gricultural region. Mr. Roebuck quoted this passage
and Sir George was in a serious dilemma. If he admitted it his evidence
would seem untrue, if he denied it then he must deny his authorship. He
admitted that the book was somewhat too flattering in its description.

But, take him all in all, Sir George really stood for his duty and his
people. He lifted the fur trade out of a slough of despond, he was kind
and charitable to the people of the Red River Settlement, he was a good
administrator and a patriot Briton, and though as his book tells and
local tradition confirms it, he could not escape from what is called
"the witchery of a pretty face," yet he rose to the position on the
whole as a man who sought for the higher interests of the vast territory
under his sway, as well as for the financial advancement of his company.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE OLIGARCHY.

The struggle has always been between the masses and the classes.
Privilege always strives to confine itself to a few. It could not be but
that the echoes of the great British Reform Bill of 1832 should reach
even the remote banks of Red River. The struggle for constitutional
freedom was also going on in Upper Canada, as well as in Lower Canada
where the French-Canadians were fighting bitterly for their rights.
Besides all this in the Red River Settlement the existence of a Company
store--a monopoly--could never prove satisfactory to a community of
British blood. Had the Colony shop been ever so justly and honestly
conducted it could not be popular, how much less so must it have been in
the hands of Alexander Macdonell, the peculator and deceiver.

It is true the Company store, of which we speak, was not that of the
Hudson's Bay Company proper, but rather the possession of Lord Selkirk's
heirs.

Gradually the rulership was coming under the direction of Governor
Simpson, though there was the local Governor who was nominally
independent.

Even when Governor Simpson was invoked, it is to be remembered that he
and his company were the embodiment of privilege. But the Governor was a
surprisingly shrewd man. He saw the aspiration after freedom, of both
Scottish and French Settlers. True, gaunt poverty did not stalk along
the banks of Red River as it had done in the first ten years of the
Colony, but just because the people were becoming better housed, better
clad, and better fed, were they becoming more independent. The
unwillingness to be controlled was showin