en it was enlarged and improved to become the dwelling of the family
of the Douglasses, which it is to this day.

But now the far cry from Red River reverberated across the Atlantic. The
startling succession of events of 1815 reached the Earl one after
another. It was late in the year when he made up his mind, but taking
his Countess, his two daughters and his only son, Dunbar, a mere boy,
and crossing the ocean he heard, on his arrival in New York, of the
complete destruction by flight and expulsion of the people of his
Colony. About the end of October he reached Montreal, but winter was too
near to allow him to travel up the lakes and through the wilds to Red
River.

The winter in Montreal was long, but the atmosphere of opposition to
Lord Selkirk in that city, the home of the Nor'-Westers, was more trying
to him than the frost and snow. His every movement was watched. Even the
avenues of Government power seemed by influential Nor'-Westers to be
closed against him. An appeal to Sir Gordon Drummond, the
Governor-General, could obtain no more than a promise of a Sergeant and
six men to protect him personally should he go to the far West, and the
appointment of himself as a Justice of the Peace in Upper Canada and the
Indian Territory was grudgingly given.

The active mind of his Lordship occupied the time of winter well. He
planned nothing less than introducing to the banks of Red River a body
of men as settlers, who could, like the returned exiles to Jerusalem,
work with sword in one hand and a tool of industry in the other. The man
of resource finds his material ready made. Two mercenary regiments from
Switzerland which had been fighting England's battles in America had
just been disbanded, and Lord Selkirk at once engaged them to go as
settlers, under his pay, to Red River. From the commanding officer of
the larger regiment these have always been called the "De Meurons." From
these two regiments--one at Montreal and the other at Kingston--he
engaged an hundred men, each provided with a musket, and with rather
more than that number of expert voyageurs started in June 16th, 1816,
for the North-West. The route followed by him was up Lake Ontario to
Toronto, then across country to Georgian Bay and through it to Ste.
Sault Marie. At Drummond Island, being the last British garrison toward
the West, he got from the Indians news of the efforts of the
Nor'-Westers to involve them in the wars of the whites. The Indians had,