CHAPTER IX. Red River Becomes Canadian.
The union of Red River Settlement with Canada was in the air in 1857. In a letter to his brother, Mr. Black, after discussing the reasons given by the settlers for the change, says in his own cautious way: "I do not know whether Canadian annexation will much better them. However, it looks as if the time was come for a change, and if we suffer some inconvenience during the transition period perhaps 'the good time coming' may compensate for all. I have taken no part for or against the movement. I do not think it is good for ministers to jump into the maelstrom of politics. Let them stop till they are pushed in. I have my views and preferences, and aiblins it wadna hae taen a muckle dunch to ding me in, but in the meantime I am better pleased to be out."
While Mr. Black was thus so politic the leaders among the people of Red River were by no means undecided. The movement seems to have taken so strong a form that the greater part of the people, who were not immediately connected with the Hudson's Bay Company, strongly favored it.
Ten or eleven years before this, the desire for self-government took a much more disagreeable form. Petitions from some of the people of Red River at that time were to the American Government asking it to "annex the Red River Territory to the United States, and promising assistance against the Hudson's Bay Company in case of war."