Recall the
troubles of the Nelson Encampment as they reach him in letters and
reports. Think of the misery of knowing thousands of miles away that his
Colonists were starving, were being imprisoned, banished, seduced from
their allegiance, and in one notable case that men of honor, education
and standing to the number of twenty, were massacred, while he, in St.
Mary's Isle, in Montreal, or in Fort William, fretted his soul because
he could not reach them with deliverance.
[Illustration: MARBLE BUST OF EARL OF SELKIRK, THE FOUNDER
By Chantrey, obtained by author from St. Mary's Isle, Lord Selkirk's
seat.]
The world looked coldly on and said, "A visionary Scottish nobleman! a
dreamer a hundred years before his time! Is it worth while?" while he
himself saw a dream of sunshine when he visited his Colonists on Red
River, when he made allocations for their separate homes for them, when
he pledged his honor and estate that the settlers might in time be
independent, and when he made religious provision for both his
Protestant and Catholic settlers, yet think of the unexampled ferocity
with which he was attacked upon his return to Upper Canada, in law
suits, and illegal processes, so that his estates became heavily
encumbered, so that he went to France to pine away and die.
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