and 

 food at Fort Douglas, from which the impoverished emi- 

 grants were supplied on credit. This store was erected 

 in the first year of the colony, and regularly replenished 

 from time to time by shipments from England.* 



In 1816 a serious conflict took place between the colo- 

 nists and the native employees of the North- West Com- 

 pany. Many were killed on both sides, and the settlement 



* The Eed River Settlement ; its Rise, Progress, and Present State, by 

 Alexander Ross. London, 1846. 



