STORNOWAY--AND BEYOND
On June 13, 1811, the deed was given to Selkirk of his wide possessions
with the seal and signature of the Hudson's Bay Company, attached by
Alexander Lean, the secretary. Before this, however, Selkirk had
become deeply engrossed in the details of his enterprise. No time was
to be lost, for unless all should be in readiness before the Hudson's
Bay vessels set out to sea on their summer voyage, the proposed
expedition of colonists must be postponed for another year.
Selkirk issued without delay a pamphlet, setting forth the advantages
of the prospective colony. Land was to be given away free, or sold for
a nominal sum. To the poor, transport would cost nothing; others would
have to pay according to their means. No one would be debarred on
account of his religious belief; all creeds were to be treated alike.
The seat of the colony was to be called {36} Assiniboia, after a tribe
of the Sioux nation, the Assiniboines, buffalo hunters on the Great
Plains.
Wherever this pamphlet was read by men dissatisfied with their lot in
the Old World, it aroused hope. With his usual good judgment, Selkirk
had engaged several men whose training fitted them for the work of
inducing landless men to emigrate. One of these was Captain Miles
Macdonell, lately summoned by Lord Selkirk from his home in Canada.
Macdonell had been reared in the Mohawk valley, had served in the ranks
of the Royal Greens during the War of the Revolution, and had survived
many a hard fight on the New York frontier. After the war, like most
of his regiment, he had gone as a Loyalist to the county of Glengarry,
on the Ottawa. It so chanced that the Earl of Selkirk while in Canada
had met Macdonell, then a captain of the Royal Canadian Volunteers, and
had been impressed by his courage and energy. In consequence, Selkirk
now invited him to be the first governor of Assiniboia. Macdonell
accepted the appointment; and promptly upon his arrival in Britain he
went to the west coast of Ireland to win recruits for the settlement.
Owing to the straitened circumstances {37} of the Irish peasantry, the
tide of emigration from Ireland was already running high, and Lord
Selkirk thought that Captain Macdonell, who was a Roman Catholic, might
influence some of his co-religionists to go to Assiniboia.
Another agent upon whom Selkirk felt that he could rely was Colin
Robertson, a native of the island of Lewis, in the Hebrides. To this
island he was now dispatched, with instructions to visit other sections
of the Highlands as well. Robertson 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 were
malcontents, wondering whether to go or stay.
The leading vessel of the Hudson's Bay fleet in the year 1811 was the
commodore's ship, the _Prince of Wales_. At her moorings in the Thames
another ship, the _Eddystone_, lay ready for the long passage to the
Great Bay. Besides these, a shaky old hulk, the _Edward and Ann_, was
put into commission for the use of Lord Selkirk's settlers. Her grey
sails were mottled with age and her rigging was loose and worn.
Sixteen men and boys made up her crew, a number by no means sufficient
for a boat of her size. It seemed almost criminal to send such an
ill-manned craft out on the tempestuous North Atlantic. However, the
three ships sailed from the {40} Thames and steered up the east coast
of England. Opposite Yarmouth a gale rose and forced them into a
sheltering harbour. It was the middle of July before they rounded the
north shore of Scotland. At Stromness in the Orkneys the _Prince of
Wales_ took on board a small body of emigrants and a number of the
company's servants who were waiting there.
At length the tiny fleet reached the bustling harbour-town of
Stornoway; and here Miles Macdonell faced a task of no little
difficulty. Counting the Orkneymen just arrived, there were one
hundred and twenty-five in his party. The atmosphere seemed full of
unrest, and the cause was not far to seek. The Nor'westers were at
work, and their agents were sowing discontent among the emigrants.
Even Collector Reed, the government official in charge of the customs,
was acting as the tool of the Nor'westers. It was Reed's duty, of
course, to hasten the departure of the expedition; but instead of doing
this he put every possible obstacle in the way. Moreover, he mingled
with the emigrants, urging them to forsake the venture while there was
yet time.
Another partisan of the North-West {41} Company also appeared on the
scene. This was an army officer named Captain Mackenzie, who pretended
to be gathering recruits for the army. He had succeeded, it appears,
in getting some of Selkirk's men to take the king's shilling, and now
was trying to lead these men away from the ships as 'deserters from His
Majesty's service.' One day this trouble-maker brought his dinghy
alongside one of the vessels. A sailor on deck, who saw Captain
Mackenzie in the boat and was eager for a lark, picked up a nine-pound
shot, poised it carefully, and let it fall. There was a splintering
thud. Captain Mackenzie suddenly remembered how dry it was on shore,
and put off for land as fast as oars would hurry him. Next day he sent
a pompous challenge to the commander of the vessel. It was, of course,
ignored.
In spite of obstacles, little by little the arrangements for the ocean
voyage were being completed. There were many irritating delays.
Disputes about wages broke out afresh when inequalities were
discovered. There was much wrangling among the emigrants as to their
quarters on the uninviting _Edward and Ann_. At the last moment a
number of the party took fear and decided to stay at home. {42} Some
left the ship in unceremonious fashion, even forgetting their effects.
These were subsequently sold among the passengers. 'One man,' wrote
Captain Macdonell, 'jumped into the sea and swam for it until he was
picked up.' It may be believed that the governor of Assiniboia heaved
a thankful sigh when the ships were ready to hoist their sails. 'It
has been a herculean task,' ran the text of his parting message to the
Earl of Selkirk.
On July 26 a favourable breeze bore the vessels out to sea. There were
now one hundred and five in the party, seventy of whom had professed an
intention to till the soil. The remainder had been indentured as
servants of the Hudson's Bay Company. Seventy-six of the total number
were quartered on board the _Edward and Ann_. As the vessels swept
seaward many eyes were fastened sadly on the receding shore. The white
houses of Stornoway loomed up distinctly across the dark waters of the
bay. The hill which rose gloomily in the background was treeless and
inky black. On the clean shingle lay the cod and herring, piled loose
to catch the sun's warm rays. The settlers remembered that they were
perhaps scanning for the last time the rugged outline {43} of that
heather-clad landscape, and their hearts grew sick within them.
Foreland after foreland came into view and disappeared. At length the
ships were skirting the Butt of Lewis with its wave-worn clefts and
caverns. Then all sight of land vanished, and they were steering their
course into the northern main.
A man-of-war had been sent as a convoy to the vessels, for the
quick-sailing frigates of France had been harrying British shipping,
and the mercantile marine needed protection. After standing guard to a
point four hundred miles off the Irish coast, the ship-of-the-line
turned back, and the three vessels held their way alone in a turbulent
sea. Two of them beat stoutly against the gale, but the _Edward and
Ann_ hove to for a time, her timbers creaking and her bowsprit catching
the water as she rose and fell with the waves. And so they put out
into the wide and wild Atlantic--these poor, homeless, storm-tossed
exiles, who were to add a new chapter to Great Britain's colonial
history.
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