Besides all this in the Red River Settlement the existence of a Company
store--a monopoly--could never prove satisfactory to a community of
British blood. Had the Colony shop been ever so justly and honestly
conducted it could not be popular, how much less so must it have been in
the hands of Alexander Macdonell, the peculator and deceiver.
It is true the Company store, of which we speak, was not that of the
Hudson's Bay Company proper, but rather the possession of Lord Selkirk's
heirs.
Gradually the rulership was coming under the direction of Governor
Simpson, though there was the local Governor who was nominally
independent.
Even when Governor Simpson was invoked, it is to be remembered that he
and his company were the embodiment of privilege. But the Governor was a
surprisingly shrewd man. He saw the aspiration after freedom, of both
Scottish and French Settlers. True, gaunt poverty did not stalk along
the banks of Red River as it had done in the first ten years of the
Colony, but just because the people were becoming better housed, better
clad, and better fed, were they becoming more independent. The
unwillingness to be controlled was showing itself very distinctly among
the French half-breeds as they grew in numbers and dashed over the
prairies on their fiery steeds.
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