As all Canada looked at it, the whole thing was a miserable fiasco.
The illegality of McDougall's proclamation left the loyal Canadians in Winnipeg in a most awkward situation. One hundred of them had arms in their hands, and they were naturally looked upon by Riel as dangerous, and as his enemies.
Riel now acted most deceitfully to them. He promised them their freedom, and that he would negotiate with McDougall and try to settle the whole matter.
On the 7th of December the Canadians surrendered, but with some of them in the Fort and others in the prison outside the wall, where the Sayer episode had taken place, Riel coolly broke his truce, while the Metis celebrated their early victory by numerous potations of rum, from the Hudson's Bay Company Stores, and, of course at the Company's expense.
Encouraged by his victory and the possession of his prisoners, Riel, now in Napoleonic fashion, issued a proclamation which it is said was written for him by a petty American lawyer at Pembina, who was hostile to Britain and Canada.
An evidence of Riel's disloyalty and want of sense was shown by his superseding the Union Jack and hoisting in its place a new flag—not even the French tri-color, but one with a fleur-de-lis and shamrocks upon it, no doubt the flag of the old French regime with additions. He also took possession of Hudson's Bay Company funds with the coolness of a buccaneer, and his manner in refusing personal liberty to people whom he dared not arrest was overbearing and impertinent.
The inaccessibility of Red River Settlement in winter added much to the anxiety. No telegraphic connection nearer than St. Paul, some four or five hundred miles, was possible, even the regular conveyance of the mails could not be relied on. Meanwhile the Canadian people were in a state of the greatest excitement, and the Government at Ottawa, well-knowing its mismanagement of the whole affair, was in desperate straits. To make the situation more serious the only man who could deal with Riel and could remedy the situation, Bishop Tache, of St. Boniface, was absent at the great conclave of that year in Rome. The more intelligent French people had no confidence in the sanity and reasonableness of Riel. He was to them as great a puzzle as he was to the English. It was a gloomy Christmas time in Red River, and the gloom was increased by the suspense of not knowing what the Government at Ottawa would do in the circumstances.
CHAPTER XXVII.
LORD STRATHCONA'S HAND.