.M • - : Y> n BISHOP F P1> 1? 4 T*42 ;aJ. JL ; t ,1-i bA-JL£>3 If / ATT 33 TV 1 T INDIAN SETTLEMENT AT THE RED RIVER. BISHOP OF MONTREAL, DURING A VISIT TO THE CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY’S NORTH-WEST AMERICA MISSION. TO WHICH IS ADDED, BY THE SECRETARIES, AN APPENDIX, GIVING AN ACCOUNT OF THE FORMATION OF THE MISSION, AND ITS PROGRESS TO THE PRESENT TIME, LONDON: SEELEY, BURNSIDE, AND SEELEY; HATCHARD AND SON; NISBET AND CO. MDCCCXLV. Price Four Shillings. ADVERTISEMENT. The Bishop of Montreal having kindly proposed to the Committee of the Church Missionary Society to visit their Mission at the Red River, in Prince Rupert’s Land, they most thankfully accepted the proposal; and made every arrangement in their power to facilitate his Lordship s ar¬ duous but Christian undertaking. The following Letters, written to the Secretary of the Society, relate the circumstances of the visit. The Bishop has entrusted the Society with the publication of them, and has requested ADVERTISEMENT. that whatever profits may arise there- from may be reserved till a fund shall be opened for the endowment of a Bishopric for Prince Rupert’s Land. The Committee of the Church Mis¬ sionary Society most cordially concur in his Lordship’s earnest appeal for the speedy accomplishment of a mea¬ sure, which, under the Divine blessing, would have a great and beneficial in¬ fluence upon the operations of the Society in that remote, but interesting, sphere of its labours. CHURCH MISSIONARY HOUSE, May, 1845 . CONTENTS. PAGE LETTER 1. 1 Voyage from La Chine to the Red River Set¬ tlement : Departure from Quebec for Montreal. 2 Equipments and Crew. 3 Mode of Travelling. 5 Difficulties and Varieties of the Journey . 11 Line of Route . 14 Particular Features or Occurrences of the Journey .. 16 Inhabitants, or Stragglers, met with along the Route 24 Efforts to reach the Red River. 41 LETTER II. 47 Proceedings at the Red River Settlement : Arrival at the Red River—Indian Church and Settle¬ ment . 47 Arrival, at the Indian Settlement, of the Missionaries from the Higher Stations. 56 Departure to Visit the other Churehes . 57 Confirmations. 59 Ordinations. 68 Number of Services, and Attendance of the People.. 71 Reasons for not Proceeding to Cumberland. 72 Rough Sketch of the Colony or Settlement of the Red River. 74 VI CONTENTS. The Four Churches. The Missionaries. The Schools.,. Hospitalities experienced.. Society of the Red River . The Forts. The Peltries. Some other Statistical Particulars. The Buffalo Hunt . Strength and Dexterity of the Natives .. .. .. .* ’ * ’ ’ Hardships and Adventures of European Inhabitants PAGE . 79 . 83 . 85 . 87 . 89 • 92 • 94 . 97 . 102 . 106 107 LETTER III. U1 Some Account of the Indian Population of the Fur Country, their Moral and General Condition, and their Superstitions ; with an Appeal to the Religious Sympathies of Great Britain on their behalf : Parting at the Indian Settlement — Indian Work and Drawings. Departure. ’ ****** * Climate of the Red River.. .. *. * * *' Some Incidents of the Route, before omitted .. . Return to La Chine. Indian Population, and Extent of Field for Mission! ary Exertion. Moral and General Condition of the Indians, and Practical Inferences. Superstition of the Indians, and Jugglery of their Conjurors . Concluding Appeal to Britain for the Establishment of a Bishop of our Church in the Territory .... Ill 115 118 120 126 128 135 138 157 Address to the Bishop from the Christian Indians at the Indian Settlement. . 179 CONTENTS vii APPENDIX. PA m An Historical Notice of the Formation and Pro¬ gress of the Mission of the Church Mis¬ sionary Society in Prince Rupert’s Land: Geographical Position and Inhabitants of Prince Rupert’s Land. 181 Earliest Labours of the Society, through the Rev, J. West . 183 Formation of the North-West America Mission_ 189 Building of a Church. 190 Entrance of the Rev. D. T. Jones on the Mission, and Departure of Mr. West. 193 Completion of a Second Church—Trials and Progress of the Mission. 195 Erection of a Third Church. 200 Formation of the Indian Settlement . 202 Commencement of Agricultural and Building Operations . 205 Change in the Locality of the Settlement—Esta¬ blishment of a School and Week-day Lecture 208 First Baptisms at the Settlement — Hopeful Death of an Adult Indian. 212 Establishment of a Lord’s-day Evening Service 214 Further Evidence of Vital Religion. 216 Erection of a Flour-mill. 216 Building and Opening of a New Church in the Colony—Establishment of Schools. 218 Trials of the Mission—Death of Mrs. Jones. 219 Illustrations of the Effect of the Gospel. 221 Progress of the Indian Settlement. 225 Return of Mr. Jones to England—Appeal for more Missionaries, and Arrival out of the Rev. J. Smithurst. 226 Arrival of the Rev. A. Cowley, and Mr. J. Roberts— Return of Mr. Roberts. 229 Summary of the Stations in the Colony. 229 Formation of the Cumberland Station—Appointment to it of the Rev. J. Hunter, and his Arrival.. .. 230 Manitoba Lake, and Fort Ellice. 234 Visit of the Bishop of Montreal. 235 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Indian Settlement at the Red River * Map of Prince Rupert’s Land, with the Bishop’s Route . Image used by North-American Indian Conjurors. North-American Indian Conjuring Rattle Conjuring Rattle used in the District of Krasno-jarsk, Siberia . to face Title „ Page 1 140 147 149 * The building in the left hand comer of the cut is the School¬ master’s Housej in the centre is the Missionary’s Residence; and to the right is seen the Church, with the Schoolhouse behind it. In the River, to the left, are the Missionary and Schoolmaster’s canoes; in the centre, the Missionary boat; and to the right, some canoes of Indians attending Divine Service. This cut differs from that in the Church Missionary Paper for Lady-day, 1845, and is, the Committee believe, more correct; the cut in the Church Missionary Paper being taken from a sketch in which the perspective was not observed. 1 LETTER I. VOYAGE FROM LA CHINE TO THE RED RIVER SETTLEMENT. Quebec, Nov. 20, 1844. Reverend and Dear Sir, The accumulation of business which has come upon me in the Diocese, since my return from the Red River three months ago, and the necessity which I have been under of travelling, in different directions, upon ecclesiastical matters, have compelled me to suffer mail after mail to depart without furnishing to the Church Missionary Society the fuller and more particular account which I promised, upon the first occasion of my writing to you after getting back to Quebec, of my visit to the Society’s Mission in the quarter above-mentioned, B 2 and of the fruit of their operations which I there witnessed. To this task I now address myself, proposing chiefly to exe¬ cute it in the form of a condensed abstract from my Journal; but, even now, I arn by no means sure of being able to complete it before the closing of the mail on the 24th of the present month. Departure from Quebec for Montreal . Having, by the great goodness of God, been enabled again to undertake this long- cherished project, the hope of accomplishing which appeared, in 1842, to be extinguished by the extraordinary illness which it pleased Him at that time to lay upon me — and having once more put all matters in train for it by communications, which had the most encouraging result, with the heads of the Church at home, the Society, the Hud-, son's Bay Company, and the Missionaries upon the spot—I left Quebec, by Steamer, 3 for Montreal, on the 13th of May last, and on the morning of the 16th embarked in my canoe at La Chine, nine miles above the latter city, where the Company have an important Depot. Equipments and Crew . M y equipment, and the means of my conveyance, having been provided, with the utmost alacrity, at the charge of the Society, in their desire to procure the Episcopal ministrations for the remote Mission of the Red River, it may be satisfactory, upon this as well as upon other and obvious grounds, to state that the arrangements were all made for me in the most excellent manner, and with the most careful atten¬ tion, by direction of Sir George Simpson, the Governor of the Company’s Territory, who was at La Chine at the time. A new birch-bark canoe was provided, of the largest class, such as is called a canot de 4 maitre> having fourteen paddles, and being of the length of thirty-six feet. The crew were picked men, and most of them were, more or less, experienced voyageurs . One had accompanied Captain Franklin to the Arctic regions in 1825. Eight of them were French Canadians : six were Iroquois In¬ dians, from the village of Caughrawaugha, opposite to La Chine , where a Mission was established for this Tribe during the French possession of the country. All, of either race, were Roman Catholics—a great draw¬ back from the comfort of a voyage of many weeks through the wilderness, in which several Sundays were to be passed, with only my own servant to benefit — beside our mutual benefit—by any ministrations afforded by my Chaplain and myself. Our guide, a functionary who, in a manner, con¬ ducts the whole enterprize, was an Iroquois, and a man of the very first reputation in his line : the steersman —of whom there are two, on account of the practice of ex- changing the large canoe for two smaller ones, and dividing the crew, at the upper end of Lake Superior—were Canadians. The other eleven men are called middle¬ men. One of them, however, who acted as our own cook, and had charge of our provisions and all the apparatus connected with our culinary department, had certain perquisites and privileges above the rest. The Indians all spoke French suffi¬ ciently for the common purposes of the day. We were thus seventeen persons in the canoe. Our baggage, bedding, and pro¬ visions, with the equipments of the canoe and the tent, were estimated, I think, at the weight of a ton and a half. Mode of Travelling . We travelled for some few days up the Ottawa, with Settlements or detached habi¬ tations within our reach ; and, in fact, we were far up this river before we bid adieu to the region where Steamers have pene¬ trated, and inns have been established at intervals connected with their trips; but we fell at once, to avoid all delay and to make sure of keeping our people together, into the habits and rules of the voyageur , and our only recourse to the houses was to procure milk, for which payment was always refused, for our tea. The whole system of travelling on this route is framed with reference to the necessity of accomplishing an enormous distance, presenting many obstructions and tedious delays, within a given time. The season is short; for the navigation is not open before the end of April, and much inconvenience and detention are apt to be encountered if Lake Superior be not crossed, on the downward route, before the end of August — the high winds of September rendering it often im¬ possible, for many days together, for a canoe to proceed at all upon that pro- 7 digious expanse of water, and the size of the craft precluding any arrangement for carrying a considerable stock of provisions. In fact, I was strongly advised to lay my plans in such a manner as, humanly speaking, to ensure my return to La Chine before the end of August. Duties in my own Diocese made it impossible for me to set out before the middle of May. With every exertion, I was not likely to accomplish the voyage, or journey — I hardly know which to call it — in a less space of time than one of between five and six weeks, each way ; and being anxious to afford all the time in my power to the Mission, and, if it should have been found necessary, to visit the Catechist’s Station at Cumberland, I had evidently no time to lose. The rules in travelling, observed with more or less straitness according to circumstances, but without any material deviation, are to rise about three o’clock; hastily throwing on your clothes, to jump 8 into the canoe, and push your way on till about eight, when you go ashore, and an hour is allowed for breakfast. It was our practice, while breakfast was in pre¬ paration, to make our toilet, going a little apart behind a tree, and hanging a tra¬ veller’s looking-glass upon one of the branches; and it was in these operations, although often abridged by the omission of the process of shaving, that the mosquitoes and smaller flies of two different kinds, were most annoying. Another stop is made about two o’clock for dinner; but this is usually cold, and only half an hour is allowed for it. We then keep going commonly till a little after sun-set—some¬ times a little earlier where the