rtson had formerly held a post under the
North-West Company in the Saskatchewan valley. There he had quarrelled
with a surly-natured trader known as Crooked-armed Macdonald, with the
result that Robertson had been dismissed by the Nor'westers and had
come back to Scotland in an angry mood.

A third place of muster for the colony was the city of Glasgow. There
the Earl of Selkirk's representative was Captain Roderick M'Donald.
Many Highlanders had gone to Glasgow, that busy hive of industry, in
search of work. To the clerks in the shops and to the labourers in the
yards or at the loom, M'Donald described the glories of Assiniboia.
Many were impressed by his words, but objected to the low wages offered
for their {38} services. M'Donald compromised, and by offering a
higher wage induced a number to enlist. But the recruits from Glasgow
turned out to be a shiftless lot and a constant source of annoyance to
Selkirk's officers.

While this work was being done the Nor'westers in London were burning
with wrath at their inability to hinder Lord Selkirk's project. Their
hostility, we have seen, arose from their belief, which was quite
correct, that a colony would interfere with their trading operations.
In the hope that the enterprise might yet be stopped, they circulated
in the Highlands various rumours against it. An anonymous attack,
clearly from a Nor'wester source, appeared in the columns of the
Inverness _Journal_. The author of this diatribe pictured the rigours
of Assiniboia in terrible colours. Selkirk's agents were characterized
as a brood of dissemblers. With respect to the earl himself words were
not minced. His philanthropy was all assumed; he was only biding his
time in order to make large profits out of his colonization scheme.

Notwithstanding this campaign of slander, groups of would-be settlers
came straggling along from various places to the port of rendezvous,
Stornoway, the capital of the {39} Hebrides. When all had gathered,
these people who had answered the call to a new heritage beyond the
seas proved to be a motley throng. Some were stalwart men in the prime
of life, men who looked forward to homes of their own on a distant
shore; others, with youth on their side, were eager for the trail of
the flying moose or the sight of a painted redskin; a few were women,
steeled to bravery through fires of want and sorrow. Too many were
wastrels, cutting adrift from a blighted past. A goodly number