though doubling the amount paid this year, may now properly be
regarded as belonging to a previous year, but only now liquidated.

A large number of Indians, entitled to share in the treaty, were
absent on the 3rd August, and in the belief that I should, almost
immediately, be able to obtain a more accurate knowledge than I
possessed of the numbers of the several bands, I paid to each
person present only three dollars--the gratuity--postponing for
a short time the first annual payment. Having completed this
disbursement, I prepared to start for Manitoba Post, to open
negotiations with the Indians on the immediate north and north-west
borders of the Province of Manitoba, promising however to visit the
several bands of the first treaty, in their own districts, and to
there pay them. By this means the necessity for their leaving their
own homes, and for the Government's feeding them while they were
being paid, and during their journey home, was avoided.

After completing the treaty at Manitoba Post, of which mention
is herein after made, I visited Portage la Prairie, the Indian
settlement at St. Peter's, Riviere Marais, and the Town of
Winnipeg, according to my promise, and at each place, with the
exception of Riviere Marais, found the Indians satisfied with the
treaty and awaiting their payment. At Riviere Marais, which was
the rendezvous appointed by the bands living in the neighborhood
of Pembina, I found that the Indians had either misunderstood the
advice given them by parties in the settlement, well disposed
towards the treaty, or, as I have some reason to believe had become
unsettled by the representations made by persons in the vicinity
of Pembina, whose interests lay elsewhere than in the Province of
Manitoba; for, on my announcing my readiness to pay them, they