The same
aggressive course was pursued under orders from the Governor in regard
to Pembina House which was captured, its occupants sent as prisoners to
Fort Douglas, and its stores confiscated for the use of the Colony. The
spirit shown by Governor Semple, it is suggested, had something of the
same treatment as that given to the Colonists by the official classes in
England against which Edmund Burke burst out with such vehemence in his
great orations.
Governor Semple's course would not satisfy Colin Robertson nor would it
have been approved by Lord Selkirk. The course was his own and fully did
he afterwards pay the price for his aggressions.
The last acts of Governor Semple as the report of them was carried
westward and repeated over the camp fires of the Nor'-Westers and their
Bois-brules horsemen and voyageurs caused the most violent excitement.
The Metis claimed a right in the soil from their Indian mothers. The
Indian title had never been extinguished and afterwards Lord Selkirk
found it necessary to make a treaty and satisfy the Indian claim. The
Nor'-Westers were also by a good number of years the first occupants of
the Red River district. The Canadian discovery of the West by French
traders, the daring occupation by Findlay, the Frobishers, Thompson, and
Sir Alexander Mackenzie all from Montreal even to the Arctic and Pacific
Oceans, seemed strong to Canadians as against the undefined and shadowy
claim to the soil of Lord Selkirk and his officers.
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