places suitable for camping are rare, as in Lake Superior, and we happen to reach one of them before the day has wholly declined— often considerably later when the nights are fine, and the way without difficulty. Upon two or three occasions, when we found that we could sail* and it was a great point to take advantage of our wind, we ran the whole night. I may here observe, that we are not in the least cramped in the canoe; but can lounge in any posture that we like, or lie at length, if needful, covered over with our blankets, and, in case of rain, a tarpaulin for a quilt, which may be drawn over head and all. As soon as we go ashore at night, the tent is mounted for the passengers—myself and the Rev. P. J. Maning, who accom¬ panied me as Chaplain. My servant also slept within the tent. The three beds, consisting of blankets and a stout green rug, with cloth pillows, of which articles I had rather more than my share ; but without sheets or mattrasses, are spread upon pieces of tarpaulin, and, with the chests, &c., between, precisely fill the whole interior of the tent. Two huge fires are lighted, composed of drift-wood, or fallen trees; or, in some places, of trees felled ' ' • •• 10 upon the spot. One of these is close to the tent—and thankful we were, on many a cold or wet evening, to get over it:—that for the canoe-men is at some little distance— and then the kettles are set boiling, and the cooking operations begin. In wet weather the men sleep under the canoe, which is always drawn ashore and inverted at night: they lie two and two together, and the smallest men occupy the places under the bow and the stern. In general they sleep beneath the canopy of heaven. Each man has one blanket. The canoe is examined by ex¬ perienced hands, while some day-light remains, to ascertain whether any rents have been made in the bark by scraping against rocks in passing through rapids, or otherwise; and the gum which is over the seams is spread, as required, by the appli¬ cation of burning brands. If there has been reason to apprehend more serious injury, some fuller opportunity of day-light is taken, and recourse is had to the keg of 11 •resinous gum which is always carried in the canoe, and, perhaps, to spare pieces of bark, of which a supply is also taken. The distance from La Chine to the Red River is commonly estimated at 1800 miles; but it is not accurately known. Sir George Simpson, one of the most remarkable travellers in the world, accom¬ plishes the distance in visiting the Red River—and thence proceeding, by a circuit¬ ous route, to Hudson’s Bay, and so back, by a different line of route still, till it falls into the Ottawa — in a wonderfully short time. He calls his men at half-past one o’clock, and sets out each day about two A. M. Difficulties and Varieties of the Journey . At times you make a great distance in a day, descending a swift river with an exemption, for some unusual space, from 12 the frequent interruption of Portages ; * or sailing, it may be, along an open lake. Upon other occasions, you are contending against a powerful and turbulent stream, and mastering the current opposed to you sometimes by poling, sometimes by the towing-line drawn by the men—who are now in the water, now scrambling along its edge through tangled woods—sometimes by the mere force of the paddle. Or you are brought to a stand by a cataract, or an im¬ passable rapid, and then comes the whole process of unloading the canoe and dividing out every article which it contains to be carried upon the backs of the men, others being employed in carrying the canoe itself upon their shoulders; and all this, here over broken rocks, and there, perhaps, through deep and miry swamps. Often you have scarcely re-loaded, and seated yourself again in the canoe, before another * Carrying-places. 13 similar obstruction presents itself, and the whole double labour of unloading and re¬ loading is to be gone through over again. In parts of the Winnipeg River, these Portages occur in very rapid succession; and some of them are only of a few yards in length separated from each other by a distance not very much greater. The longest Port - age upon the whole route is called five miles. Again, on the great lakes, but par¬ ticularly on Lake Superior, you are liable, even in the best season, to the necessity of lying by, for a day here or a day there, or a couple or more days together, when the winds and waves become too high for the canoe. This detention the voyagevrs describe by the term degrader . We were considered fortunate in not being obliged to pass any one whole day upon the shores of this Lake. It took us eight days to ascend it, and a week to come down. 14 Line of Route . The line of the whole route is as follows. After ascending the Ottawa for about a week, you pursue a course almost at right angles to the direction of that ascent. Entering the river Mattawan at its confluence with the Ottawa, passing again from this through La Petite Riviere , and some small lakes, traversing the high lands from whence the waters flow in opposite directions, you reach Lake Nipissin, and, having crossed it, de¬ scend the whole length of French River into Lake Huron. You then coast up the northern shore of this Lake for 190 miles, which brings you to the Saut Sante Marie , at the lower extremity of Lake Superior. Thence you coast, in like manner, up the northern shore of the last-mentioned Lake, till you reach Fort William, a Station of the Company, at the mouth of the River Ka- menistiquoia. Here the large canoe is ex¬ changed for two smaller ones, more adapted 15 to the travelling which is to follow;* but much less so for the passage of the great lakes, and you again ascend the waters, passing into the interior up the river just named ; and so, by an immense chain of lakes and rivers, varying infinitely in size the smallest lakes being little more than spacious ponds, and the smallest rivers scarcely entitled to be called any thing but brooks—you reach Lake Winnipeg, which is 300 miles long; and, passing a short way up the shore, enter and ascend the Red River. In the course of this latter part of the route, commencing at Fort William, you again reach a height from which the waters fall either way, and here is the boundary between Canada and the Hudson’s Bay Territory. The Rainy Lake, and the Lake of the Woods, are the most considerable of those of which you travel the length, after * They are called canots du nord. The whole voyage is sometimes performed in them. leaving Lake Superior. The River Winni¬ peg, which flows out of the Lake of the Woods into the Lake of its own name, is a magnificent stream, abounding in foaming rapids and thundering falls, many of which are of extraordinary beauty; hut any de¬ scription of which, in detail, would be wholly inconsistent with the limits which I prescribe to myself here, intending only to convey a general idea of the whole journey, and having already been carried to a length beyond my own anticipations. There are still, however, some few leading features, and prominent points of the journey, nhich it may not be uninteresting to notice, without exhibiting them in any particular order or connexion. Particular Features or Occurrences of the Journey. In passing through long tracts of country, where there is so little to remind you of 17 living human beings, it is rather striking to meet with the mementos of the dead. It is the custom of the voyageurs , in case of death among their number, by drowning or any other casualty, to plant a low wooden cross on the spot where the body lies. We saw several of these crosses, sometimes two or three together, on the Portages by the side of rapids, in the higher parts of the magnificent Ottawa; and in the Portage which is called Pocher da Capitaine there is one, said to commemorate the death of a man whose neck was broken in carrying the canoe, and bearing this inscription, rudely cut upon the arms of the cross: Aujour d’hui pour moi: demain toi. Upon a low bare rocky point in Lake Nipissin, there are fourteen crosses, serving, as we were told, to .record the loss of the whole crew of a canoe, with which another was in company at the time. We found a few single crosses, at wide intervals, beyond Lake Superior. These were the memorials of men who, c though, such is the chosen emblem of their system, had darkened views of the doctrines of the cross; but we found, also, the obscure and solitary graves, concealed among the bushes, in some spots where we landed, within the Hudson s Bay Territory, of those to whom Christ was totally unknown. These graves were roofed over with birch-bark. The Indians are said to deposit, with the dead, his gun, and other articles which he is supposed to find useful in the other world. In the immediate neighbourhood of the Rainy Lake Fort, where there is a resort of Indians, and where we saw them encamped, there is an oblong box, resting upon a small platform, and supported by four posts, per¬ haps ten feet high, which contains the bones of a Chief, held in especial honour; and these bones, it appears, had been removed all the way from Fort William to a spot more frequented by the connexions of the deceased. We experienced more cold, both in de- 19 gree and in duration, than I had expected. In crossing small bays, as we coasted up Lake Superior, on the 3rd and again on the 5th of June, we broke our way through a thin coat of ice, which had been formed over the whole surface of these bays during the night. It is a very singular noise which is produced by the paddles in this opera¬ tion, and not unlike distant thunder: so, at least, it seemed to me when it woke me as I happened to be dozing in the canoe. It is only in an extraordinary concurrence of circumstances that the whole of this vast fresh-water sea can freeze oyer. I was assured that this happened in the win¬ ter of 1843, after a calm of four days, and during intensely cold weather. No other instance of this is said to be remem¬ bered. On the 10th of June, when we camped upon the edge of the River Kame- nistiquoia, the ice formed during the night upon the paddles was a quarter of an inch thick. On the 11th, still upon the same 20 river, there was a crust of ice found upon the water left close to our fire in a tin pot. At Fort William, situated, as I have said, at the mouth of this river, there is a fishery carried on, which employs a good many Indians, of different sexes and ages; the fish being cured for the Montreal mar¬ ket, besides affording the principal food of the dependents upon the Fort. The species is white-fish, of a very excellent quality, and the numbers taken are something pro¬ digious. Five thousand of these fish were taken in one morning before breakfast during the past summer. At the distance of about a day’s journey up the river, from the Fort, are the Kakabeka Falls—poured down an awful chasm in the rocks—after Niagara, incomparably the grandest and most striking cataract that I ever saw. Fort William is approached through Thunder Bay. It is a singular and beau¬ tiful scene : shut in, on one side, by an 21 irregular range of heights, of which the lower part, consisting of densely wooded slopes, is crested by very lofty and precipi¬ tous columnar rocks, entirely bare. On the other side of the hay are some remarkable eminences and islets——one of the eminences having very much the appearance of a huge bastion, or military rounded work. The rude and rocky solitudes, through which we passed, exhibited, at intervals, many scenes of romantic beauty; and the features of the landscape assume, in some few instances, a softened character, as in the Rainy Lake River, and the lower part of the Kamenistiquoia, where green sloping banks are crowned with a full foliage of well-grown deciduous trees, and fringed by luxuriant shrubs and bushes. Most of the lakes abound in small rocky islets, covered partially or wholly with wood. Parts of the Ottawa—I do not speak of those which are within the verge of established civili¬ zation, and which comprehend some re- 'f- markable objects of attraction—are very beautiful; and nothing can exceed the ro¬ mantic rapids known by the name of the Culbute and the Calumet, in that river, at the latter of which the Government is engaged in constructing a slide for timber, which has already produced a nascent vil¬ lage, But the hand of the Creator has also gemmed the wilderness with minor decorations; and the eye is often refreshed by the sight of flowers, or trees, and shrubs, in blossom. I forbear to particularize them; yet I cannot refrain from mention¬ ing that in parts of the downward