t a state of anarchy exists in
any particular portion of it, but it is an undoubted fact that crimes of
the most serious nature have been committed, in various places, by
persons of mixed and native blood, without any vindication of the law
being possible, and that the position of affairs rests at the present
moment not on the just power of an executive authority to enforce
obedience, but rather upon the passive acquiescence of the majority of a
scant population who hitherto have lived in ignorance of those
conflicting interests which, in more populous and civilized communities,
tend to anarchy and disorder.

But the question may be asked, If the Hudson Bay Company represent the
centres round which the half-breed settlers have gathered, how then does
it occur that that body should be destitute of governing power, and
unable to repress crime and outrage? To this question I would reply that
the Hudson Bay Company, being a commercial corporation, dependent for its
profits on the suffrages of the people, is of necessity cautious in the
exercise of repressive powers; that, also, it is exposed in the
Saskatchewan to the evil influence which free trade has ever developed
among the native races; that, furthermore, it is brought in contact with
tribes long remarkable for their lawlessness and ferocity; and that,
lastly, the elements of disorder in the whole territory of Saskatchewan
are for many causes, yearly on the increase. But before entering upon
the subject into which this last-consideration would lead me, it will be
advisable to glance at the various elements which comprise the population
of this Western region. In point of numbers, and in the power which they
possess of committing depredations, the aboriginal races claim the
foremost place among the inhabitants of the Saskatchewan. These tribes,
like the Indians of other portions of Rupert's Land and the North-west,
carry on the pursuits of hunting, bringing the produce of their hunts to
barter for the goods of the Hudson Bay Company; but, unlike the Indians
of more northern regions, they subsist almost entirely upon the buffalo,
and they carry on among themselves an unceasing warfare which has long
become traditional. Accustomed to regard murder as honourable war,
robbery and pillage as the traits most ennobling to man hood, free from
all restraint, these warring tribes of Crees, Assineboines, and Blackfeet
form some of the most savage among even the races of Western Ame