'I am not mortally wounded,' he said, 'and if you could get me conveyed to the fort, I think I should live.'
Grant promised to comply with the request. He left the governor in charge of one of his men and went away, but during his absence an Indian approached and shot Semple to death.
Meanwhile John Bourke had gone back for a field-piece and for reinforcements. Bourke reached the fort, but after he had placed the small cannon in a cart he was permitted by those in the fort to take only one man away with him. He and his companion began to drag the cart down the road. Suddenly they were startled by the sound of the musketry fire in the distance which had struck down Semple's party. Fearing lest they might lose the gun, the pair turned back towards the fort. On their way they were met by ten men from Fort Douglas, hurrying to the scene of the conflict. Bourke told his comrade to take the field-piece inside the fort, and himself joined the rescue party. But they were too late: when they arrived at the scene of the struggle they could effect nothing.
'Give up your arms,' was the command of the Nor'westers.
The eleven men, seeing that resistance on their part would be useless, took to their heels. The Nor'westers fired; one of the fleeing men was killed and John Bourke was severely wounded. For the numbers engaged the carnage was terrible. Of the party which had left Fort Douglas with Governor Semple there were but six survivors. Michael Heden and Daniel M'Kay had run to the riverside during the mêlée. They succeeded in getting across in a canoe and arrived at Fort Douglas the same night. Michael Kilkenny and George Sutherland escaped by swimming the river. In addition to John Pritchard, another prisoner, Anthony Macdonell, had been spared. The total number of the dead was twenty-three. Among the slain were Rogers, the governor's secretary, Doctor Wilkinson, Alexander M'Lean, the most enterprising settler in the colony, and Surgeon James White. The Irish colonists suffered severely in proportion to their number: they lost seven in all. The Nor'westers had one man killed and one wounded. This sanguinary encounter, which took place beside the highway leading along the Red River to Frog Plain, is known as the massacre of Seven Oaks.
There was much disappointment among the Nor'westers when they learned that Colin Robertson was not in the colony. Cuthbert Grant vowed that Robertson would have been scalped had he been captured. 'They would have cut his body into small bits,' said Pritchard, 'and boiled it afterwards for the dogs.' Pritchard himself was carried as a prisoner to Frog Plain, where the Nor'westers made their encampment. A savage spirit had been aroused. Pritchard found that even yet the lust for blood had not been sated, and that it would be necessary to plead for the wives and children of the colonists. He remonstrated with Cuthbert Grant and urged him not to forget that the women of the settlement were of his dead father's people. At length the half-breed leader softened, and agreed that Pritchard should act as a mediator. Grant was willing that the settlers should go in peace, if the public property of the colony were given up. Pritchard made three trips between Grant's headquarters and the fort before an agreement was reached. 'On my arrival at the fort,' he said, 'what a scene of distress presented itself! The widows, children and relations of the slain, in horrors of despair, were lamenting the dead,[[2]] and were trembling for the safety of the survivors.'
On the morning of June 20 Cuthbert Grant himself, with over a score of his followers, went to Fort Douglas. It was then agreed that the settlers should abandon their homes and that the fort should be evacuated. An inventory was made of the goods of the colony, and the terms of surrender were signed by Cuthbert Grant as a clerk and representative of the North-West Company. Contrary to Grant's promises, the private effects of the colonists were overhauled and looted. Michael Heden records that even his clothes and blankets were stolen.
On the evening of the same day a messenger presented himself at Portage la Prairie bringing Alexander Macdonell an account of the massacre. Pierre Pambrun declares that Macdonell and others who were with him became hilarious with joy. 'Good news,' shouted Macdonell in French, as he conveyed the tidings to his associates.
Again disaster had overtaken Lord Selkirk's plans. The second desolation of his colony and expulsion of his colonists occurred on June 22, 1816. The evicted people set out in canoes down the Red River. Michael Heden and John Bourke both declared that the number of those who embarked was approximately two hundred. This total would appear, however, to be much too large, unless additions had been made to the colony of which we have no documentary evidence. Some French-Canadian families had settled at 'the Forks,' it is true, but these were not numerous enough to bring the population of the settlement to two hundred persons, leaving uncounted the number who had lately perished.
On June 24, as the exiles were proceeding down the river, they met nine or ten canoes and one bateau. In these were almost a hundred armed Nor'westers under the command of Archibald Norman M'Leod of Fort William. M'Leod's purpose was apparently to assist in the extermination of the colony. His first question of the party travelling northward was 'whether that rascal and scoundrel Robertson was in the boats.' When he was told of the calamity which had befallen Governor Semple and his band, he ordered all the exiles ashore. By virtue of his office as a magistrate for the Indian Territories he wished to examine them.[[3]]