route, in July and August, our way was en¬ livened by the greatest profusion of wild roses, and highly-scented white water-lilies of extraordinary beauty. The only wild quadruped that we saw, on the whole jour¬ ney, except some insignificant kinds, was a wolf. We disturbed, upon the waters, innumerable wild ducks of different kinds, and we saw many loons, and some other aquatic birds, and a few of the heron tribe. We also saw a good many eagles. Lake Winnipeg is frequented by the wild swan and the pelican; but we did not meet with either, and were, indeed, a little too late in the season at that spot for the wild swan, of which four different kinds are found within the Hudson’s Bay Territory, and of which the down is one of the articles export¬ ed by the Company. I brought home with me a pair of antlers, of portentous size, of the wapiti deer, which were made a pre¬ sent to me at the Red River. In the late Mr. Simpson’s Journal, this animal is called the red deer, by which name it is known among the English-speaking inhabitants : the French call it biche. We saw one domesticated buffalo, grazing with the other cattle in the pastures of the Red River Settlement. Inhabitants , or Stragglers , met with along the Route . I come now to speak of the rational in¬ habitants, who are sprinkled along these wilds. After passing the habitations of a meagre and widely-severed population which begin to break the dense continuity of forest in the higher parts of the Ottawa, we bid adieu to settlements, and during our last day upon that river, in mounting it, we saw no human habitation except the little post of the Company at the mouth of the Mattawan, where we slept. The traces of lumberers, who may be called the pioneers of settlement, are found to linger further up: and we breakfasted, one rainy morning, before reaching the Mattawan, in one of their empty shanties, a rude tempo¬ rary edifice of trunks felled upon the spot and left in their rough natural state—at least equal, however, to many habitations of new settlers, which often take the same name. The word, no doubt, is a corrup¬ tion of chantier, and strictly, therefore, should describe the places of the lumber¬ men’s operations rather than the building constructed for their shelter. They are a wild, reckless, adventurous race, and the life which they lead tends too often to demoralize the youth of the country who engage in it. We fell in with but few of them; but, in one instance, our canoe-men raced with a crew of lumberers, and the lumberers—who were the defeated party— afterward camped close by us. I got into conversation with a fine active young fellow, who appeared to have been reared in reli¬ gious habits in Ireland; but who acknow¬ ledged to me his total neglect, and that of all the Protestant portion of his companions, of private devotion or means of edification— pleading, when I urged upon him the re¬ proach of falling behind the Romanists, whose advantages were so vastly inferior, that they were indeed punctilious in their 26 prayers, but in their lives and language not less profane and careless than those who omitted them. And so the unhappy form¬ ality of one set of men is made to furnish a dispensation from religious duty by others who have better means of light. We were now fairly in the wilderness, and, speedily turning our backs upon the last vestige even of lumbering enterprize, had this wilderness before us for a journey of perhaps five weeks more to the Red River, without a trace of civilized man except the solitary posts of the Company, and the more con¬ siderable interruption in the neighbourhood of the Saut Sante Marie; where, on both sides, there is some settlement, and, on the American side, a small military post directly opposite to that of the Company. The Company’s posts, which are es¬ tablished at very unequal intervals, are generally called Forts ; and some of them are surrounded by a high and strong stock¬ ade. We stopped, both in going and re- turning, at ten of these posts, the first of which is upon the Ottawa, not above £50 miles from Montreal; and in six instances, taking the two journeys together, we en¬ joyed their shelter for the night. Upon these occasions, we always collected the few persons who could be got together for prayers and some religious instruction, and our services appeared always to be thank¬ fully received. We had the opportunity, in three instances, of regularly officiating to a little band of hearers, at the Forts, on Sundays—upon one of these occasions, I signified to our crew, through the cook, that we should be glad to see them if they would attend ; but none of them did so, except the cook himself. In two other cases, the wife of the gentleman in charge expressing an earnest desire for Confirmation, I administered that rite, in its full solemnity, to the solitary Candidate. I mention this particularly, because I pre¬ viously examined these two ladies, who If I j I 1 I 1 were Half-breeds, myself; and their seri¬ ousness, humility, and acquaintance, at the same time, with essential scriptural truths, as well as, more generally, with their Bibles, afforded a very satisfactory testimony in favour of the Bed Biver School, established under the auspices of the Church Missionary Society, in which they had been educated. A very few sub¬ ordinates, who are often Roman Catholics, and a larger number of dependents, who are Heathen Indians, augmented, at certain seasons, by some transient inhabitants of the same class, make up, with the gentle¬ man in charge and his family, if he has one, the list of persons at most of the Forts. The principal posts are in charge of Chief Factors: the next grade is that of Chief Trader : some inferior posts are committed to the hands of clerks. The particular spot is selected on account of some local advantages, and there is usually a kitchen- garden, of very limited produce, some pas- £9 turage, and a daily, attached to the es¬ tablishment. At Fort William the dairy is really a very complete affair. I carried a letter from Sir George Simpson to be pre¬ sented at every post where I should stop; but the kindness and attention which we everywhere experienced at the hands of the Company’s servants were marked by an em- pressement which showed them to proceed from spontaneous feeling, and gave the better zest to those comforts and refreshments de¬ manded by the wants of the body, which were tendered in a manner, and under circum¬ stances, stamping them with a resemblance to the exercise of primitive hospitality towards the way-worn stranger. It may be supposed that common things are often by no means common in places like these. At one of the posts, where we brought away some milk, there was no such thing as an empty bottle to be had, and the vessel which we borrowed for the purpose was left at the next Fort with a strict charge that it should be returned by the first oppor¬ tunity. At these posts we also procured, when necessary, supplies to be charged in the account; for the provision which we could carry tapered down very rapidly in the hands, or rather in the mouths, of seven¬ teen men. It was not always that we could get food of a very choice kind : in one instance, at a very remote post, our replenishment of provisions consisted of small wheaten cakes, made of very dis¬ coloured flour, a pair of fowls, which were a present, and a supply of maple sugar, for ourselves; with pemmican, or pounded buffalo-meat, for the men. But we had always enough to eat, without danger, also, of running short in point of quantity; and we had with us, in the canoe, the accounts of some journeys made by adventurers in the fur-trade, in other parts of these regions, or by men exploring them in the cause of science, whose hardships, privations, and dangers, would have made us blush to complain of anything which we encountered; even if we had not had another Book in our company, which tells us of the Patriarch’s pillow of stone, and the Apostle’s night and day in the deep, and which teaches us, as the disciples of One who had not where to lay His head, having food and raiment to be therewith content. The longest space of time which we passed without seeing a single human being, was five days and a half. This was after we left the mountain Portage at the Kaka- beka Falls, where there was a small en¬ campment of Indians, and passed up the Kamenistiquoia into the chain of streams and lakes beyond, before reaching the Rainy Lake. We fell in with straggling Indians, generally at wide intervals, all the length of the route; sometimes in their little canoes, sometimes sojourning in a solitary tent of bark, or in little parties which occupied two or three such habitations. They almost always came alongside of us to barter fresh or dried fish, generally sturgeon, of a very large size, for tobacco, pemmican, or fragments of biscuit. They were all Sauteux,* so called from the Saut Sante Marie, one of the great stations of this extensively-rami¬ fied Tribe; but by their own Indian name, Ogibwas, till lately called and written, cor¬ ruptly, Chippawas by the English, who have given the permanent name of Chippawa to a village near the Falls of Niagaia. They could, with few exceptions, speak neither French, English, nor Iroquois, and all their communication with us was by signs. If addressed in any of the languages * The English pronounce and write it Sau- teaux, and, if I recollect rightly, it is so spelt in the late Mr. Simpson’s Journal; hut the Roman Catholic Bishop at the Red River, who gave me the etymology of the word, pointed out that it should be mitten Sauteux. 33 here mentioned, they have a very expres¬ sive way of putting the finger to the ear as if to intimate deafness, to which, in its effect, their ignorance of the language is equivalent. In other places, we came to considerable encampments, of perhaps 200 savages, and we counted, at one of them, thirty canoes ; but this was an exceedingly rare occurrence on the journey. We en¬ camped nearer to a large body of them than we intended, or desired, in the Rainy Lake River, where we saw their fires, and heard their drum, or tom-tom, which appeared to be going for a great part of the night. In this quarter they are noted for thieving with a surprising adroitness, and baggage the most closely watched has sometimes not wholly escaped their pillage. We did not, however, lose a single article. These dif¬ ferent bodies had shifted their encampments when we returned.* * The Indians, when they move, leave the skeleton of their tents ; but carry with them D 34 Nothing can be more pitiable, in my esti¬ mation, than the condition of these poor Heathens: nothing more calculated to ex¬ cite an interest in favour of all rightly-con¬ ducted efforts for their conversion. They are sometimes regarded with a sort of admi¬ ration, as the unsophisticated children of nature; and, still more, as exhibiting the very impersonation of a high-toned inde- dendence, and an unshackled manliness of spirit. Children of nature they are: and what kind of moral nurse is mother nature, a Christian has no need to ask. They are the bark, which is in great rolls, stitched at the ends by a fibrous thread to a slender stick. Most of their tents are conical; the smoke issuing from an aperture at the point of junction of the poles, directly over the fire which is in the centre of the tent. When the tent smokes, they apply a piece of bark as a remedy, which is stuck up on one side of the aperture above, and placed on this side or on that, according to the direction of the wind. physically a fine race of men, and they are perfectly susceptible of moral, and intellec¬ tual, and spiritual culture; but their actual condition presents a most degrading picture of humanity. Some of them came up to us in dirty blankets, or dirtier dresses of worn and tattered hare-skins: others were totally naked, except the waist-cloth, their heads, with scarcely an exception, protected only by an enormous mass of long black hair. Others, in the encampments, who appeared to be persons of some dis¬ tinction, and whose attire was in better order, were tricked out more like Bedlam¬ ites than rational beings; a silly and un¬ discriminating passion for ornament prompt¬ ing them to turn to this account whatever frippery they can become possessed of; so that the thimbles, for example, which they procure from the Company are seen dang¬ ling at the end of long thin braids of hair which hang from the men’s foreheads : some have feathers stuck into their hair, and these. perhaps, bent into an imitation of horns; with others appended to resemble the ears of