SATRAP RULE.
"Woe to the Nation," says a high authority, "whose King is a child," but
far worse than even having a child-ruler is the fate of a Kingdom or
Principality whose ruler is a hireling. The Roman Empire was ruled in
the different provinces by selfish and dishonest adventurers, who
tyrannized over the people, farmed out the revenues, bribed their
favorites and defrauded their masters. Turkish Government or Persian
Rule is to-day an organized system of extortion and oppression by
unscrupulous Satraps. Lord Selkirk's two governors, Miles Macdonell and
Robert Semple, had been removed, the former by capture, the latter by
death. Alexander Macdonell in 1816 became acting governor and was
confirmed in office for five or six years afterward. In his regime the
Grasshoppers came and did their destructive work, but the French people
nicknamed him "Governor Sauterelle," Grasshopper Governor, for, says the
historian of this decade he was so called, "because he proved as great a
destroyer within doors as the grasshoppers in the fields."
Lord Selkirk had been a most generous and sympathetic founder to his
Scottish Colony. He was not only proprietor of the whole Red River
Valley, but he felt himself responsible for the support and comfort of
his Colonists. He had to begin with supplying food, clothing,
implements, arms and ammunition to his settlers. He had erected
buildings for shelter and a store house and fort for the protection of
them and their goods. He had supplied, in a Colony shop, provisions and
all requisites to be purchased by his settlers and on account of their
poverty to be charged to their individual accounts.
George Simpson, who was the new Governor of the United Hudson's Bay
Company, was for two years Macdonell's contemporary, and he in one of
his letters says: "Macdonell is, I am concerned to say, extremely
unpopular, despised and held in contempt by every person connected with
the place, he is accused of partiality, dishonesty, untruth and
drunkenness,--in short, by a disrespect of every moral and elevated
feeling."
Alexander Ross says of him, "The officials he kept about him resembled
the court of an Eastern Nabob, with its warriors, serfs, and varlets,
and the names they bore were hardly less pompous, for here were
secretaries, assistant secretaries, accountants, orderlies, grooms,
cooks and butlers."
Satrap Macdonell held high revels in his time. "From the time the
puncheons of rum reached the colony in the fall, till they were all
drunk dry, nothing was to be seen or heard about Fort Douglas but
balling, dancing, rioting and drunkenness in the barbarous sport of
those disorderly times." Macdonell's method of reckoning accounts was
unique. "In place of having recourse to the tedious process of pen and
ink the heel of a bottle was filled with wheat and set on the cask. This
contrivance was called the 'hour glass,' and for every flagon drawn off,
a grain of wheat was taken out of the hour glass, and put aside till the
bouse was over."
As was to be expected this disgraceful state of things led to grave
frauds in the dealings with the Colonists, and when Halkett, one of Lord
Selkirk's executors, arrived on Red River to investigate the complaints,
a thorough system of "false entries, erroneous statements and
over-charges" was found, and the discontent of the settlers was removed,
though they were all heavily in debt to the Estate.
It had been the object of Lord Selkirk from the beginning of his
enterprise to give employment to his needy Colonists. Various
enterprises were begun with this end in view, but they were all mere
bubbles which soon burst. John Pritchard, whom Lord Selkirk had taken as
his secretary to London, was largely instrumental in floating the
ill-starred scheme known as the "Buffalo Wool Company." Just as on the
shores of the Mediterranean, shawls were made from the long wool of the
goats, so it was thought that shawls could be made of the hair or wool
of the buffalo. A voluminous correspondence given in many letters of
Pritchard's to Lady Selkirk and other ladies of high station and to an
English firm of manufacturers exploiting this project is before us.
Sample squares of the cloth made of buffalo wool were distributed and in
certain circles the novelty from the Red River was the "talk of the
town," in London.
On the banks of Red River the scheme took like wild-fire. All Red River
people were to make fortunes. There were to be high wages and work for
everybody. Wages were increased, and men were receiving nearly four
dollars a day. Money became plentiful and provisions became dear and
also scarce. The employees, higher and lower, became intoxicated with
their success, as they now also became really intoxicated and fell into
reckless habits. The work was neglected, and the enterprize collapsed.
