n with approval.

According to the testimony of Augustin Lavigne, M'Leod during his stay
at Fort Douglas publicly made the following promise to an assembly of
Bois Brules: 'My kinsmen, my comrades, who have helped us in the time
of need; I have brought clothing for you I expected to have found
about forty of you {107} here with Mr Macdonell, but there are more of
you. I have forty suits of clothing. Those who are most in need of
them may have these, and on the arrival of the canoes in autumn, the
rest of you shall be clothed likewise.'

[1] For the details of the tragedy which now occurred we are chiefly
indebted to the accounts of John Pritchard, a former Nor'wester, who
had settled with his family at the Red River, of Michael Heden, a
blacksmith connected with the settlement, and of John Bourke, the
colony store-keeper.

[2] Some of the dead were afterwards taken from the field of Seven Oaks
to Fort Douglas by Cree and Saulteaux Indians. These received decent
burial, but the others, lying uninterred as they had fallen, became a
prey to the wild beasts of the prairie.

[3] An act of the Imperial parliament of 1803 had transferred
jurisdiction in the case of offences committed in the Indian
Territories from Great Britain to Canada, and had allowed the Canadian
authorities to appoint magistrates for these rather undefined regions.
M'Leod was one of these magistrates.

{108}

CHAPTER X

LORD SELKIRK'S JOURNEY

We left Lord Selkirk at Montreal. Several days before the massacre of
Seven Oaks he had completed the preparations for his journey to the
west, and was hastening forward in the hope of arriving at the Red
River in time to save his colony. He had secured his own appointment
as justice of the peace for Upper Canada and the Indian Territories,
and also the promise of a bodyguard of one non-commissioned officer and
six men for his personal defence. This much he had obtained from the
Canadian authorities. They remained unwilling, however, to send armed
aid to Assiniboia. This want Lord Selkirk was himself supplying, for
he was bringing with him a fresh contingent of settlers--of a class
hitherto unknown among his colonists. These new settlers were trained
soldiers, disciplined and tried in active service on many a battlefield.

{109}

The close of the War of 1812 by the Treaty of Ghent, signed on December
24,1814, had left in Canada several battalions of regular soldiers
under colours.