an animal. Many have their faces painted, all the lower part of the visage being made perfectly black, and the eyes encircled with bright vermilhon; but it would be impossible to describe the varieties of their costume, or their fantastic decora¬ tions : and there they sit, or rather squat, smoking and basking in the sun the live-long day, sunk in an indolence from which nothing seems to rouse them ; but the excitement of war, or of the chase. Every species of labour and drudgery, in the mean time, is thrown entirely upon the women, and if an Indian travels on foot with his family, all the load which is to be carried is consigned to the back of his wife or wives; for he does not always content himself with one. We were particularly struck with the appearance of one savage, who, squatting, with his whole figure in a heap, upon the point of a projecting rock which overhung the river, perfectly naked and perfectly motionless, staring down upon us out of the hair which buried his head and covered his shoulders, looked like some hideous idol of the East. The passion for tobacco among these people appears to be excessive and universal: they receive a little fragment of it with unrepressed de¬ light, and will promise sometimes a good wind to the traveller in compensation for the favour. Their passion also for liquor is well known; but it is a great blessing that the Company have adopted measures to withhold from them this devastating curse. That some of them are practised thieves, I have already had occasion to notice: whether this characteristic attaches exten¬ sively to the race, I cannot say; but they appear very generally to be inveterate gam¬ blers, and will strip themselves of every article they possess in the unsuccessful in¬ dulgence of this passion. Their abject condition struck me very forcibly in seeing 38 their women and girls, exceedingly good- looking lasses of seventeen or eighteen, putting themselves in the way of our canoe- men to earn from them a few handfuls of pemmican or other fragments of coarse food, by helping to carry the loads across the Portages , and screaming at the top of their voices in contending for more than was given to them, as if noise could make their strange language more intelligible. One poor woman, with three young child¬ ren, kept company with us in her canoe for the greater part of a day, and assisted in this way at every Portage. Thus they, the ancient lords of the soil, and invested still, in many imaginations, with a species of wild dignity and grandeur, are glad to gather up the crumbs which fall from the superfluity of our roughest class of hirelings, and to make themselves, as it were, beasts of burthen for their benefit. The men and boys, also, will make this exertion for the same inducement. 39 The vices to which these Indians are addicted, prevail, as is but too sadly notori¬ ous, among professed Christians ; but where is there a cure for them at all, but in the Christian system efficiently applied? and what is more conspicuous than that where- ever it is so applied, they disappear ? Euro¬ peans, in some points of view, have done unspeakable mischief to the Indians, and they owe them a long-accumulated repara¬ tion; but as matters are now conducted, their condition is meliorated by their con¬ nexion with the Whites, and their partial assimilation to European habits; and this is one step of approach toward their enjoy¬ ment of fuller blessings and more exalted privileges. Those who are attached to the Forts are far more comfortable in their appearance than the others. That they are a fine race of people phy¬ sically, I have already said ; and I have certainly seen among them some striplings, from fifteen to eighteen years old—suffi- 40 ciently neat in their persons, with a manly- bearing and an elastic tread, their limbs well-turned, their hands and nails well- formed, their dark beaming eyes harmoniz¬ ing with a profusion of glossy black hair and a sunned complexion—who did seem, altogether, to carry the stamp, if I may so express it, of a natural nobility. I have been assured that there is no such thing known, as a dwarfish or deformed Indian. They are certainly fine animals. What they are capable of becoming, as the rational creatures of God, and subjects for His grace, I shall have occasion to show hereafter, and I shall then speak, also, if so permitted, of certain superstitions which prevail among them in their Heathen state. The Society may not be sorry, although they will hear nothing new, to receive a sketch, be it but an imperfect one, of the condition, efficiency, and prospects of the Mission, from other hands than those of the Missionaries themselves. But I am 41 obliged to reserve for another Letter the account of my actual visit at the Red River, and I shall now conclude this by a descrip¬ tion of our efforts made to gain that place at the close of our ascending journev. Efforts to reach the Red River . We camped at nightfall, on the 21st of •June, upon a level rock beside the Winni¬ peg River, whose whole volume of water here rushes down in an impetuous and roar¬ ing fall—called le petit rocher du bonnet. At three o’clock the next morning, a cry was raised that the Governor was coming in view; and, accordingly, by the time that we were ready to receive him. Sir George Simpson, attended by his Secretary, stepped from his canoe upon the rock, being on his way down from the Red River. We re¬ mained together a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes, to arrange some matters connected with an Ordination to be there 42 held, and upon that rock an official letter relating to the subject was written at his dictation and signed by himself. We then parted, to proceed in opposite directions. The spot, I believe, is about 100 miles from the Lower Fort, at the Red River. We passed down the Winnipeg River, stop¬ ping to breakfast, and take in some few sup¬ plies, at Fort Alexander; and, entering Lake Winnipeg, began to coast round in order to gain the mouth of the Red River. It was Saturday. If it could only be possible to reach the first Church of the Settlement during the night, it might, besides prevent¬ ing, as it were, the dead loss of another Sabbath, save us a whole week; for I knew that less than three Sundays would not suf¬ fice for my duties among the Churches, and I judged that, by diligently improving the time of my sojourn, I might properly accom¬ plish them without remaining for a fourth. This I represented to the guide, and the other men, and they cheerfully undertook 43 to carry me on, calculating that we should reach our destination about midnight, or one in the morning. We went ashore for supper on a flat islet in the Lake, of sand and shingle, and there witnessed a sunset of unequalled glory: the gorgeous splendour of the descending orb through a blaze of gold among empurpled clouds, con¬ trasted with a remarkable depth and mas¬ siveness of gloom which covered the whole face of the adjacent heavens, where a thun¬ der-storm was collecting itself, while a long stream of golden light was playing upon the waves up to the very spot where we stood. We got our tea, and re-embarked without rain; but then the storm began, and the lightning was vivid and brilliant. The moon showed herself afterward by fitful glances between the clouds; but before long she sunk, and was lost to us. The rain now came down without interruption, and the night grew exceedingly dark. The whole shore is level, and even in day-light the 44 mouth of the river is not always easily founds so that persons have been known to enter Pike or Jack River — Riviere aux brockets —by mistake, intending to go to the Red River Settlement. Our guide, however, knew what he was about, and cautiously groped his way along the reedy shore, in one place jumping into the water and walk¬ ing about to ascertain — as a help to his judgment of the locality, and its accordance with his own memory—the nature of the bottom with his feet. This mode of pro¬ ceeding, however, was necessarily very slow; and the day broke upon us disclosing a bed, on either side, of green reeds or rushes ex¬ tending for miles together, out of which arose countless multitudes of wild ducks and some other water-fowl, with no object in the dis¬ tance which looked like a Church. The men in the mean time, in both canoes, wet and weary as they were, preserved an un¬ failing patience, good-humour, and cheerful¬ ness ; and such, in fact, was their deport- 45 ment from first to last. They had now been paddling, with the exception of our stay for breakfast at Fort Alexander, which was rather unusually prolonged, and half an hour’s sailing on Lake Winnipeg, added to the stop made for supper—dinner we did not take on account of a late breakfast—they had been paddling, with these exceptions, since a little after three on Saturday morn- ing, and it was nine on the Sunday morning when we reached the Church and Mission- house of the Indian Settlement, distinctively so called. What we saw there, and what contrast it exhibited with things which we had seen on the way, I must tell you, if it please God, another time. We made our distance in thirty-eight days from La Chine . I am, Rev. Sir, Your faithful humble Servant, G. J. Montreal. LETTER II. PROCEEDINGS AT THE RED RIVER SETTLEMENT. Arrival at the Red River—Indian Church and Settleme?it. Quebec, Dec . 2 , 1844. Reverend Sir, My Letter to you of the 20th of last month concluded with a statement of my arrival at the Indian Settlement, forming the lower extremity of the Red River Colony, on Sunday morning the 23rd of June. It was about 9 o’clock, and within half an hour of the time for the commencement of Divine Service. The sight which greeted me was such as never can b*e forgotten by myself or my companions; and the recol¬ lection will always be coupled with feelings of devout thankfulness to God, and warm appreciation of the blessings dispensed by the Church Missionary Society. After travelling for upward of a month through an inhospitable wilderness, and casually encountering, at intervals, such specimens of the Heathen savage as I have described, we came at once, and without any inter¬ mediate gradation in the aspect of things, upon the Establishment formed upon the low margin of the river, for the same race of people in their Christian state ; and there, on the morning of the Lord’s own blessed day, we saw them gathering already around their pastor, who was before his door; their children collecting in the same manner, with their books in their hands, all decently clothed from head to foot: a repose and steadiness in their deportment, at least the seeming indications of a high and con¬ trolling influence upon their characters and hearts. Around were their humble dwellings, with the commencement of 49 farms, and cattle grazing in the meadow ; the neat modest Parsonage, or Mission- house, with its garden attached to it; and the simple but decent Church, with the School-house as its appendage, forming the leading objects in the picture, and carrying, upon the face of them, the promise of blessing. We were amply rewarded for all the toils and exposure of the night. I have said that the scene could never be forgotten either by my companions or myself. My Chaplain naturally felt as I did upon the occasion; hut it may not perhaps be wholly beneath notice that my servant, an English¬ man, to whom everything in this journey was new, told me afterwards, that he could hardly command his tears. Nor was it an unpleasing or worthless testimony that was rendered by one of our old voyageurs to the actual merits of the Mission, when, address¬ ing this man, he said, “ There are your Christian Indians 55 — the speaker being a French Canadian Roman Catholic — “ it E 50 would be very well if all the Whites were as good as they are.” We were greeted by good Mr. Smithurst at the water’s edge, and after having refreshed ourselves and robed under his roof, we proceeded to the Church. There were perhaps 250 Indians present, composing the whole Congregation. Nothing can be more reverential and solemn than the demeanour and bearing of these people in public worship. Their costume has a hybrid kind of character, partly European partly Indian, the former pre¬ dominating among the men. The women, for the most part, still wear the blanket, or else a piece of dark cloth, thrown over the head, with the hair parted smoothly in front, and leggings from the knee down¬ ward. They all wear moccasins; which indeed are worn by the Missionaries, and almost all the European population of the Colony. The Morning Service is performed in English; but the Lessons are rendered into the Indian tongue by the interpreter. 