ur trade."

The two men chosen at the gathering in Grand Portage were well fitted
for their work. Most forward was Alexander Macdonell. On his journey
writing to a friend he said: "Much is expected of us.... So here is at
them with all my heart and energy." But the master-mind was his
companion Duncan Cameron who, as a leader, stands out in the conflicts
of the times as a determined man, of great executive ability, but of
fierce and over-bearing disposition. The Nor'-Westers, having planned
bloodshed, all agreed that Duncan Cameron was well chosen. He had been a
leading explorer and trader in the Lake Superior district and knew the
fur traders' route as few others did. His well-nigh thirty years of
service made him a man of outstanding influence in the Company.
Moreover, he could be bland and jovial. He had the Celtic adroitness. He
knew how to ingratiate himself with every class and possessed all the
devices of an envoy. His appearance and dress at Red River were notable.
Having had some rank as a U.E. Loyalist leader in the war of 1812, he
came to the Forks dressed in a scarlet military coat with all the
accoutrements of a Captain in the Army. He even made display of his
Captain's Commission by posting it at the gate of Fort Gibraltar. Of the
Fort itself he took possession as Bourgeois or master and laid his plans
in August, 1814, for the destruction of the Selkirk Colony. Cameron then
began a systematic course of ingratiating himself with the Colonists.
Speaking, as he did the Gaelic language, he appealed with much success
to his countrymen. He represented himself as their friend and stirred up
the people of Red River against Selkirk tyranny. He pictured to them
their wrongs, the broken promises of the founder, and the undesirability
of remaining in the Colony. He brought the settlers freely to his table,
treating them openly to the beverage of their native country, and
completely captured the hearts of a number of them. Those, friends of
his, he made use of to carry out his deep plans. On the very day of the
issue of the rations, he induced some of the Colonists to demand the
nine small cannon in the Colony store houses. The request was refused by
Archibald Macdonald, the acting Governor. The settlers then went
forward, broke open the store houses and removed the cannon. Macdonald
now arrested the leading settler, who had taken the field pieces,
whereupon Cameron, like a small Napoleon, incited his clerks and men, to