RESTORING PEACE.
The coming of Governor Archibald and the establishment of Canadian institutions took place in the same year as the arrival of the expedition. But it took years to establish peace. The writer came to Manitoba in the year after this, and well remembers the bitterness and hatred which continually showed themselves. The two old English-speaking factions struggled for supremacy. The influx of new people in due time, however, overcame the feuds.
The sentiment against Riel and his associates burned as strongly years after as it did in the time of the troubles. Peace never came really until in Chief Justice Wood's court Riel and Lepine were found guilty of murder and sedition. The springs of action in communities are hard to trace, but it is plain to see that the burning questions which have agitated Manitoba, and through her the whole Dominion, since that time, have gained their intensity from the terrible months—for they were nothing short of that—from November to March, of the Red River rebellion.
Undoubtedly the heat of feeling of the "Canadian party" included for a time Mr. Black as being one of the other wing of the English-speaking people. But in his case this soon passed away. His personal character, his kindly and friendly manner, his open hospitality, and his unwavering loyalty to British institutions made new-comers find in the "Apostle of Red River" a friend, willing to aid all. Some of the more extreme of the so-called "Canadian party" attempted to misinterpret a casual remark of the good old pioneer to his disadvantage, but it was not accepted generally, and a few years after Mr. Black was as acceptable as a preacher to the rising congregation of Winnipeg as in his own beloved Kildonan. Often, often did he commiserate the people compelled to go through such an experience as that of 1869-70.