M. Le Président,
I well know how important it is for you to have positive news—I have something good and cheering to tell you. I had already something wherewith to console us when the papers published news dear and precious to all our friends, and they are many. I shall leave on Monday, and with the companions whom I mentioned to Rev. P. Lestang. Governor Archibald leaves at the same time, but by another road. He will arrive before the troops, and I have promised him a good reception if he comes by the Snow Road. Governor McTavish’s house will suit him, and we will try to get it for him. Mother salutes you affectionately, as also my uncle. Mlle. Masson and a crowd of others send kind remembrances to your good mother and sisters. Forget not Mr. O. and others at the Fort. We have to congratulate you on the happy result. The Globe and others are furious at it. Let them howl leisurely—they excite but the pity and contempt of some of their friends. Excuse me—it is late, and I am fatigued, and to-morrow I have to do a hard day’s work.
Yours devotedly,
A. G. de St. Boniface.
These letters prove the plot and the object of it. There was also a most compromising letter from Sir George Cartier, which was taken away while Colonel Wolseley was a few minutes out of his room, attending to some urgent business. The suspicion was that it was taken by John H. McTavish, of the Hudson’s Bay Company.
It is possible that the word that had been sent to keep back any messages from the rear may have delayed and impeded Mr. Archibald’s progress, but whether that be so or not the fact remains that Mr. Archibald lost two days trying to find the point where he was to meet Riel’s emissaries, and failing to make the junction he was obliged to follow the circuitous route taken by the troops down the Winnipeg River to Lake Winnipeg, and therefore he did not arrive “among and through the people” of Bishop Taché. When he reached Fort Garry the Rebels had been driven out, Colonel Wolseley was established in possession, the British flag had been raised over the Fort, and Colonel Wolseley was able to hand over the government of the country to the Queen’s representative without the assistance of Riel or his accomplices.
The successful arrival of the expedition, the flight of the rebel leaders, and the confidence that further disorders could not be successfully started, caused numbers of new settlers from Ontario to move into the country, and the progress and development of the whole Territory have since been most remarkable. Looking at the condition of affairs now, it is hard to realise that a little indifference and carelessness thirty-eight years ago might have delayed the opening up of that great country for two or three generations, and it might easily have happened that it would have been absorbed by the United States.