presence was by no means of the least desirability to Red River or its
inhabitants. The man who, with remarkable energy and perseverance, had
worked up his fellow-citizens to this pitch of resistance, organizing and
directing the whole movement, was a young French half-breed named Louis
Riel--a man possessing many of the attributes suited to the leadership of
parties, and quite certain to rise to the surface in any time of
political disturbances. It has doubtless occurred to any body who has
followed me through this brief sketch of the causes which led to the
assumption of this attitude on the part of the French half-breeds-it has
occurred to them, I say, to ask who then was to blame for the
mismanagement of the transfer: was it the Hudson Bay Company who
surrendered for 300,000 pounds their territorial rights? was it the
Imperial Government who accepted that surrender? or was it the Dominion
Government to whom the country was in turn retransferred by the Imperial
authorities? I answer that the blame of having bungled the whole business
belongs collectively to all the great and puissant bodies. Any ordinary
matter-of-fact, sensible man would have managed the whole affair in a few
hours; but so many high and potent powers had to consult together, to pen
despatches, to speechify, and to lay down the law about it, that the
whole affair became hopelessly muddled. Of course, ignorance and
carelessness were, as they always are, at the bottom of it all. Nothing
would have been easier than to have sent a commissioner from England to
Red River, while the negotiations for transfer were pending, who would
have ascertained the feelings and wishes of the people of the country
relative to` the transfer, and would have guaranteed them the exercise of
their rights and liberties under any and every new arrangement that might
be entered into. Now, it is no excuse for any Government to plead
ignorance upon any matter pertaining to the people it governs, or expects
to govern, for a Government has no right to be ignorant on any such
matter, and its ignorance must be its condemnation; yet this is the plea