bjects in that
settlement, and can only ascribe to misunderstanding and
misrepresentation their opposition to a change planned for their
advantage.

"She relies on your Government to use every effort to explain
whatever misunderstanding may have arisen--to ascertain the wants
and conciliate the goodwill of the people of Red River Settlement.
But in the meantime she authorizes you to signify to them the
sorrow and displeasure with which she views the unreasonable and
lawless proceedings which have taken place, and her expectation
that if any parties have desires to express or complaints to make
respecting their conditions and prospects, they will address
themselves to the Governor-General of Canada.

"The Queen expects from her representative that as he will be
always ready to receive well-founded grievances, so will he
exercise all the power and authority she entrusted to him in
support of order and the suppression of unlawful disturbances."

The closing paragraph of this fine message indicates the traditional
British Empire position, that though grievances will be heard and
remedied, there will be no quarter given to any nonsense on the part of
rebels. And it was in keeping with this position that Colonel (later
Field Marshal Sir Garnet) Wolseley was dispatched to the Red River
country with regular troops, who arrived at their destination only to
find that Riel and his forces had decamped before their arrival. Two
regiments from Eastern Canada came later and remained on duty at Fort
Garry for some time after the regulars under Wolseley had returned home.

The Red River country was ushered into Confederation as the Province of
Manitoba, and the Hon. Adams George Archibald, of Nova Scotia, was sent
out from Ottawa in 1870 as Lieutenant-Governor. He took a rough census
of the country and with the resultant crude voters' list the first
regular Western Legislature was soon elected and at work.

But west and north of this little Province of Manitoba, itself sparsely
settled, lay an immense hinterland stretching nearly a thousand miles to
the Rocky mountains and northward to the pole itself. This enormous
area, then commonly called "The Saskatchewan," was unpeopled except for
thousands of Indians, many groups of nomadic buffalo-hunters mostly
half-breeds, a few scattered missions of various churches, and a large
number of Hudson's Bay Company