51 a Half-breed School-master, who stands beneath the Clergyman. The same man rendered my sermon, sentence by sentence. The Evening Service is performed in the Indian language, which Mr. Smithurst has so far mastered as to use it where he is familiar with what he has to say; but the Lessons are read and rendered as in the morning. It was followed by a sermon, which I again delivered, the interpreter doing his part as before. About two-thirds of the Congregation are said to understand a plain and simple address in English ; and, as far as this Settlement is concerned, the time, I conceive, is fast coming when on other will be required. But far and wide, let it be hoped, will there be occasions for carrying divine instruction, within the Territory, to “men of other tongues.” Mr. Smithurst, as the Society is perhaps aware, has made great progress in the pre¬ paration of a Grammar of the Cree language, being that which is spoken by the great body of the Indian converts under the Society’s care. It appears to be exceedingly complicated, abounding in moods and tenses, and exhibiting a great variety of inflections. The Quarterly Review, however, in No. cxlviii., Article iC Forster on Arabia,” speaks thus— “ The multiplied inflections (as they are improperly considered) of the Americans and Esquimaux, are plainly the contrivances of rude nations; who, instead of using the simple and beautiful method of the Oriental nations, modified the relations of verbs and nouns, by the addition, in each instance, of whole words, which at length came to be statedly added in each change of mood or tense or case, but always unabbreviated; which is one reason why their words present such an uncouth and polysyllabic appearance to the eye: their supposed ter¬ minations being, in fact, no more part of the words which they modify, than the aux¬ iliary particles are in English.” 53 I do not profess myself qualified to pro¬ nounce with what correctness these remarks may be found applicable to the Cree language. The singing is conducted chiefly by the children of the School. I visited the Sunday- school, held in the School-house, and found a large attendance. The number of children on the list is 153: it will possibly appear fanciful; but I could not help thinking of the precise correspondence of the number which these fishers of men had here gather¬ ed in, with that of the miraculous draft of fishes, when the net was cast by the com¬ mand of Christ—John xxi. 11. After the Evening Service, Mr. Smithurst made the most advanced children read to me in the Bible, and examined them not only in the Catechism, but in the Thirty-nine Articles. I do confess that I was much disposed to question the profitableness, to subjects of such a class, of this last-mentioned portion of the instruction bestowed upon them ; and, taking an example, I asked Mr. Smithurst 54 what those Indian youths and girls would understand by the Twenty-first Article : what conceptions they would attach to General Councils, and their just subordination to Sovereign Princes. I proposed the question, however, rather in the form of enquiry than of objection ; and Mr. Smithurst satis¬ fied me at once upon this point by explain¬ ing that the Indians are quite familiar with Councils and solemn deliberations on their own affairs in the Tribes—that they are easily led to transfer this idea to the affairs of the Church—and that, having also a pre-pos¬ session in favour of the authority of Chiefs, and a strong feeling of dutiful respect for their “Great Mother’ 7 the Queen, who, they are made to understand, protects the Church and conforms to its system, they have no difficulty in connecting the notion of a reference to her pleasure—or that of a Sovereign generally—with the deliberative proceedings of the Church of God. From all that I could gather, the Crees appear to be distinguished as a thinking and intelli¬ gent Tribe. There is a sprinkling of Sauteux in Mr. Smithurst’s Congregation. The Church was shut up, after all was over, by an old Indian acting as a sort of Sexton, who had formerly been a noted Sor¬ cerer or medicine in his Tribe. The day, altogether, was one of extraordi¬ nary interest; and if the scenes which it presented could have been witnessed by those who are called upon to support the Society at home, and, still more, if they could have had the opportunity of contrasting them with the exhibitions of poor, dirty, and degraded Heathens, half, or wholly naked, or perhaps decked out with the most fantastic absurdity, who were to be seen on the way, a powerful accession of force would have been gained for the appeal to their charity. Arrival, at the Indian Settlement * of the Missionaries from the higher Stations . On Monday morning* the 24th* the Rev. Messrs. Cockran and Cowley* to whom information of my arrival had been con¬ veyed* came down* from their Stations up the river, to meet me; and* in conference with them and Mr. Smithurst* I laid down the whole plan of my operations* and settled the distribution of my time and labour among the different Churches during my stay. This day* which was the Festival of St. John the Baptist* was spent still in the Indian Settlement* and the offices of the Church* which call to mind the preaching in the wilderness* were certainly not inap¬ propriate with reference to our situation. We had a service in the evening* which was fully attended by the Indians* and my Chaplain, the Rev. P. J. Maning* preached to them through the interpreter. The Con- 57 firmation was reserved for my return to the Settlement, on my homeward way. We walked, in the course of this day, over the Mission Farm, which constitutes, in fact, a branch of the Society’s Establish¬ ment for the improvement of the Indians, since it is the model for their own agricul¬ tural operations; and for this reason, as again in the case of Mr. Cockran at the Rapids, has been an object upon which the Missionary has bestowed some closeness of personal attention. In all respects it is truly gratifying to observe how the con¬ dition and the habits of the Indian are bettered by the exertions made, under the auspices of the Society, in his behalf. Departure to visit the other Churches . On the 25th, we put ourselves in mo¬ tion to visit the Missionaries up the river, and, having crossed it, rode up with Mr. Smithurst to Mr. Cockran’s charge at the Rapids, calling, on our way, at the Lower Fort I was mounted upon a horse of the Indian breed, an animal, however, of very peaceable and quiet—not to say dull —inclinations. My companions had Eng¬ lish or American steeds. It had been settled that I should pass two more Sun¬ days in the Colony,* and a couple of days or so beyond. I had thus about a fort¬ night now before me, and it was necessary, under all the circumstances of the case, to turn this time to the best possible account, and to do all that God might enable me to do to give effect to this first Episcopal visit. I shall not trouble the Society with the detail of our proceedings, day by day, as noted in my Journal; but * I use this term—which is known to be fully authorized—in preference to Settlement, just here, in speaking of the Establishments formed at the Red River, because I have occasion to use the word Settlement in describing the Es¬ tablishment formed specially for the Indians. 59 y the summary of them is as follows—and what makes them worth recording is, that having placed myself at the disposal of the Clergy, who made a great number of appointments for me, I found all their arrangements most fully responded to by the people, of every class, and a marked and lively interest manifested throughout, in all the ministrations which were af¬ forded. Confirmations . 1. With reference to the Confirmations, after some services at the different Churches, between which we kept passing backwards and forwards, with sermons introductory in part to the administration of the rite, the Candidates themselves met me by classes at the Lower or Rapids’ Church—which is sadly too small for the Congregation—and in whole bodies at the other Churches, to receive some familiar instruction and exhortation in preparation for the assump- 60 tion of their vows. This I based chiefly upon the Catechism, and upon the main heads of the sponsorial engagements. It was not that I meant to take the task of preparation out of the hands of the Clergy, nor that I conceived any preparation suf¬ ficient which could be gone through in so short a space of time : it was merely a help and a winding up before the actual as¬ sumption of the vows, and reception of blessing from the Church ; and it originated in my having said long before, by letter, that as so many uncertainties must attach to the execution of my purpose, and that thence a special and direct preparation made by the Clergy might be liable to be followed by a disappointment, in that case very undesirable, I would, if it should be their wish, render any assistance in my power, after my arrival, in fitting the Can¬ didates to present themselves. Not hin g new was required in the way of examina¬ tion: they are so constantly under the 61 training, ancl so followed by the anxious and watchful eye, of the shepherds set over them, that the amount of their reli¬ gious proficiency, as well as the tenor of their ordinary deportment, was perfectly well known beforehand. In fact the Clergy know them as a father knows his children, and they know whom to admit and whom to debar, while other cases hung in the balance and were decided after being made the subjects of consideration, perhaps of some necessary allowance, with some par¬ ticular charge, and the exaction of some particular promises. I had here an oppor¬ tunity of seeing the great influence of the Clergy, and the willing acquiescence of the people ; proceeding, not from any artfully- acquired authority, or determined establish¬ ment of an imperious ascendancy; but, as I verily believe, from the faithful devoted¬ ness of the men employed in the Mission; from the concern which they have manifested for the souls of those committed to them; u 62 from the power of those holy truths which they have pressed upon the acceptance of sin¬ ful man ; and from the general benefits, also, which, in the most conspicuous manner, have flowed from the formation of the Mission in the Colony. These engagements were followed, of course, by the Confirmations themselves, upon each of which occasions full service was performed. At the Lower Church, there were two Confirmations held on the Sunday, on account of its contracted dimensions. In the morning, 192 women and girls were confirmed: in the even¬ ing, 150 men and youths. This last was again the precise number of persons con¬ firmed at the Middle Church, when both sexes were admitted together. And it was very remarkable, that this was also the exact number confirmed on the day following at the Upper Church. Two hun¬ dred, and something over, were confirmed at the Indian Church on my return to 63 it. I find that the total of the Confirma¬ tions is noted to have been 846 per¬ sons in the Red River Colony. It would have been about a thousand; but for the unavoidable absence of some of the sub¬ jects for the rite, either in the bufialo-hunt- ing in the Prairies, or with the boats sent to Hudson’s Bay. The great body of the population at the Rapids consists of Half- breeds, a term comprehending every shade of mixed blood among the Natives: at the Middle and Upper Churches there is a greater infusion of Europeans: in all the Congregations there is a proportion of pure Indians, and that at the Indian Church— L as before stated—is, with some exceptions, a pure Indian body. The Half-breeds are called by the French melifs , or familiarly bois-bruUs. The origin of this latter term I do not well know; but I have heard it traced to a fancied resemblance of this darker race, as compared with their Euro¬ pean fathers, to the burnt standing trunks 64 which are very commonly seen upon the skirts of their native forests, where the ravages of fire have taken effect. In clear¬ ing new land for settlement, it is well known that one of the processes is per¬ formed by burning; but in the wildest depths of continuous forest, along the line of uninhabited country through which we passed, nothing is more common than to see considerable tracts through which the fire has run, and in which the landscape is thence grievously disfigured. The fires left by the Indians, or by the voyageurs where they have camped for the night, or stopped to dress their meals, may