ns to the poor and his kindness as a landlord. 'To the
counsels of an enlightened philosophy and an immovable firmness of
purpose,' declared the writer, 'he added the most complete habits of
business and a perfect knowledge of affairs.' Sir Walter Scott wrote
of Selkirk with abundant fervour. 'I never knew in my life,' said the
Wizard of the North, 'a man of a more generous and disinterested
disposition, or one whose talents and perseverance were better
qualified to bring great and national schemes to conclusion.' History
has proved that Lord Selkirk was a man of dreams; it is false to say,
however, that his were fruitless visions. Time has fully justified his
colonizing activity in relation to settlement on the Red River. He was
firmly convinced of what few in his day believed--that the soil of the
prairie was fruitful and would give bread to the sower. His worst
fault was his partisanship. In his eyes the Hudson's Bay Company was
endowed with all the virtues; and he never properly {139} analysed the
motives or recognized the achievements of its great rival. Had he but
ordered his representatives in Assiniboia to meet the Nor'westers
half-way, distress and hardship might have been lessened, and violence
might very probably have been entirely avoided.

The presence of Lord Selkirk on the Red River had led to renewed energy
on the part of the colonists. They began to till the land, and in 1818
the grain and vegetable crops promised an abundant yield. In July,
however, when the time of harvest was approaching, the settlers
experienced a calamity that brought poverty for the present and despair
for the future. The sky was suddenly darkened by a great cloud of
locusts, which had come from their breeding-places in the far
south-west. During a single night, 'crops, gardens, and every green
herb in the settlement had perished, with the exception of a few ears
of barley gleaned in the women's aprons.' In the following year the
plague reappeared; the insects came again, covering the ground so
thickly that they 'might be shovelled with a spade.' The stock of
seed-grain was now almost exhausted, and the colonists resolved to send
an expedition to the Mississippi for a fresh supply. Two hundred {140}
and fifty bushels of grain were secured at Lord Selkirk's expense, and
brought back on flatboats to the colony. Never since that time has
there been a serious lack of seed on the Red River.

The year 1821 brings us to