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

—mSOof Mr. Miles Macdonell was to ensure to them futuresecurity.— It was of course a most iniportant objectmw'li ''lifeMfor their opponents to get the principal person ofthe settlement (and one who also held the appointmentfrom the Hudson's Bay Company, of governorof the district) into custody; but havingonce got possession of him, the mask was thrownoff; and peremptory orders were issued by Cameron,directing the remaining settlers to leave the RedRiver.These orders were followed up by the mostwanton acts of aggression under the direction ofMr. Alexander M'Donell, who, after Cameron'sdeparture with his prisoner, succeeded to the commandat the Forks.The remaining settlers werefrequently fired at by his people ; the farm-housebelonging to the settlement was broken open andpillaged ; several of the servants and labourers,quietly employed in tillage, were forcibly seizedmand detained as prisoners ;the horses were stolen,the cattle driven away, and the bull belonging tothe settlement was killed and cut up in the presenceof Alexander M'Donell himself.—He also made asort of battery opposite the settlement, upon whichhe mounted two of the field-pieces they had stolen,and established a camp of about fifty or sixty of theCanadian servants, clerks, Bois-Brules, &c. &c.Such were the modes this partneradopted of defending,as he termed it in his letter of the 5th ofAugust, what the North-West Company considered^' their rights in the interior."