Statement respecting the Earl of Selkirk's Settlement of Kildonan ...

IxxiiAPPENDIX.Eaifl of Selkirk, at Red River aforesaid, and acted thei*as a store-keeper to the colony. That in the latter endof the winter, and in tV e spring of the present year,information was received at Fort Douglass aforesaid,from Indians and Canadians, that the North-WestCompany were collecting Indians of the half-breed, asthey are called, that is, the basturd-children of thepartners and servants of that Company, by Indianwomen, from their different trading posts, and wereforming them into a body at their trading post, calledFort Qui Appelle, for the purpose of attacking anddestroying the said settlement at Red River. The saidFort Qui /ippelle was then under the charge of AlexanderM'Donell, one of the partners iu the said North-WestCompany, assisted by one Cuthbert Grant, and oneFraser, both of them Indians of the said half-breed, andclerks in the service of that Company. The informationof this intended attack was conveyed by different persons,and was received in such manner, that no doubtwas entertained of its truth. An almost constant watchTras, therefore, kept up, night and day, to discover theapproach of any of the parties of the North-WestCompany. On the nineteenth day of June last, aboutfive o'clock in the afternoon, a man in the watch-houseat Fort Douglass aforesaid, called out to GovernorSemple, that a party of horsemen were approaching thesaid settlement. The deponent was then with the saidgovernor, and observed a number of men on horsebackat the distance of about half a mile from the fort. Thedeponent, with others, went into the watch-house, for4'the purpose of viewing the said party of horsemen, withU^ :4 4^ a spy-glass, and they then distinctly perceived that thes«id party consisted of sixty or seventy men on horsebock,all of them armed, and approaching the settlementSJ,X*m