easily, in dry and windy weather, communicate with the neighbouring trees, and spread extensively along the woods. Our own fires, in one or two instances, ran up some kinds of resinous fir, and quickly pro¬ duced a fierce and brilliant blaze. Even the droppings of a lighted pipe may, in some places, come in contact with the ma- 65 terials of an incipient conflagration in the forest. Part of the Portage called the Savanne was on fire when we passed through it- In one way or other, there¬ fore, hois hrule is a very familiar object in the eyes of those who are conver¬ sant with the wilds of North America But this is a complete digression. It was truly a very interesting spectacle to behold the Churches filled, on all the different occasions connected with the Con¬ firmations, as well as at the public services on other days, by a people brought under the yoke of the Gospel, many of whom had been originally heathens, and the great body of whom had Indian blood in their veins; and the effect was indescribably heightened by the deep attention with which they listened, and the devout rever¬ ence with which they knelt to receive the imposition of hands—the comfortable hope shedding its ray over the solemnity, that they did in sincerity dedicate themselves F to Christ. I was much struck at one of the preparatory meetings in Mr. Cockran’s immediate charge—where, as I have said, the Candidates came by divisions—by the perfectly correct and serious deportment of about seventy young girls, some of them still were School-children, who were brought together without mothers, or matrons, or elders of any kind, to put them under re¬ straint ; and I could not help thinking that it would have been difficult to collect the same number of such subjects in an Euro¬ pean community, who would have preserved, as these girls did, an inviolate reverence even in the vacant intervals before and after service, and during the calling over of the names from a list which Mr. Cockran held in his hand. At the close of the instruc¬ tion given to each of the different classes, he desired that all would stand up who were willing to undertake the vows. There was only one instance of any demur : this was in the case of a woman who had had quarrels 67 with her husband, and with whom Mr. Cockran did not feel satisfied. He had taken means to explain to her what was expected from her in certain points of con¬ jugal duty, and she did not, when it came to the point, seem prepared to act up to this expectation. But the poor creature was the only one present of a distinct lribe, foi whose language there was a difficulty, at the moment, in finding an interpreter ; and I do believe that she was misunderstood. There is a remarkable modesty and re¬ serve in the whole deportment of the Indian women—partly, no doubt, attributable to the absolute subjection of the sex, in the aboriginal state of the Tribes. In most of the young people, of both sexes, but in a more marked degree among the females, I found a great diffidence and shyness, unac¬ companied, however, by a particle of that sullenness of mood sometimes observable in persons wdiom it is difficult to draw out. I must not be understood to mean, that, 68 in all these pleasing pictures, the old Adam does not any where lurk in disguise, or to express an unqualified hope that, among those who voluntarily re-enrolled themselves as soldiers of the cross, there will not be instances of mortifying inconsistency, per¬ haps of unhappy defection: the Indians have strong passions, and are liable to be thrown into circumstances unfavourable to the maintenance of holiness; but, allow¬ ing for the necessary intermixture of tares with the wheat, I believe that the Congregations of the Church at the Red River may be called exemplary, and that the Church has taken root in the place with the fairest auguries of a conti¬ nuance and increase of blessed fruits of a practical kind. Ordinations . 2. With reference to the Ordinations, it was no small satisfaction to be enabled, upon 69 the spot, to add one to the number of la¬ bourers in this remote corner of the vine¬ yard; and subsequently, during my stay, to admit to the grade of Priesthood, both him and another whom it so happened that I had myself ordained Deacon, in Canada, rather more than three years before, lhese gentlemen were, of course, duly examined, and their testimonials were presented to me, made out in due form. Mr. Me Allum, who was to be appointed Assistant Chaplain to the Company, with the understanding that he should succeed to the appointment of Chaplain, had also a full recommendation from Governor Sir George Simpson. His Si Quis was read on St. Peter's day, the only opportunity which was afforded for it, upon occasion of divine service held in the Middle Church, in the presence of an ex¬ ceedingly good Congregation. It was m that Church that he was ordained Deacon, on Sunday the 30th of June, and that both the gentlemen were ordained Priests on the 70 Sunday following, being my last at the Red River. I trust that both will be found workmen that need not be ashamed , rightly dividing the word of truth , and doing , in all respects, the work of evangelists . It is a great point gained, that the services at the Red River Churches should be so provided for as to admit of sparing a Clergyman from thence for another Station in the Territory. I long to hear of the Rev. J. Hunter’s arrival, and of a favourable issue to the litigation re- pecting Mr. Leith’s bequest. Little as are these additions, compared with the demands of the enormous country which lies open to evangelization, it is a comfort to think of any fresh movement made — the augury, let it be devoutly hoped, of far more extend¬ ed operations. The Church was crowded to excess at both Ordinations: in fact, upon the second occasion, not only was the aisle and the vestibule crammed, after the occupation of every sitting in the pews; but there were people standing on the outside at the open windows. I was assisted in the ceremony by Mr. Cochran, Mr. Smithurst, and my own Chaplain. My servant, with a gown and staff, acted as verger. Number of Services , and Attendance of the People. We spent, altogether, seventeen days at the Red River Colony, exclusive of the day of our departure; and, during this sojourn, I had the satisfaction, in minis¬ tering among the Congregations, to preach to them, after full and regular service in the Churches, thirteen times, besides five occasions upon which I more familiarly addressed the Candidates for Confirmation, in the preparatory meetings which I have mentioned. My Chaplain, who assisted more or less in all the services, also preached upon three occasions, and I believe with very favourable effect. We V 72 thus met the people, in different bodies, though repeating our ministrations often among the same, twenty-one times in all, and they never failed to shew a forward¬ ness of mind to attend us. The largest Congregation at any of the public services probably amounted to full 500 persons: the smallest did not fall short of 200. The large share which I took myself in preach¬ ing was dictated by a desire, felt on all hands, that the people should be brought in contact as much as possible with the Episcopal functions; which, with very few exceptions, were wholly new to them all. Heasons for not proceeding to Cumberland . Having accomplished the visit to the Red River, and finding myself fairly in the Territory, I should have proceeded, at whatever hazard of certain inconveniences, of different kinds, which would have followed from my detention, to visit the 73 Station of Mr. Budd, the Catechist at Cumberland, had I found that there would be any object gained by my doing so. But the Missionaries wholly dissuaded me from the enterprize, upon the ground that the Indians would be away, at that particular season, from the spot. I saw a long letter from Mr. Budd to Mr. Smithurst, who, as the Society are aware, periodically visits the Station. It was creditable, and in¬ teresting as a specimen of the performance of a pure Indian educated in the Society^ Schools in the Territory. I think it is in some measure to be regretted, although it may seem but a trifle, that European surnames have been given to the baptized Indians. The retention of their original names, with the Christian name as a prefix in each case, would have served as a constant mark and memento of their having been gathered, with their posterity as a consequence, into the bosom of the Church of God from a state of heathenism $ 74 and wherever an individual is made pro¬ minent as a Clergyman,^ a Catechist, or a Schoolmaster, or a helper, in any way, of the cause, an increased interest would be communicated to the report of his pro¬ ceedings at home—as in the case of some Oriental converts — if he were noticed under his Indian appellation. Hough Sketch of the Colony or Settlement of the Red River. The Colony or Settlement of the Red River — respecting the origin, formation, and early history of which it is quite superfluous that I should say anything here beyond a passing remark, that it affords a wonderfully striking example of good brought by the hand of God out of evil—extends upwards of fifty miles, taking its commencing point at the Indian Church, and pursuing it to either of its terminations above the junction of the Assiniboin, or 75 Stone River, with, the stream which gives name to the Colony. From what cir¬ cumstance the stream itself derives the name is one of those points respecting which Grammatici certant — if the investi¬ gators in this case may be so described —et adliuc sub judice lis est. It has been stated to some of the Missionaries, that the Red Lake, with which it is connected, lying within the limits of the United States, is so called from having been dyed, in a memorable battle among the Indians, with human blood, and that the name has naturally communicated itself to the River. But I have been assured, by some well informed persons, that it is derived from a reddish earth in the higher parts of the River, which gives a tinge to the waters. There are small and obscure rivers in Canada bearing also the name of La Riviere Rouge . In that part of it which flows through the Colony, the River is of a dull appearance, by no means remarkable 76 for clearness, and partaking of the colour of common clay. The Roman Catholic Settlement, which is perfectly distinct from the Protestant, commences just at the point where the two rivers meet, and runs up each of them for a considerable distance. The country is all level, forming, in fact, the commencement of the Prairies; but it was, in part at least, well wooded upon the banks of the river when the Settle¬ ment was formed.* In passing down by water from the Forts to the Indian Settle- ment, you find it still over-hung in places by well-grown and handsome trees, principally elms, springing from rich green banks, fringed by a full and rounded foliage * ^ very fine grove of oaks is remembered upon a now naked point, at the mouth of the Assiniboin, the site of what is called the Old Fort, near the modern structures which have supplied its place. Sugar-maples were also known in the neighbourhood. of shrubs, and these garnished by the intermixture, in vast profusion, of wild roses in bloom, when we saw them. There is an equal profusion of large yellow specimens of the Lady’s Slipper — Cyprepe- dium jlavescens —scattered oyer the even surface of the plain above and below the Lower Fort, and in the same neighbourhood there are other wild flowers, which make a considerable show. This part of the plain is checquered by a small growth of trees and bushes: higher up, as you approach the Upper Church, you have to your right a boundless and open expanse of level green. The country having this character, an over¬ flow of the waters must of course, if it once take place, extend itself far and wide without check, and there was a memorable inundation about eighteen years ago, in which it could not certainly be said that the people drove their cattle altos visere monies; but they had recourse, both for themselves and their cattle, to whatever 78 trifling eminence was within their reach: and, from the manner in which they still refer to this visitation, they would be sup¬ posed to be a race of still-surviving ante¬ diluvians, since they speak familiarly of things which happened a year before the flood, or just at the time of the flood, and so forth. The open level country extends, in one direction, all the way to St. Peter’s on the Missouri, and you may drive a waggon without impediment for hundreds of miles