Selkirk Colonists. His apparent sincerity and kindness to them had also
won their hearts. He was now to make the greatest move in the game. This
was nothing less than a tempting offer to transfer the whole of them to
the fertile townships of Upper Canada. He provided all the means of
transport, he promised them free lands in the neighborhood of market
towns--two hundred acres to each family. Any wages due to them by Lord
Selkirk he would pay and should three-quarters of the Colony accept his
offer they would have provisions provided for a year free of cost. When
the poor Colonists thought of the bleak, uncultivated country in which
they were, of the inevitable hardships which lay before them, and saw
the dangerous, unsettled state of the Selkirk settlement, they could not
well resist the offer. Furthermore, the schemer did not stop here. As
was afterward found out, George Campbell, the arch-agitator and leader
among the disaffected settlers received a promise of L100, and others of
L20 and the like. Further to allay their fears it was urged that they
were going where the British flag was flying and where the truest
loyalty prevailed. It was pointed out that it had been to prevent any
obstacles being raised against their going, that the nine guns had been
seized and were in the custody of the Nor'-Westers. Accordingly full
arrangements were made. A supply of canoes was obtained and on the 15th
of June, 1815, no less than one hundred and forty of the two hundred
Colonists on Red River embarked and drifted down the river on their long
canoe voyage of more than a thousand miles. By the end of July they had
gone over the dangerous Fur traders' route and passing over four or five
hundred miles reached Fort William, near Lake Superior. But their
journey was not one-half over. Along the base of the rugged shores of
Lake Superior, through the St. Mary's River, down the foaming Sault and
then along the shores of Georgian Bay, they paddled their way to
Penetanguishene. From this point they crossed southward to Holland
Landing, which is forty miles north of Toronto, and arrived at their
destination on the 5th of September.

It is hard to find a parallel for such a journey. They were a large
body, made up of men, women, and children, continuously journeying for
eighty-two days, through an unsettled and barren country, running
dangerous rapids, and exposed to storms with a poorly organized
commissariat, and under fear of pursuit by t