Two other most important forces in this complicated state of things cannot be left out. The first of these is a matter which requires careful statement, but yet it is a most potential factor in the rebellion. This is the attitude of certain persons in the United States. For twenty years and more the trade of the Red River settlement had been largely carried on by way of St. Paul, in the State of Minnesota. The Hudson Bay route and York boat brigade were unable to compete with the facilities offered by the approach of the railway to the Mississippi River. Accordingly long lines of Red River carts took loads of furs to St. Paul and brought back freight for the Company. The Red River trade was a recognized source of profit in St. Paul. Familiarity in trade led to an interest on the part of the Americans in the public affairs of Red River. Hot-headed and sordid people in Red River settlement had actually spoken of the settlement being connected with the United States.
Now that irritation was manifested at Red River, steps were taken by private parties from the United States to fan the flame. At Pembina, on the border between Rupert's Land and the United States, lived a nest of desperadoes willing to take any steps to accomplish their purposes. They had access to all the mails which came from England to Canada marked "Vià Pembina." Pembina was an outpost refuge for law-breakers and outcasts from the United States. Its people used all their power to disturb the peace of Red River settlement. In addition, a considerable number of Americans had come to the little village of Winnipeg, now being begun near the walls of Fort Garry. These men held their private meetings, all looking to the creation of trouble and the provocation of feeling that might lead to change of allegiance. Furthermore, the writer is able to state, on the information of a man high in the service of Canada, and a man not unknown in Manitoba, that there was a large sum of money, of which an amount was named as high as one million dollars, which was available in St. Paul for the purpose of securing a hold by the Americans on the fertile plains of Rupert's Land.
Here, then, was an agency of most dangerous proportions, an element in the village of Winnipeg able to control the election of the first delegate to the convention, a desperate body of men on the border, who with Machiavelian persistence fanned the flame of discontent, and a reserve of power in St. Paul ready to take advantage of any emergency.
A still more insidious and threatening influence was at work. Here again the writer is aware of the gravity of the statement he is making, but he has evidence of the clearest kind for his position. A dangerous religious element in the country—ecclesiastics from old France—who had no love for Britain, no love for Canada, no love for any country, no love for society, no love for peace! These plotters were in close association with the half-breeds, dictated their policy, and freely mingled with the rebels. One of them was an intimate friend of the leader of the rebellion, consulted with him in his plans, and exercised a marked influence on his movements. This same foreign priest, with Jesuitical cunning, gave close attendance on the sick Governor, and through his family exercised a constant and detrimental power upon the only source of authority then in the land. Furthermore, an Irish student and teacher, with a Fenian hatred of all things British, was a "familiar" of the leader of the rebellion, and with true Milesian zeal advanced the cause of the revolt.
Can a more terrible combination be imagined than this? A decrepit government with the executive officer sick; a rebellious and chronically dissatisfied Metis element; a government at Ottawa far removed by distance, committing with unvarying regularity blunder after blunder; a greedy and foreign cabal planning to seize the country, and a secret Jesuitical plot to keep the Governor from action and to incite the fiery Metis to revolt!
The drama opens with the appointment, in September, 1869, by the Dominion Government, of the Hon. William McDougall as Lieutenant-Governor of the north-west territories, his departure from Toronto, and his arrival at Pembina, in the Dakota territory, in the end of October. He was accompanied by his family, a small staff, and three hundred stand of arms with ammunition. He had been preceded by the Hon. Joseph Howe, of the Dominion Government, who visited the Red River settlement ostensibly to feel the pulse of public opinion, but as Commissioner gaining little information. Mr. McDougall's commission as Governor was to take effect after the formal transfer of the territory. He reached Pembina, where he was served with a notice not to enter the territory, yet he crossed the boundary line at Pembina, and took possession of the Hudson's Bay Fort of West Lynn, two miles north of the boundary.
Meanwhile a storm was brewing along Red River. A young French half-breed, Louis Riel, son of the excitable miller of the Seine of whom mention was made—a young man, educated by the Roman Catholic Bishop Taché, of St. Boniface, for a time, and afterwards in Montreal, was regarded as the hope of the Metis. He was a young man of fair ability, but proud, vain, and assertive, and had the ambition to be a Cæsar or Napoleon. He with his followers had stopped the surveyors in their work, and threatened to throw off the approaching tyranny. Professing to be loyal to Britain but hostile to Canada, he succeeded, in October, in getting a small body of French half-breeds to seize the main highway at St. Norbert, some nine miles south of Fort Garry.