1859; and from that time onwards various schemes for bringing the North-West under Canadign rule were discussed between the Canadian and British authorities. When in the sixties the idea of confederation—of a Canada which should extend from the Atlantic to the Pacific—became a force in the higher politics of the interested col nies, actual negotiations began for the purchase of Rupert's Land by Canada. Tt was not, however, till March, 1869, that the transfer was at last brought about—the Hudson's Bay Company receiving for the surrender of their rights £300,000, a number of reservations of land in the vicinity of their forts, and the right to 1-18th of all surveyed In During the course of these negotiations the Hudson's Bay officials at Red River found it extremely hard to keep order nevertheless, but for the foolish boasting of the Canadian-born element—some of them openly asserted that the half-breeds would soon be "improved" off the face of the whole North-West!—the disturbances of 1869 and '70 might never have occurred. In particular, the conduct of certain surveyors sent into the country before the purchase was completed gwe great offence; for they ran their lines across the Red River farms (most of which consisted of long ribbons of lund having two or three chains' frontage on some river or lake and extending back for as much as two miles) without regard to ancient boundaries and caused the occupants to believe that Canada did not intend to respect their rights. Though the Dominion aystem of surveying (which maps out the country into townships of 6 x6 sections or square miles, all boundary-lines running N. to S. or E. to W.) has been " great success both from the uitific and from an economic point of view, there is no doubt th" attempt by dian Government to apply it to the whole of their new possession was the immediate cause of the Rebellion of 1870.
Tu 1869 the number of settlers along the Red River and the Assiniboine had ifven to 11,800—half of them French half-they had no moral right) and were tres- breeds unable to read or write, and very passing on the the necessity of accurately defining the arties of British subjects. easily led or misled. None of the people—not even Louis Nei, who passed for a boundaries of Canada eventually led to "scholar" even among the English-speak-the sending of Chief Justice Draper to ling ''uatives"—had- any knowledge of England in 1857 with instructions to Canada or the Canadian Government enquire into the legality of the Company's with them "The Company" xnd the British title to the North-West, and to ascertain Empire were synonymous terms, and their how that title might be extinguished. The lides of the transfer was that they and direct result of this mission was that rheic b-longings had been sold to a foreign Canadians became convinced the title was 22" power. They judged Canada by the Can-good in law (as the greatest English law- adions they knew—bumptious, ill-mannered yers always held) and that it could only traders from Toronto, who could not even be extinguished by ayreoment between swear in French, and bustling, business-the Canadians and the Hudson's Bay Com. like surveyors, who carried about with pany; an indirect result was an increased them evil-looking instruments, and did interest in the North-West by the leadin, not conceal their contempt for the habits statesmen of Canada, and what are now and customs of the ''natives." Living the Maritime Provinces ut the Dominion. in a curiously isolated community they In the same year a Select Committee of jand their leaders—of whom Nei soon the British House of Commons considered proved himself the ablest—became con-the whole question of the North-West and vinced that they could resist any force its future: and, having collected a vast brought against them from outside, and by amount of information on the subject setting up" government of their own save of the fur-trade and the agricultural themselves and their property, until such possibilities of the country, made certain; time as the Queen could hear and redress Tecommendations, the chief of which was their complaints. that Vancouver's Island should be created
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.