They were allowed
to take with them such belongings as they had, and in boats and other
craft went pensively down Red River with Lake Winnipeg and Jack River in
view as their destination. The house of the Governor, the mill, and the
buildings which the settlers had begun to build upon their lots were all
set on fire and destroyed.
The U.E. Loyalists of Upper Canada and Nova Scotia draw upon our
sympathies in their sufferings of hunger and hardship, but they afford
no parallel to the discouragement, dangers, and dismay of the Selkirk
Colonists.
Alexander Macdonell's party of seventy or eighty mounted men easily
carried out this work of destruction. There was one fly in the ointment
for them. The small Hudson's Bay House built by Fidler still remained.
Here a daring Celt, John McLeod, was in charge. Seeing the temper of
Macdonell's levy McLeod determined to fortify his rude castle. Beside
the trading house of the Hudson's Bay Company stood the blacksmith's
shop. Hurriedly McLeod, with a cart, carried thither the three-pounder
cannon in his possession, then cut up lengths of chain to be his shot
and shell, used with care his small supply of powder and with three or
four men, his only garrison, stood to his gun and awaited the attack of
the Bois-Brules.
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