CHAPTER XX.
SAYER AND LIBERTY.
Stone forts and ermined judges were not, to the mind of the unbridled and ungovernable Metis. True, the French mind has a love for show and circumstance and dignity of demeanor, but the conviction had taken hold of the people of Red River, and especially of the French half-breeds, that these meant curtailment of their freedom. They felt the dice were loaded against them.
But, now, in the year after Sinclair and his friends had shown such a firm front to Governor Christie, and when something like a feudal system was being introduced into the Red River Settlement, a new surprise came upon French and English alike. This was immediately after the terrible visitation of a plague, which had cut down one-sixteenth of the whole population. It was the arrival of a party of the Sixth Royal Regiment of Foot, along with artillery and engineers, amounting in all to five hundred souls. The breath of the people was taken away by this demonstration of force, and a chronicler of the time says: "From the moment they arrived the high tone of lawless defiance and internal disaffection raised by our people against the laws and the authorities of the place were reduced to silence." Colonel Crofton, in command of the troops, was appointed Governor of the Settlement, and he proved a wise and honorable administrator. The regiment gained golden opinions from the people, and as they spent during their short stay of two years, a sum of £15,000 in supplies, it was, indeed, a golden age for the hard-working Colonists. The leaving of the regiment was regretted by the Colony.
Having now entered on a career of government by force, it would not do to let it drop. Hence the authorities enlisted in Britain a number of old pensioners, and under command of Major Caldwell, who was also to act as Governor of the Settlement, sent out, in each of two successive years, some seventy of these discharged soldiers to act as guardians of the peace. It was pretty well agreed that these men, to whom were given holdings of small pieces of land to the west of Fort Garry, now in the St. James District of Winnipeg, were simply imitators in conduct and disposition of the De Meurons, who had so vexed the Colonists. Major Caldwell, too, by his lack of business habits and his selfishness, alienated all the leading men of the Colony, so that they refused to sit with him in Council. It was the common opinion that the turbulence and violence of the pensioners was so great that, as one of the Company said, "We have more trouble with the pensioners than with all the rest of the Settlement put together." The pensioners were certainly absolutely useless for the purpose for which they had been sent, that is to preserve order in the country. The Metis, at any rate, spoke of them with derision.
In the year following the removal of the troops the policy of preventing the French half-breeds from buying and selling furs with the Indians was being carried out by Judge Thom, the relentless ogre of the law. Four men of the Metis had been arrested; of these the leader was William Sayer. He was the half-breed son of an old French bourgeois of the Northwest Company. He had been liberated on bail, and was to come up for trial in May. The charge against him was of buying goods with which to go on a trading expedition to Lake Manitoba.
Possibly the case would be easily disposed of, and most likely dismissed with a trifling fine, although it was true that Sayer had made a stiff resistance on his being arrested. This violent resistance was but an example of the bitter and dangerous spirit that was developing among the Metis.
A brave and restless man was now growing to have a dominating influence over the French half-breeds. This was Louis Riel, a fierce and noisy revolutionist, ready for any extremity. He was a French half-breed, was owner of a small flour mill on the Seine River, and he was the father of the rebel chief of later years. The day fixed for the Sayer trial by the legal authorities was a most unfortunate one. It was on May 17th, which on that year was Ascension Day, a day of obligation among the Catholic people of the Settlement. It was noticeable that there was much ferment in the French parishes. Louis Riel, who was a violent, but effective speaker, of French, Irish and Indian descent, busied himself in stirring up resistance. The fact that it was a Church day for the Metis made it easy for them to gather together. This they did by hundreds in front of the St. Boniface Cathedral, where, piling up their guns, with which all the men were armed, at the Church door, they then entered and performed their sacred duties. At the close of the service, Riel, "the miller of the Seine," made a fiery oration, advocating the rescue of their compatriot Sayer, who was to be held for trial at the Court House. A French sympathizer said of this public meeting: "Louis Riel obtained a veritable triumph on that occasion, and long and loud the hurrahs were repeated by the echoes of the Red River."