The whole amount given to me in August was £5,033 6s. 8d., of this sum their remains £800, which I have placed in the Bank of Upper Canada to the credit of the Receiver-General, and I have prepared a detailed account of the whole, which with the proper vouchers, I shall deliver to the Accountant of the Crown Lands Department.
I have much pleasure in acknowledging the valuable assistance afforded me by all the officers of the Honorable the Hudson's Bay Company resident on the lakes; and the prompt manner in which their Governor, Sir George Simpson, kindly placed their services at my disposal.
The report made last year by Messrs. Anderson and Vidal I found of much use to me, and the long services and experience of the former gentleman in Indian affairs enabled him to give me many valuable suggestions.
Captain Cooper and his officers by attending at the council, and otherwise, gave me most cheerfully all the aid in their power; and Captain Ironside, of your Department, with his assistant, Assickinach, were of essential service to me.
I found it absolutely necessary to have the aid of some one in taking the census of the Lake Huron Indians at the time they were receiving their presents at Manitoulin; and as Captain Ironside was fully occupied in attending to his own duty, I requested Mr. Keating, who had long known the Indians on that lake, to give me his assistance. This he cheerfully and very efficiently did, and afterwards was with me in distributing and paying out the money.
I have, in course of my negotiations with the Indians on the present occasion, collected some information which may be useful to your Department and will at an early day send it to you.
I will thank you to lay the two treaties accompanying this Report before His Excellency, and trust they may meet with his approval.
I have, &c.,
(Signed) W. B. ROBINSON.
THE HON. COL. BRUCE,
Superintendent-General, Indian Affairs.
CHAPTER III
THE MANITOULIN ISLAND TREATY
Some years after the completion of the Robinson Treaties, the then Government of the old Province of Canada deemed it desirable to effect a treaty with the Indians dwelling upon the Great Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron, as a complement to the former treaties, and with the object of rendering available for settlement the large tract of good land upon the Island. The duty was entrusted to the Honorable William McDougall, then Superintendent-General of Indian Affairs, who, in the month of October, 1862, proceeded to the Island, accompanied by the late William Spragge, Esq., Deputy Superintendent of Indian Affairs, and Mr. F. Assicknack, of the Indian Office, Toronto, as interpreter. Mr. McDougall encountered considerable difficulties, but by firmness and decision eventually succeeded in obtaining a surrender from the Indians of the Island, excluding however from the surrender that portion of it easterly of Heywood Island and the Manitoulin Gulf.