critical
moments to demand an increased rate of pay, or to desert en masse.

At Edmonton House, the head-quarters of the Saskatchewan District, and at
the posts of Victoria and Fort Pitt, this state of lawlessness is more
apparent than on the lower portion of the river. Threats are frequently
made use of by the Indians and half-breeds as a means of extorting
favourable terms from the officers in charge, the cattle belonging to the
posts are uselessly killed, and altogether the Hudson Bay Company may be
said to retain their tenure of the Upper Saskatchewan upon a base which
appears insecure and unsatisfactory.

In the foregoing remarks I have entered at some length into the question
of the materials comprising the population of the Saskatchewan, with a,
view to demonstrate that the condition of affairs in-that territory is
the natural result of many causes, which have been gradually developing
themselves, and which must of necessity undergo still further
developments if left in their present state. I have endeavoured to point
out how from the growing wants of the aboriginal inhabitants, from the
conflicting nature of the interests of the half-breed and Indian
population, as well as from the natural constitution of the Hudson Bay
Company, a state of society has arisen in the Saskatchewan which
threatens at no distant day to give rise to grave complications; and
which now has the effect of rendering life and property insecure and
preventing the settlement of those fertile regions which in other
respects are so admirably suited to colonization.

As matters at present rest, the region of the Saskatchewan is without
law, order, or security for life or property; robbery and murder for
years have gone unpunished; Indian massacres are unchecked even in the
close vicinity of the Hudson Bay Company's posts, and all civil and legal
institutions are entirely unknown.

I now enter upon that portion of your Excellency's instructions which has
reference to the epidemic of small-pox in the Saskatchewan. It is about
fifty years since the first great epidemic of small pox swept over the
regions of the Missouri and the Saskatchewan, committing great ravages
among the tribes of Sioux, Gros-Ventres, and Flatheads upon American
territory; and among the Crees and Assineboines of the British. The
Blackfeet Indians escaped that epidemic, while, on the other hand, the
Assineboines, or Stonies of the Qu'Appelle Plains, were almost entirely
de