This was the earliest boom on Red River banks. Failure was sure to
follow so mad a scheme. The buffalo wool cloth which it cost some twelve
dollars and a half to manufacture, partly in Red River Settlement and
partly in England, was sold for little more than one dollar a yard. The
£2,000 of capital was all swallowed up, £4,500 of debt to the Hudson's
Bay Company was never paid, the scheme became a laughing stock in
England, and failure and misery followed its collapse in the Colony.
At this time the French-Canadian settlement at Pembina was induced to
remove to St. Boniface on the Red River, where they gathered around
their new priest, Provencher, to whom they became much attached.
The Selkirk Trustees, in every way, continued ungrudgingly to advance
the interests of the Colony, but their plans, though often mere theories
failed more from extravagance and want of good men to execute them than
from any other cause.
Believing that farming was the thing needing cultivation in a country
with so rich a soil, the Colonizers began the Hayfield farm on the north
bank of the Assiniboine River, near what is now the outskirts of the
City of Winnipeg, a little above the present Agricultural College
buildings. Beginning with an expensive salary for Manager Laidlaw, the
promoters erected ample farm buildings, barns, yards and stables.
Importations were made of well-bred cattle and horses. Several years of
mismanagement and helplessness resulted from this trial of a model farm,
and it was given up at a total loss to the proprietors of £3,500. The
Assiniboine Wool Company was next started, but failed before the first
payment of stock took place, without damage to anyone, so that, as was
remarked, there was "much cry and little wool." The Flax and Hemp
Company was the next unfortunate enterprise. This failed on account of
there being no market, so that farmers never reaped the successful crops
which they had grown. An expedition was made to Missouri, under Messrs.
Burke and Campbell, to introduce sheep into the settlement. As the
fifteen hundred sheep purchased had to be driven 1,500 miles to their
destination on Red River, only two hundred and fifty of the whole flock
survived. Failure after failure taking place did not prevent the
formation of a Tallow Company, which resulted in the loss of £600 to
£1,000, and a considerable sum was spent also in an abortive attempt to
open up a road to Hudson's Bay, a scheme which Lord Selkirk's letters
show, he had in view from the very beginning of the life of the Colony.
The courage and generosity of the executors of Lord Selkirk shown to all
these enterprises reflects the greatest credit upon them. True, the
concession of so wide an area of fertile land was worth it, and the
pledges made to the Selkirk settlers demanded it, but as in hundreds of
other enterprises undertaken by British capitalists on the American
continent, the choice of men foreign to the country and its conditions,
the lack of conscience and economy on the part of the agents sent out,
the dissension and jealousy aroused by every such attempt, as well as
the absence of the means of transport by land and sea through the
methods supplied by science to-day, resulted in a series of dismal
failures, which placed an undeserved stigma upon the character of the
soil, climate, and resources of Assiniboia. It took more than fifty
years of subsequent effort to remove this impression.
These experiences took place under those governors who succeeded
Alexander Macdonell--the Grasshopper Governor. The first of them was
Captain Bulger, an unfortunate martinet, though a man of good conscience
and high ideals. He had a most uncompromising manner. He quarreled with
the Hudson's Bay Company officer at Fort Garry on the one hand, and with
old Indian Chief Peguis on the other. A whole crop of suggestions made
by the Captain on the improvement of the Colony remain in his "Red River
Papers." Bulger's successor was Governor Pelly, a relative of the
celebrated Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company. The new Governor lacked
nerve and decision, and was quite unfitted for his position. His method
of dealing with an Indian murderer was long repeated on Red River as a
subject for humor, when he instructed the interpreter to announce to the
criminal: "that he had manifested a disposition subversive of all order,
and if he should not be punished in this world, he would be sure to be
punished in the next." The hopelessness of carrying on the affairs of
the Colony apart from those of the general affairs of the Hudson's Bay
Company, was now seen, and on the suggestion of Governor Simpson, the
management was placed in the hands of governors immediately responsible
to the company. This change led to the appointment as Governor of Donald
McKenzie. This old trader had taken part in the formation of the Astor
Fur Company, and was in charge of one of the famous parties, which in
1811 crossed the continent, as described by Washington Irving. Ross Cox
says of this beleaguered party: "Their concave cheeks, protuberant
bones, and tattered garments indicated the dreadful extent of their
privations." The old trader thus case-hardened faced bravely for eight
years the worries of the Colony.