ald to
establish this. They disclose his opposition to Hincks, but he nowhere
says that he wanted {87} the position for himself. It is true that in
the heat of debate Sir John more than once implied something of the
kind, and I am not aware that Sir Richard ever denied the allegation,
though it is quite possible he may have done so. There is little
doubt, however, that the selection of Sir Francis Hincks caused Sir
Richard Cartwright to abandon Sir John Macdonald. He did not leave all
at once. As late as the campaign which preceded the general elections
of 1872 he called himself an 'Independent,' and the _Globe_
contemptuously classed him, in respect of certain votes he had given in
parliament which happened to be distasteful to Brown, as 'a Tory and a
corruptionist.' But from 1870 his name not infrequently appears in the
division list of the House of Commons among the Opposition.

The taking over of the North-West from the Hudson's Bay Company--a
troubled chapter in the early history of the Dominion--caused Sir John
Macdonald a great deal of concern. Looking back after the event, it
would seem that the difficulties experienced had their origin in three
main causes: first, the neglect of the Hudson's Bay Company to prepare
the settlers for the great change {88} involved in the transfer of the
government of that vast region to Canada; secondly, the lack of
conciliation, tact, and prudence on the part of the Canadian surveyors
who were sent into the country in the summer of 1869; and, thirdly, the
injudicious course pursued by M'Dougall, who was sent to the North-West
as lieutenant-governor in anticipation of the actual transfer to
Canada. The Ottawa authorities appear to have omitted no step which
their scanty knowledge of that distant region might have suggested. In
September 1868 a delegation, consisting of Cartier and M'Dougall, had
visited England, and, after a series of untoward events and much
negotiation, had arrived at an arrangement under which the Hudson's Bay
Company agreed, in consideration of the sum of L300,000, to surrender
all their interest in the North-West to the crown, with the reservation
to the Company of one-twentieth of the fertile belt and of 45,000 acres
adjacent to its trading posts. In the following September (1869)
William M'Dougall was appointed lieutenant-governor, but prior to that
date Joseph Howe, the secretary of state for the provinces, went to
Fort Garry in order to prepare