At that time Fort William was the great emporium of the North-West company. An extensive assortment of merchandise was brought thither every year from Montreal by large canoes or the Company's vessels on the lakes, these returning with the furs to Canada and from thence shipped to England.
It is difficult to imagine, as one visits the spot to-day, that it was once the abode of industry, of gaiety, of opulence and even of splendour. It boasted a fashionable season, which continued from May to late in August, and during this period the fur aristocracy, the bourgeoisie and the canaille, met and mingled in a picturesque carnival of mirth, feasting and exultation.
It was the meeting-place between the Montreal partners and voyageurs, and those who coursed the boundless expanse of the distant west. To the wintering clerks and partners, after their hardships and fasts in the interior, Fort William seemed a foretaste of Paradise, and a hundred journals of a hundred traders tell again the tale of a dream of distant Fort William, which, in the midst of cold, hunger and desolation, cheered the wanderer's heart and lightened his burdens. For the voyageurs it was all in all. To reach Fort William, enjoy the carnival, and betwixt drink and riotous living dissipate the hard-earned wages of years was to them often the happiness of earth and heaven combined.
Fort William described.
It was in the great dining-hall that there centred the chief glory of Fort William. Of noble proportions was it, and capable of entertaining two hundred persons, and here fully two hundred sat when the news from Red River reached them. Let us attempt to describe the scene. There on a glittering pedestal looked down on the joyous company a marble bust of Simon McTavish; while ever and anon the eye of some struggling clerk or ambitious partner would be attracted by a row of paintings, depicting to the life the magnates of the North, and rest with ecstasy upon those gleaming eyes and rubicund cheeks, cheerful prophesies of his own roseate future. Not all were portraits of opulent Northmen—other heroes lent the glory of their visages to this spacious hall—the King in his majesty, the Prince Regent, and Admiral the Lord Nelson. A gigantic painting of the memorable battle of the Nile also adorned the walls. At the upper end hung a huge map of the Indian country, drawn by David Thompson, he who had written at the crisis of his career, "To-day I left the services of the Hudson's Bay Company to join the North-West, and may God help me." On this extraordinary production were inscribed in characters bold enough to be seen by the humblest engagé at the farthest end of the great hall, the whole number of the Company's trading posts from Hudson's Bay to the Pacific Ocean, from Sault Ste. Marie to Athabasca and the Great Slave Lake. Many a time and oft while the feast was at its height and the wine bottles of the partners were being broached and the rum puncheons tapped, was a glance cast at some spot on that map which marked months of suffering, the death place of a comrade, the love of an Indian maiden, a thrilling adventure, a cruel massacre, painful solitude, great rejoicing or a bitter disappointment.
But if the scene within was noisy and animated, that without beggared 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," cries 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 gamboled about the fort on the night when the news came of the tragedy of the Red River.
Meanwhile it will be remembered that the Earl of Selkirk was on his way, with his party of about eighty soldiers, to the scene of this rude rejoicing. When Sault Ste. Marie was reached, the first intelligence of the massacre and destruction of the colony was received, together with the news that some of the settlers and a large part of the property had been transported to Fort William.
Filled with indignation, and determined to demand an explanation of the bloody deed, the Earl pressed on with all haste to the rendezvous of the North-West company, who, all unconscious of his approach, had made no plan either to defend themselves or to arrest his progress.
Selkirk arrives at Fort William.
Upon his arrival in the vicinity many favourable to the Company came out to meet him and relate the present state of affairs. As a magistrate for the country, he secured a number of affidavits, disclosing such circumstances of conspiracy and participation on the part of the North-Westers as determined him, as it was his duty, to issue warrants for their arrest. These were accordingly issued, first for the apprehension of William McGillivray, the principal partner, and next for that of all the other partners.