He went south from Fort Douglas to the United States, visited, it is
said, St. Louis, came to the Eastern States, and rejoined in Montreal
his Countess and children who had in his absence lived in great anxiety.
One of his daughters, afterwards Lady Isabella Hope, told the writer
nearly thirty years ago that she as a girl remembered seeing Lord
Selkirk as he returned from this long journey, coming around the Island
into Montreal Harbor paddled by French voyageurs in swift canoes to his
destination. His attention was immediately given to law suits and
actions brought against him in the courts of Upper Canada. These legal
conflicts originated from the troubles about the two centres--Fort
Douglas and Fort William--where the collisions had taken place. The
influence of the Nor'-Westers in Montreal was so great that the U.E.
Loyalists of Upper Canada sympathised with them against the noble
philanthropist. Justice was undoubtedly perverted in Upper Canada in the
most shameless way. Weak in body at the best, Lord Selkirk by his
misfortunes, losses and legal persecution began to fail in health. With
the sense of having been unjustly defeated, and anxious about his
Colonists in Red River, he returned with his family to Britain to his
beloved St.
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