f 1814, in forbidding the export of food from Rupert's Land
and in interfering with the liberty of the traders, Indians and
half-breeds, who had regarded themselves as outside of law, and as free
as the wind of their wild prairies, produced an open and out-spoken
dissent from every class.

The Nor'-Westers took time to consider the grave step of interrupting
trade which Governor Miles Macdonell had taken. Immediate action was
impossible. It was four hundred miles and more from the Colony to the
great emporium of the fur trade on Lake Superior. The annual gathering
of the Nor'-Westers was held at Grand Portage, the terminus of a road
nine miles long, built to avoid the rapids of the Pigeon River which
flows into Lake Superior some thirty or forty miles southwest of where
Fort William now stands. This concourse was a notable affair. From
distant Athabasca, from the Saskatchewan, from the Red River and from
Lake Winnipeg, the traders gathered in their gaily decked canoes, to
meet the gentlemen from Montreal, who came to count the gains of the
year, and lay out plans for the future. Indians gathered outside of
Grand Portage Fort. The Highland Chieftains were now transformed into
factors and traders, and for days they met in counsel together. Their
evenings were spent in the great dining room of the Fort in revelry.
Songs of the voyage were sung and as the excitement grew more intense
the partners would take seats on the floor of the room and each armed
with a sword or poker or pair of tongs unite in the paddle song of "A la
Claire Fontaine," and make merry till far on in the morning. The days
were laboriously given to business and accounts. When the great
MacTavish--the head of the Nor'-Westers--was there he was often opposed
by the younger men, yet he ended the strife with his tyrannical will and
silenced all opposition.

The Nor'-Westers at their meeting, July, 1814, under Honorable William
McGillivray, after whom Fort William was named, decided to oppose the
Colony and sent two of their most aggressive men to meet force with
force, and to give Miles Macdonell, the new Dictator, either by arms or
by craft, the reward for his tyranny, as they regarded it.

The whole body of the traders were incensed against Lord Selkirk, for
had not one of the chief Nor'-Wester partners written two years before
from London saying, "Lord Selkirk must be driven to abandon his project,
for his success would strike at the very existence of o