nds their territorial rights? was it the
Imperial Government who accepted that surrender? or was it the Dominion
Government to whom the country was in turn retransferred by the Imperial
authorities? I answer that the blame of having bungled the whole business
belongs collectively to all the great and puissant bodies. Any ordinary
matter-of-fact, sensible man would have managed the whole affair in a few
hours; but so many high and potent powers had to consult together, to pen
despatches, to speechify, and to lay down the law about it, that the
whole affair became hopelessly muddled. Of course, ignorance and
carelessness were, as they always are, at the bottom of it all. Nothing
would have been easier than to have sent a commissioner from England to
Red River, while the negotiations for transfer were pending, who would
have ascertained the feelings and wishes of the people of the country
relative to` the transfer, and would have guaranteed them the exercise of
their rights and liberties under any and every new arrangement that might
be entered into. Now, it is no excuse for any Government to plead
ignorance upon any matter pertaining to the people it governs, or expects
to govern, for a Government has no right to be ignorant on any such
matter, and its ignorance must be its condemnation; yet this is the plea
put forward by the Dominion Government of Canada, and yet the Dominion
Government and the Imperial Government had ample opportunity of arriving
at a-correct knowledge of the state of affairs in Red River, if they had
only taken the trouble to do so. Nay, more, it is an undoubted fact that
warning had been given to the Dominion Government of the state of feeling
amongst the half-breeds, and the phrase, "they are only eaters of
pemmican," so cutting to the Metis, was then first originated by a
distinguished Canadian politician.

And now let us see what the "eaters of pemmican" proceeded to do after
their forcible occupation of Fort Garry. Well, it must be admitted they
behaved in a very indifferent manner, going steadily from bad to worse,
and much befriended in their seditious proceedings by continued and oft
repeated bungling on the part of their opponents. Early in the month of
December, 1869, Mr. M'Dougall issued two proclamations from his post at
Pembina, on the frontier: in one he declared himself Lieutenant-Governor
of the territory which Her Majesty had transferred to Canada; and in the
other he commissioned an o