,' was the command of the Nor'westers.

The eleven men, seeing that resistance on their part would be useless,
took to their heels. The Nor'westers fired; one of the fleeing men was
killed and John Bourke was severely wounded. For the numbers engaged
the carnage was terrible. Of the party which had left Fort Douglas
with Governor Semple there were but six survivors. Michael Heden and
Daniel M'Kay had run to the riverside during the _melee_. They
succeeded in getting across in a canoe and arrived at Fort Douglas the
same night. Michael Kilkenny and George Sutherland escaped by swimming
the river. In addition to John Pritchard, another prisoner, Anthony
Macdonell, had been spared. The total number of the dead was
twenty-three. Among the slain were Rogers, the governor's secretary,
Doctor Wilkinson, Alexander M'Lean, the most enterprising settler in
the colony, and Surgeon James White. The Irish colonists suffered
severely in proportion to their number: they lost {101} seven in all.
The Nor'westers had one man killed and one wounded. This sanguinary
encounter, which took place beside the highway leading along the Red
River to Frog Plain, is known as the massacre of Seven Oaks.

There was much disappointment among the Nor'westers when they learned
that Colin Robertson was not in the colony. Cuthbert Grant vowed that
Robertson would have been scalped had he been captured. 'They would
have cut his body into small bits,' said Pritchard, 'and boiled it
afterwards for the dogs.' Pritchard himself was carried as a prisoner
to Frog Plain, where the Nor'westers made their encampment. A savage
spirit had been aroused. Pritchard found that even yet the lust for
blood had not been sated, and that it would be necessary to plead for
the wives and children of the colonists. He remonstrated with Cuthbert
Grant and urged him not to forget that the women of the settlement were
of his dead father's people. At length the half-breed leader softened,
and agreed that Pritchard should act as a mediator. Grant was willing
that the settlers should go in peace, if the public property of the
colony were given up. Pritchard made three trips between Grant's
headquarters and the fort {102} before an agreement was reached. 'On
my arrival at the fort,' he said, 'what a scene of distress presented
itself! The widows, children and relations of the slain, in horrors of
despair, were lamenting the dead,[2] and were trembling for the safe