The cessation of hostilities brought about by the influence of Colonel Coltman did not, however, bring a state of peace. The conflict was transferred to the Courts of Lower and Upper Canada, these having been given power some time before by the Imperial Parliament to deal with cases in the Indian territories.
A cause célèbre was that of the trial of Charles Reinhart, an employé of the North-West Company, who had been a sergeant in the disbanded De Meuron Regiment. Having gone to the North-West, he was during the troubles given charge of a Hudson's Bay Company official named Owen Keveny, against whom it was urged that he had maltreated a servant of the North-West Company. In bringing Keveny down from Lake Winnipeg to Rat Portage, it was brought against Reinhart that at a place called the Falls of the River Winnipeg, he had brutally killed the prisoner under his charge. While Lord Selkirk was at Fort William, Reinhart arrived at that point and made a voluntary confession before his Lordship as a magistrate. This case was afterwards tried at Quebec and gave rise to an argument as to the jurisdiction of the Court, viz. whether the point where the murder occurred on the River Winnipeg was in Upper Canada, Lower Canada, or the Indian territories. Though Reinhart was found guilty, sentence was not carried out, probably on account of the uncertainty of jurisdiction. The Reinhart case became an important precedent in settling the boundary line of Upper Canada, and also in dealing with the troubles arising out of the Riel rebellion of 1869.
In the year after Colonel Coltman's return, numerous cases were referred to the Courts, all these arising out of the violence at Red River. Colonel Coltman had bound Lord Selkirk, though only accused of an offence amounting to a misdemeanour, in the large sum of 6,000l. and under two sureties of 3,000l. each—in all 12,000l. Mr. Gale, Lord Selkirk's legal adviser, called attention to the illegality of this proceeding, but all to no effect.
After Lord Selkirk had settled up his affairs with his colonists, he journeyed south from the Red River to St. Louis in the Western States, and then went eastward to Albany in New York, whence he appeared in Sandwich in Upper Canada, the circuit town where information had been laid. Here he found four accusations made against him by the North-West Company. These were: (1) Having stolen eighty-three muskets at Fort William; (2) Having riotously entered Fort William, August 13th; (3) Assault and false imprisonment of Deputy-Sheriff Smith; (4) Resistance to legal warrant.
On these matters being taken up, the first charge was so contradictory that the magistrates dismissed it; but the other three could not be dealt with on account of the absence of witnesses, and so bail was accepted from Lord Selkirk of 350l. for his appearance. When Lord Selkirk presented himself at Montreal to answer to the charges for which Colonel Coltman's heavy bail had bound him, the Court admitted it had no jurisdiction, but with singular high-handedness bound Lord Selkirk to appear in Upper Canada under the same bail.
In Montreal in May, 1818, an action was brought before Chief Justice Monk and Justice Bowen against Colin Robertson and four others, charging them with riotously destroying Fort Gibraltar, the Nor'-Wester fort. A number of witnesses were called, including Miles Macdonell, John Pritchard, Auguste Cadot, and others. A verdict of not guilty was rendered.
In September of the same year a charge was laid against Lord Selkirk and others of a conspiracy to ruin the trade of the North-West Company. This was before the celebrated Chief Justice Powell. The grand jury refused to give the Chief Justice an answer in the case. The Court was summarily adjourned, and legislation was introduced at the next meeting of the Legislature of Upper Canada to remedy defects in the Act in order that the case might be tried. Afterward the cases were taken up in York, and Deputy-Sheriff Smith was given a verdict against Lord Selkirk for 500l., and McKenzie, a North-West partner, a verdict of 1,500l. for false imprisonment at Fort William. The general impression has always prevailed there that the whole procedure in these cases against Lord Selkirk was high-handed and unjust, though it is quite possible that Lord Selkirk had exceeded his powers in the troubled state of affairs at Fort William.
On his Lordship's side charges were also brought in October, 1818. In the full Court Chief Justice Powell and Justices Campbell and Boulter presided. The most notable of these cases was against Cuthbert Grant, Boucher, and sixteen others as either principals or accessories in the murder of Robert Semple on June 19th, 1816. A few days later, in the same month, a slightly different charge was brought against six of the North-West partners in connection with the murder of Governor Semple. Upwards of three hundred pages of evidence gave a minute and complete account of the affair of Seven Oaks and of the whole conflict as found in a volume of Canadian trials. In these two cases a verdict of not guilty was also rendered.
Two other trials, one by Lord Selkirk's party against Paul Brown for robbery of a blanket and a gun, and the other against John Cooper and Hugh Bannerman for stealing a cannon in a dwelling-house of Lord Selkirk, were also carried through, with in both cases a verdict of not guilty. The evidence in these cases was printed by both parties, with foot-notes, giving a colour to each side concerned of a more favourable kind.
So much for this most disheartening controversy. It would be idle to say that Lord Selkirk was faultless; but as we dispassionately read the accounts of the trials, and consider that while Lord Selkirk was friendless in Canada, the North-West Company had enormous influence, we cannot resist the conclusion that advantage was taken of his Lordship, and that justice was not done. It is true that, in the majority of cases, the conclusion was reached that it was impossible to precisely place the blame on either side; but we cannot be surprised that Lord Selkirk, harassed and discouraged by the difficulties of his colony and his treatment in the courts of Upper Canada and Lower Canada, should write as he did in October, 1818, to the Duke of Richmond, the new Governor-General of Canada:—