"The government of the territory is come almost to a dead-lock in the
Red River Settlement, and nothing short of direct administration under
the authority of the Crown will, in my opinion, remedy the evil. Two
prisoners have been, in separate instances, forcibly rescued from jail,
and they, with about thirty to fifty others implicated in the riots,
are still at large, fostering discontent, and creating great disquiet.
Their secret instigator controls the only paper published in the
settlement, and its continued attacks upon the Company find a greedy
ear with the public at large, both in the settlement and in Canada. The
position of those in authority is so disagreeable that I have had great
difficulty in persuading the magistrates to continue to act. Mr.
William Mactavish, Governor of Assiniboin, has resigned his post, and I
have only been restrained from following his example, for a short time,
in the hope that a remedy would speedily be applied, and that I should
be relieved from the unfair position in which I find myself placed,
with all the responsibility, and the semblance of authority over a vast
territory, but unsupported, if not ignored, by the Crown. In the
absence of a just grievance, the cry of 'the Company' is quite a
sufficient watchword amongst the ignorant and discontented.
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