he Nor'westers had forced
the Hudson's Bay Company out of its aristocratic slothfulness. The
savages were now sought out in their prairie homes, and the company
began to set up trading-posts in the interior, all the way from Rainy
Lake to Edmonton House on the North Saskatchewan.

Such was the situation of affairs in the fur-bearing country when the
Earl of Selkirk had his vision of a rich prairie home for the {27}
desolate Highlanders. Though he had not himself visited the Far West,
he had some conception of the probable outcome of the fierce rivalry
between the two great fur companies in North America. He foresaw that,
sooner or later, if his scheme of planting a colony in the interior was
to prosper, he must ally himself with one or the other of these two
factions of traders.

We may gain a knowledge of Lord Selkirk's ideas at this time from his
own writings and public utterances. In 1805 he issued a work on the
Highlands of Scotland, which Sir Walter Scott praised for its
'precision and accuracy,' and which expressed the significant sentiment
that the government should adopt a policy that would keep the
Highlanders within the British Empire. In 1806, when he had been
chosen as one of the sixteen representative peers from Scotland, he
delivered a speech in the House of Lords upon the subject of national
defence, and his views were afterwards stated more fully in a book.
With telling logic he argued for the need of a local militia, rather
than a volunteer force, as the best protection for England in a moment
of peril. The tenor of this and Selkirk's other writings would
indicate the staunchness of {28} his patriotism. In his efforts at
colonization his desire was to keep Britain's sons from emigrating to
an alien shore.

'Now, it is our duty to befriend this people,' he affirmed, in writing
of the Highlanders. 'Let us direct their emigration; let them be led
abroad to new possessions.' Selkirk states plainly his reason. 'Give
them homes under our own flag,' is his entreaty, 'and they will
strengthen the empire.'

In 1807 Selkirk was chosen as lord-lieutenant of the stewartry of
Kirkcudbright, and in the same year took place his marriage with Jean
Wedderburn-Colvile, the only daughter of James Wedderburn-Colvile of
Ochiltree. One year later he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society, a
distinction conferred only upon intellectual workers whose labours have
increased the world's stock of knowledge.

Aft