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CHAPTER XX.
SAYER AND LIBERTY.
Stone forts and ermined judges were not, to the mind of the unbridled
and ungovernable Metis. True, the French mind has a love for show and
circumstance and dignity of demeanor, but the conviction had taken hold
of the people of Red River, and especially of the French half-breeds,
that these meant curtailment of their freedom. They felt the dice were
loaded against them.
But, now, in the year after Sinclair and his friends had shown such a
firm front to Governor Christie, and when something like a feudal system
was being introduced into the Red River Settlement, a new surprise came
upon French and English alike. This was immediately after the terrible
visitation of a plague, which had cut down one-sixteenth of the whole
population. It was the arrival of a party of the Sixth Royal Regiment of
Foot, along with artillery and engineers, amounting in all to five
hundred souls. The breath of the people was taken away by this
demonstration of force, and a chronicler of the time says: "From the
moment they arrived the high tone of lawless defiance and internal
disaffection raised by our people against the laws and the authorities
of the place were reduced to silence.
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