ecklessness of the Nor'-Wester leaders,
hesitated about demolishing Fort Gibraltar should have given Governor
Semple pause. Ignorance and inexperience sometimes give men rare
courage. But while Semple was self-confident he could not be exonerated
from paying the price of his rashness.

Undoubtedly the Governor knew that the "Nor'-Westers" after their
aggressiveness during the year 1815 were planning an attack upon Fort
Douglas and upon the Colonists. Letters intercepted by the Governor
acquainted him with the fact that an expedition was coming from Fort
William in the East to fall upon the devoted Colony; also a letter from
Qu'Appelle written by Cuthbert Grant, the young Bois-brules leader, to
John Dugald Cameron, stated that the native horsemen were coming in the
spring from the Saskatchewan forts to join those of Qu'Appelle, and says
the writer, "It is hoped we shall come off with flying colors, and never
to see any of them again in the Colonizing way in Red River."

The evidence in hand was clear enough to the Governor. He expected the
attack, and as a soldier he took action from the military standpoint in
destroying the enemy's base in levelling their Fort Gibraltar. But on
the other hand there was no open war. The forms of law were being
followed by the Nor'-Westers, whose officers were magistrates, and who
held that by the authorization of the British Parliament the
administration of justice in the Western Territories was given over to
Canada. The decision afterwards given in the De Reinhard case in Quebec
seems against this theory, but this was the popular opinion.

Thus it came about that among the Hudson's Bay Company fur traders, who
were somewhat doubtful about Lord Selkirk's movement, and certainly
among all the "Nor'-Westers," who included the French Canadian voyageur
population, Governor Semple's action was looked upon as illegal and
unjust in destroying Fort Gibraltar and appropriating its materials for
building up the Colony Headquarters--Fort Douglas.

As the spring opened the wildest rumours of approaching conflict spread
through the whole fifteen hundred miles of country from Fort William on
Lake Superior, to the Prairie Fort, where Edmonton now stands on the
North Saskatchewan. The excitement was especially high in the Qu'Appelle
district, some three hundred miles west of Red River.

As the spring of 1815 opened, all eyes were looking to the action of the
"New Nation" on the Qu'Appelle River as t