I find in the minutes of 1777, Samuel Hearne orders £20 yearly to Sarah La Petite, from which one may guess that Samuel had personal reasons for giving such a black picture of Moses Norton.
In 1780, Andrew Graham, whose journals give a great picture of this period, asks that his Indian boy be sent home.
In 1782, the following names, famous in Manitoba history, came into the lists of the officers of the Company: Clouston, Ballantine, Linklater, Spencer, Sutherland, Kipling, Ross, Isbister, Umfreville.
It was in 1787 that the fearful ravages of smallpox reduced the Indian population. This year of plague deserves a chapter by itself, but space forbids. No “black death” of Europe ever worked more terrible woe than the contagion brought back from the Missouri by wandering Assiniboines.
The account of the siege of Richmond by the Eskimos is taken from Pott’s report to the Company. A copy of this the Winnipeg Free Press recently published as a letter. The description of Richmond is from Captain Coates’ account. Strange that this Richmond should have gone back to the state of desolation in which Coates found it. It was Coates who named all the places of this region.