But if the scene within was noisy and animated, that without beggars description. Hundreds of voyageurs, soldiers, Indians, and half-breeds were encamped together in the open, holding high revel. They hailed from all over the globe, England, Ireland, Scotland, France, Germany, Italy, Denmark, Sweden, Holland, Switzerland, America, the African Gold Coast, the Sandwich Islands, Bengal, Canada, with Creoles, various tribes of Indians, and a mixed progeny of Bois-Brulés or half-breeds. "Here," wrote one trader, "were congregated on the shores of the inland sea, within the walls of Fort William, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists, Sun worshippers, men from all parts of the world whose creeds were 'wide as poles asunder,' united in one common object, and bowing down before the same idol." Women, soldiers, voyageurs, and Indians, in ever-moving medley, danced, sang, drank, and gambolled about the fort this night.
But Nemesis was at hand. The Earl approached the fur-trading stronghold swiftly and silently. He was on them before they realised it. An attempt was made to shut the gate and prevent the troops from entering. The fort people had succeeded in shutting one half of the gate, and had almost closed the other by force, when thirty soldiers forthwith rushed to the spot and forced their way into the stronghold of the Northmen.
The notes of a bugle rang out across the river. A fresh force of about thirty other veterans of European battlefields hurried quickly over the stream to join their comrades. Awed by the apparition of so many arms and uniforms, the North-Westers abandoned further resistance, and bloodshed was happily averted. Those who had refused obedience to the Earl's commands were seized and taken forcibly to the boats, the others submitting peaceably to arrest.
Meeting of the Nor'-Westers at Fort William, 1816
Fort William and the Nor'-Westers, together with about two hundred French Canadians and half-breeds, and sixty or seventy Iroquois Indians in and about the fort, had been captured by Lord Selkirk. He had become possessed, to use his own words, "of a fort which had served, the last of any in the British dominions, as an asylum for banditti and murderers, and the receptacle for their plunder; a fort which nothing less than the express and special licence of his Majesty could authorise subjects to hold; a fort which had served as the capital and seat of government to the traitorously assumed sovereignty of the North-West; a fort whose possession could have enabled the North-West Company to have kept back all evidence of their crimes."
The heads of the evil-doing were summoned to stand their trial in the east. But the Nor'-Westers were bitter against the Earl who had dared to plant a colony in the midst of their hunting grounds.
"That canting rascal and hypocritical villain, Lord Selkirk, has got possession of our post at Fort William," wrote one of the aggrieved partners. "Well, we will have him out of that fort," he pursued amiably, "as the Hudson's Bay knaves shall be cleared, bag and baggage, out of the North-West."
But although no man was destined to see this part of their prophecy fulfilled, yet Lord Selkirk, a few weeks later, evacuated Fort William. No sooner had the Earl and his forces left this great post than the sheriff of Upper Canada arrived, took possession of the fort and the Nor'-Westers, and restored it to its original owners. Afterwards Imperial commissioners appointed in the name of the Prince Regent to restore law and order to the region went on to Red River, whither Lord Selkirk had repaired. Law and order were, however, not so easily restored. The rivalry between the fur-traders was too strong, the memory of bloodshed too recent for perfect peace to be established in a few weeks or months.