re they spent the winter, suffering the greatest
hardships. Many died, but the survivors returned in the spring to the
colony, and made an effort to raise a crop; but it was a failure, and
they again passed the winter at Pembina. This was the winter of 1813-14.
They again returned to the colony, in a very distressed and dilapidated
condition, in the spring.

By September, 1815, the colony, which then numbered about two hundred,
was getting along quite prosperously, and its future seemed auspicious.
It was called "Kildonan," after a parish in Scotland in which the
colonists were born.

The employes of the Northwest Fur Company were, however, very restive
under anything that looked like improvement, and regarded it as a ruse
of their rival, the Hudson Bay Company, to break up the lucrative
business they were enjoying in the Indian trade. They resorted to all
kinds of measures to get rid of the colonists, even to attempting to
incite the Indians against them, and on one occasion, by a trick,
disarmed them of their brass field pieces and other small artillery.
Many of the disaffected Selkirkers deserted to the quarters of the
Northwest Company. These annoyances were carried to the extent of an
attack on the house of the governor, where four of the inmates were
wounded, one of whom died. They finally agreed to leave, and were
escorted to Lake Winnipeg, where they embarked in boats. Their
improvements were all destroyed by the Northwest people.

They were again induced to return to their colony lands by the Hudson
Bay people, and did so in 1816, when they were reinforced by new
colonists. Part of them wintered at Pembina in 1816, but returned to the
Kildonan settlement in the spring.

Lord Selkirk, hearing of the distressed condition of his colonists,
sailed for New York, where he arrived in the fall of 1815, and learned
they had been compelled to leave the settlement. He proceeded to
Montreal, where he found some of the settlers in the greatest poverty;
but learning that some of them still remained in the colony, he sent an
express to announce his arrival, and say that he would be with them in
the spring. The news was sent by a colonist named Laquimonier, but he
was waylaid, near Fond du Lac, and brutally beaten and robbed of his
dispatches. Subsequent investigation proved that this was the work of
the Northwest Company.

Selkirk tried to obtain military aid from the British authorities, but
failed. He then engaged fou