re about to lose their possessions. Thus
it came about that they resolved upon making a determined attempt to
resist the transfer of the country to Canada.

Underrating the difficulty and impatient of delay, McDougall took the
unwise step of issuing a proclamation, from his temporary headquarters
at Pembina, assuming control of the territory and calling upon the
inhabitants to recognize his authority. He supposed, of course, that
the transfer would be made, according to agreement, on December 1, and
did not know that the Canadian government had declined to accept it or
pay over the purchase-money until assured that peace and good order
prevailed. The advices from Ottawa to McDougall were delayed, and he
felt himself {164} obliged to act without definite knowledge of the
position of affairs.

After months of agitation the Metis under Louis Riel took command of
the situation, armed their fighting men, seized Fort Garry, put a
number of prominent white residents under arrest, and formed a
provisional government. They sent word to the new governor not to
enter the country; and when he advanced, with his official party, a
short distance over the frontier, he was forcibly compelled by the
insurgents to retreat into the United States. The rebels at Fort Garry
became extremely menacing. Louis Riel, the central figure in this
drama, was a young French half-breed, vain, ambitious, with some
ability and the qualities of a demagogue. He had received his
education in Lower Canada, and was on intimate terms with the French
priests of the settlement. His conduct fifteen years later, when he
returned to head another Metis rebellion farther west and paid the
penalty on the scaffold, indicates that once embarked on a dangerous
course he would be restrained by no one. That he was half, or wholly,
insane on either occasion is not credible.

Efforts were now made to negotiate with {165} the rebels and quiet the
disturbance. Delegates went to the West from Canada consisting of
Grand Vicar Thibault, Colonel de Salaberry, and Donald A. Smith
(afterwards Lord Strathcona). There were exciting scenes; but the
negotiations bore no immediate fruit. It was the depth of winter. The
delegates had not come to threaten because they had no force to employ.
The rebels had the game in their own hands. Bishop Tache, who was
unhappily absent in Rome, was summoned home to arrange a peace on terms
which might have left Riel and his associates