ed down
from the period of his Bois-brules impulsiveness to be the Warden of the
Plains, with an influence over the Metis, that can only be described as
magical.

Judged by the methods of representative government the Council was
rather a burlesque.

Sheriff Alexander Ross, though a member of the Council, says: "To guard
against foolish and oppressive acts, the sooner the people have a share
in their own affairs the better. It is only fair that those that have to
obey the laws should have a voice in making them."

Hon. Donald Gunn, who was not on the Council, says: "The majority of the
Council thus appointed were, no doubt, the wealthiest men in the Colony
and generally well-informed, and yet their appointment was far from
being acceptable to the people who knew that they were either
sinecurists or salaried servants of the Hudson's Bay Company, and
consequently were not the fittest men to legislate for people who
retained some faint recollection of the manner in which the popular
branch of the legislature in their native land was appointed, and who
never ceased to inveigh against the arbitrary manner in which the
Governor-in-chief chose the legislators."

Notwithstanding the writer's perfect sympathy with both of these
opinions, it is but fair to state that the Council of Assiniboia did in
ordinary times do many things which were most beneficial and helpful to
the Red River Community.

Its most distressing failures were in those things which are very
essential. (1) Being a compromise body it had no power of progressive
development, and in the whole generation of its existence it did
practically nothing to advance the public, intellectual, or moral
interests of the people. (2) Perhaps its most serious breakdown took
place, as we shall see, in the failure of its judicial system. Executive
power it had none, as seen in the cases where jail-delivery took place
again and again by the friends of the prisoners boldly extricating whom
they would. (3) But most alarming and miserable was its failure to act
in its moribund days, when it allowed, as we shall see, a mob to seize
Fort Garry and bring in an era of disorder which made every
self-respecting British subject blush with shame.

[Illustration: FORT GARRY WINTER SCENES
SOUTH AND EAST FACES, 1840
From sketch by wife of Governor Finlayson.

EAST FACE IN 1882, WHEN FORT WAS DISMANTLED (From
painting in author's possession.) x Spot where Scott was Executed.]