till you reach that place, where you fall at once into a line of American steamers, and have every facility of tra¬ velling onwards to any part of the United States or to Canada. This is the route by which Mr. Thomas Simpson, the unfor¬ tunate but gifted discoverer of the Arctic passage, was proceeding homeward when he met with his death — an occurrence shrouded in mystery and uncertainty. The Roman Catholic Bishop of the Red River, also, has gone to Europe by that route. It 79 is necessary, however, that the traveller should be one of a sufficiently strong and well-armed party, the vast open wilds which are to be passed being frequented by Tribes of a fierce character. The Four Churches . Along the strip of Settlement which occupies, with interruptions, the opposite sides of the river, the four English Churches are situated. The Indian Church is about thirteen miles below the Lower Church at the Rapids; this again is about six from the Middle Church; and the Middle Church about seven from the Upper. The Indian Church is a wooden building, painted white, fifty feet or upwards in length, with a cupola over the entrance. It has square-topped windows, which, so far, give it an uneccle- siastical appearance. The Lower Church is also of wood, and of the length of fifty feet. I have already had occasion to mention the great insufficiency of this building,* and among other evils thence arising, the School- children are excluded from Church. They have their Sunday exercises in the School- house ; but this is not like the habit of to or shipping the Lord in the great congre¬ gation, and paying their vows in the sight of them that fear Him . The Middle Church, which is not quite completed, and which has been built by the unaided exertions of the Congregation, is an edifice of stone, sixty feet long. The Upper Church, which is also of stone, is ten feet longer, and will accommodate 500 persons. About 400, upon one occasion, met me there. It contains some respectable mural monuments: among others, one which was put up in memory of Mrs. Jones, wife of the gentleman who long laboured as a * This is the Church attended by much the largest of any of the Congregations. It will be observed that out of 846 persons confirmed at the four Churches, 342 were confirmed in this. Missionary of the Society, and is affec¬ tionately remembered upon the spot. None of the Churches have any sort of architec¬ tural pretensions; but the two stone Churches are creditable-looking buildings. Nothing, however, can be more unseemly, more inconvenient, or more at variance with the usages of the Church of England, than the interior arrangements of the Upper and Lower Churches, in which there is no communion-table, and no place reserved for it; and in which, when the Communion is administered, the elements are carried from pew to pew. It was very awkward to manage the Confirmations, and would have been far more so to attempt to hold an Ordination, in either of these Churches. This has been one instance of an undue, and I believe a very mis-calculating, concession to some prejudices but very partially exist¬ ing ; and its chief effect, as I apprehend, has been to augment and to perpetuate the difficulties against which it was intended to 82 provide. A change now would be much more marked than the simple introduction of the English mode of fitting up Churches, when the whole establishment of provision for public worship was something entirely new in the place. Nevertheless, I should not at all despair, from what I saw, of over¬ coming, by degrees, and with judicious management, the difficulties, upon this and similar subjects, which do, in some quarters, exist; and it is certain, that the mass of the people are pre-disposed cordially to acquiesce in the recommendations of the Clergy, and the rules of the Church. In the mean time, the fullest credit must be given to the motives of those excellent persons who were originally concerned in the erection of the Churches here described, and who themselves anticipated certain objec¬ tions, or perhaps yielded some points to others with whom they were associated. The Middle Church has a communion-place, with rails in front of it, although it is placed 83 awkwardly in one of the corners. The Indian Church has the holy table in the centre facing the aisle, with the pulpit at one side, and the desk at the other to cor¬ respond to it. The Missionaries. The labours which Mr. Cockran went through in planting, cherishing, and watch¬ ing over the Settlement for which this Church was built, have frequently been mentioned to me among the proofs of his unwearied devotedness and zeal. The roads at that time between the Lower Fort and the Indian Settlement were desperately bad, and often and often did he pass through them, up and down, in the hottest weathej of summer, and in the height of the season for flies and musquitoes, which abound in the newly-opened woods, making forced marches to fulfil the duties lying upon him in his more immediate charge, thirteen miles off, 84 s and at the same time to establish the Natives, as a great and most happy, but in the first instance most arduous, experi¬ ment, in settled habitations, and in a com¬ pact civilized community, as tillers of the soil. They had every thing to learn in every way, and they learned every thing from him. They were moulded by his indefatigable hand, and his task was one in which nothing but prayer and faith could carry him through. His conspicu¬ ous disinterestedness and his ready bene¬ ficence, of which many examples have been mentioned to me by respectable Factors of the Company and other persons, were greatly instrumental in advancing his suc¬ cess. He is one, in the fullest sense, willing to spend and to he spent. And I grieve to say that he is, in a measure, spent; for his exertions have visibly im¬ paired his constitution. It must, however, be a great satisfaction to his mind to see how this labour has been prospered, and to witness how admirably the work which he put in train has been followed up by the Missionary now in charge upon the spot. Of the aspect of that charge, as now resting in the hands of Mr. Smithurst, I have before had occasion to speak. The Indians of all ages attend him every even¬ ing in the School-house for religious in¬ struction. The Missionaries have of course them¬ selves informed the Society of the division of labour established in the Churches above, between Mr. Cockran and Mr. Me Allum. The Schools . The Schools form another important feature in the operations of the Society. My hands were too full, and my time too incessantly taken up, to admit of my be¬ stowing upon them any very close exami¬ nation. I inspected, in a general way, the School at the Indian Settlement, where I ■ 86 have already mentioned the number of Sunday scholars; but I could not do even this when I was at the Lower and Middle Churches. I had some conversation, how¬ ever, with the teachers, and I am fully under the impression that they do justice to their charge. At the Lower Church, on a Sunday afternoon, I delivered an address, at the instance of Mr. Cockran, to about a hundred children of the Sunday-school, adapted to the level of their capacities. The Boarding School, one of a superior order, close to the Upper Church, having a separate department for each sex—which was originally established under the auspices of the Society, and is now conducted by Mr. Me Allum, on his own account, with the help of an allowance from the Company—is really a nice establishment, and the premises attached to it have more neatness and finish than is common in young and remote settle¬ ments. The youths have a separate garden for their own amusement. I have had many detached opportunities of seeing good fruits produced by these different Schools. Mr. Me. Allum’s School has fallen off in numbers; but not more, probably, than may be accounted for by the excess of demand for education, in the early stage of its establishment, among that class of persons for whom it was designed ; many of the gentlemen of the Company, within the Territory, having been prompted to avail themselves of the opportunity for getting their Half-breed children instructed who had passed the usual age of attending School. Hospitalities experienced\ During my stay at the Red River, my time, of course was spent much with the Clergy, and I was largely indebted to their hospitable and brotherly attentions ; perhaps I should rather say filial, if I should describe 88 accurately the affectionate respect and con¬ sideration which they manifested toward the Bishop who came to see them. I passed four or five days, in two different visits, under the roof of Mr. Smithurst. I was received in the same way by Mr. and Mrs. Cockran ; but Mr. Manning was more with them than I was, for, after leaving the Indian Settlement, it was arranged that I should myself take advantage of the hospitality of the gentlemen at the Forts, to make my head-quarters there, although I was also most kindly entertained and lodged for a couple of nights by Mr. and . Mrs. Bird— both English persons, who have a very neat little establishment, and a nice farm, near the Middle Church—besides being a guest once or twice at the table of the Rev. A. Cowley, and that of the Rev. J. Me Allum. With these exceptions, my time was divided between the Lower and Upper Forts. The statement of these particulars may appear trivially minute. But all, even the 89 lesser and ordinary demonstrations of kindly feeling which I met with, are valued in my recollection, and I wish to give them a place in the record of my doings at the 11 ed River, that, so far as it may be known, they may be noticed too. Society of the Red River . I had, at the Forts, the command of horses for my daily movements, and every accommodation afforded to me within, and every facility abroad, which I could require; all done with the most cheerful kindness in the world. At the Lower Fort, I was the guest of Mr. and Mrs. Finlayson, who were in temporary occupation, being en route for La Chine, where Mr. Finlayson had been appointed to the charge of the depot. He had just retired from the appointment of Governor of Assiniboia, for so the Chief Factor is styled—in an instrument with the Company’s Seal attached to it—who has 90 charge within the Red River Colony in the Territory. He was succeeded by Mr. Christie, who had just taken possession at the Upper Fort, where the residence of the Governor is made. Mrs. Finlay son, a lady from England, is sister to Lady Simpson, and cousin to Sir George. Mr. and Mrs. Christie have a daughter, who had just re¬ turned from England, where she had passed some years in completing her education. Mr. Thom, the Recorder of the Territory, an exceedingly able man, possessing a varied range of information, and deeply engaged, latterly, in biblical studies, has apartments, with his lady and children, within the Lower Fort. There are scattered about the Settle¬ ment several respectable retired Factors or Traders of the Company, of whom Mr. Bird is one ; some married to European, more to Na¬ tive wives. At this date, I imagine that in the majority of instances the original connexion has been that of a marriage regularly solemn¬ ized. One of the many blessings introduced 91 by the Church Missionary Society into this region* is the correction of those irregularities which* with all their long train of mischiefs to the community* flowed from the absence of means for the celebration of matrimony. I was made acquainted with an old gentle¬ man of the name of Bunn* now verging upon that period when the strength of man is but labour and sorrow * who was the first in the Territory to set the example of marry¬ ing the Indian woman who had lived with him as his wife. It is but justice to say that I believe many of the gentlemen* who had formed these connexions* considered themselves as solemnly bound to the wo¬ men* and only waited for an opportunity to be married. They also recognized and reared the children as their own legitimate representatives. What I have here stated may give an idea of the society at the Red River. Al¬ though the style of the establishments at the Forts is exceedingly plain, and the extreme difficulty of transport, as well as the isolated character and remote situation of the place itself, cause a variety of articles to be dis¬ pensed with to which some of the inmates— Mrs. Finlayson, for example—have been elsewhere accustomed; yet there is far from a deficiency there to be witnessed, either of comforts or of habits of refinement. Din¬ ners were given at both Forts, in compli¬ ment to myself, to which the Clergy, the Recorder, and the Physician, who has an allowance from the Company, were invited. The Forts . The Forts at the Red River are better entitled to the appellation than the posts which we had seen on the route. The Lower Fort comprehends a square space, I believe, of nearly four acres within the walls; which are built of a white-looking stone found at a particular spot in the banks of the river, and are pierced all round for small arms* At each of the four corners is a small round bastion, pierced for cannon, and surmounted by a pointed and conical roof Within the enclosure are the dwell¬ ing-house, the stores, workshops, and other buildings, detached from each other. The Upper Fort is upon the same plan; but the area within the walls is very much smaller. The Forts are about twenty miles apart, the road between them being a dead level the whole way, The Lower Fort is about eight miles above the Indian Church, on the opposite side of the river. The Upper stands at the confluence of the Red River and the Assiniboin, nearly facing the principal Roman Catholic Church, and the residence of the Bishop attached to it: he came to see me at the Fort, and I, of course, returned the courtesy of his visit. The warlike guise of these establishments serves rather as a demonstration of power than an actual military defence, and since their erection, which is much posterior to 94 the junction of the North West with the Hudson’s Bay Company, and the consequent cessation of such hostilities as had before been witnessed in these wilds, I am not aware that a shot has ever been fired from their walls. There is an old block-house near the Upper Fort, and the buildings close by, which are called the Old Fort, are inhabited by a respectable family. The Forts which have been now constructed would afford the means, however, of gather¬ ing in the surrounding population in the event of any disturbance, or any irruption from abroad. The Peltries. I visited the stores, and saw some spe¬ cimens of the peltries. These consist of four different kinds of bear; about half- a-dozen kinds of fox, of which the silver is the most precious, but of which I was 95 surprised to learn that some different kinds* are found in the same litter; beaver; martin; otter; wolf; carcajou, the wolverine or glut¬ ton, which is much in request as a pendent cariole-robe in Canada; fisher; lynx, or loup cervier; musk-rat, of which only the larger specimens are taken; besides the seal from the Pacific, which is there killed with clubs upon the rocks; and the buf¬ falo, of which eight or ten thousand skins, better known by the names of robes, are annually exported from Hudson’s Bay. This is not a profitable branch of the trade, although the demand in the North American Colonies, for which the robes are re-shipped in England, must be immense ; * — As the kinds are denominated by colour. The red, the cross, the silver, and the black, appear to be varieties of colour only, and, as is here said, are found in the same litter. There are, besides these, the blue fox, a smaller blue, found in the Prairies, and a white. I 111 since every man within those limits, who owns a horse, has at least one buffalo- robe for his sleigh or cariole. Indians have been known in possession of white buffalo skins; but these are like the black swan of old, and, in the particular instance mentioned to me, the owner refused to part with it for any price, saying that he had given a first rate horse for it, and that it was a great medicine (charm). A.n inferior kind of ermine, which I suppose to be the stoat* was formerly one of the exports; but this has been discarded as unprofitable, the last consignments not having produced more than two-pence per dozen. I believe I stated, in my last letter, that four kinds of wild swan are * The stoat and the ermine, I believe, are the same animal; the name of ermine being given to it when, in snowy climates, it becomes, like the hare and the ptarmigan, white during the winter months ; hut it appears to he a coarser variety which is found in the Territory. 97 found within the Territory; but I spoke from memory, and my notes mention only three, the largest of which has a black, while the others have red bills. The skins are exported on account of the down. The skin of the musk-bull, taken near the Polar Sea, is not an article of trade; although, if the account given by Bewick be cor¬ rect, it is valuable for more than one purpose. Some other Statistical Particulars. The whole population of the Red River Settlement, according to a Census with which I was obligingly furnished, is 5143: of which number 2798 are Roman Catho¬ lics, and 2345 are Protestants. No Pro¬ testant worship, except that of the Church of England, has ever been established among the people. The heads of families are 870; of whom 571 are Indians or Half-breeds, Natives of the Territory; 152 H 98 Canadians; 61 Orkneymen; 49 Scotchmen; 22 Englishmen; 5 Irishmen ; and 2 Swiss. Wales, Italy, Norway, Denmark, Germany, Poland, and the United States of America, have each contributed one to the list. There is also one Esquimaux Indian. There are 730 dwelling-houses ; 1219 barns or stables ; 18 windmills; and 1 watermill. From the level character of the country, it may be conceived that there is not much facility for the operations of the latter kind of con struction. There are 821 horses; 749 mares; 107 hulls; 2207 cows; 1580 calves; 1976 pigs; and 3569 sheep. These par- itculars were taken in March 1843. The soil, which is alluvial, is beyond example rich and productive, and withal so easily worked, that although it does not quite come up to the description of the happy islands —reddit ubi Cererem tellus inarata quotannis —there is an instance, as I was assured, of a farm in which the owner, with comparatively slight labour in the 99 preparatory processes, had taken a wheat- crop out of the same land for eighteen successive years—never changing the crop never manuring the land, and never suf¬ fering it to He fallow—and that the crop was abundant to the last. And with res¬ pect to pasture and hay, they are to be had, ad libitum, as nature gives them in the open plains. The Company dispose of their land upon Hberal terms, with a frontage along the river, and I think the uniform depth of a mile, with an under¬ standing that, till further arrangements take place, another mile is at the disposal of the owner for any benefits which he can derive from it. I speak from memory. It is only a small portion of the farms, next the river, that is ever seen enclosed. The people revel in abundance; but it is all for home consumption: they have no outlet, no market for their produce. The hberahty of the Company is also evinced in their permitting private traders to im- port goods in the Company’s ships, although they, the Company, have stores of their own within the Forts, in which articles of the same description are for sale. All these articles are brought across from Hudsons Bay, a distance of several hundred miles, in boats; and these boats are drawn across the different Portages upon rollers, or, in some places, carried upon waggons. Hence, those articles which are of a heavy des¬ cription are charged at a price seemingly out of all proportion to that of many others, which may be obtained at a moderate rate. A common grinding-stone is sold for twenty shillings sterling. The Company, who by their Charter have the privilege of issuing money, transact all their pecu¬ niary concerns in British sterling, which differs considerably, as is well known, from the currency received in the North American Colonies of the Crown, hheii issue of paper is in three denominations, the highest of which is one pound; and 101 the three are distinguished from each other, for the convenience of the Natives, by the different colours of the ink—red, blue, and black. The boat has been now sub¬ stituted for the canoe upon all the lines of route on which the operations of the Company are regularly conducted, except on that which leads into Canada. The country in this direction is not of such a nature as to admit of introducing the roller or the waggon upon the Portages. At the Red River, and on Lake Superior, there may be seen, in the service of the Company, small decked sailing-vessels which ply between the posts. The num¬ ber of bark and wooden canoes, kept for one purpose or other by the inhabitants of the Red River, is 410. In the palmy days of the North West Company, when the peltries, now sent home by Hudson’s Bay, were taken down to be shipped at Montreal, the brigades of canoes amounted sometimes to forty in the season. The name of brigade is still given to the two or three loaded canoes which start yearly from La Chine for the Red River; but the voyageur’s occupation is almost gone. The Buffalo Hunt . Notwithstanding the want of market for their produce, it is the opinion of the Missionaries, confirmed by that of several intelligent gentlemen of the Company with whom I have conversed, that it would be far more for the advantage of the Red River population to labour uninterruptedly upon their farms than to pursue, as a large proportion of them do, during the summer, the chace of the buffalo, with all its exciting scenes and ever-shifting alternations, which not only calls them away from their homes and their ordinary labours; but tends to give them a disrelish for habits of steady industry. The time is remembered, when the buffalo was seen at the Red River 103 itself; but the herds have further and fur¬ ther receded, and the hunting parties are now known to be drawn sometimes 200 miles from home. The Red River pours forth, as the expeditions have been described to me, about 800 hunters, with a long train of women and children in as many carts: these carts are so arranged, when they stop, as to encircle and fence in the party: if their stop is prolonged, they pitch their tents. The appearance is that of a little army with its camp-followers; and those who are engaged in the warfare, who are all, or almost all. Half-breeds, are among the most fearless, active, and alert of mankind— admirably skilled as marksmen and in horsemanship, and wonderfully adroit and prompt, as well as self-possessed, in their manoeuvres, without which they would, in the melee , be perpetually liable to shoot one another. The powder-horn and the fire-bag, in which the shot is carried loose, are slung upon belts crossing each other upon the breast: a ball is put into the mouth, in preparation for loading, and the powder is measured in the hollow of the palm: no wadding is made use of; and in this way they load and re-load, foe and fire again, at full speed on horseback. The object of all this preparation, and all these adventures, is not to obtain the furs, or robes—for the hair is short at this sea¬ son, and all the robes are brought in by Indians, who hunt the wood-buffalo in the winter : the Prairie hunters dress the hides for their own use; and, among other pur¬ poses, they convert them into the cover¬ ing of their tents; but the prizes which prompt the expedition are the meat and the tallow. Each cart brings back, upon an average, about ten carcases, reduced to the different preparations of the flesh and fat here described. The women who accompany them prepare the dried meat, which is cut in long slices from the ribs, and make the pemmican; which is meat 105 cut from the more fleshy parts, and pounded with a mixture of tallow. By these two processes they have meat in different forms, which is preserved without being salted; but they also make large quantities of tallow separately, which is done up in bags of buffalo skins with the hair upon them, in form not unlike a common travelling- bag. Of these the Company takes a large portion off their hands; but more for the sake of affording profit to the people than for that of any benefit to its own trade. They are often improvident and backward in turning to account the resources of their land. The Protestant part of the Settle¬ ment sends out far fewer hunters than the Roman Catholic, and is, in all respects, more marked by the steady and correct habits of its population. The late Mr. Simpson, in his lively and remarkably well-written Journal, attributes, if I re¬ member, this difference, which is confess¬ ed, to the mercurial temperament of the French, whose blood enters largely into the composition of the Romish population. But I most firmly believe, that the advan¬ tage on our side is to be accounted for from the different genius of the two systems of faith; and, what is evidently not separate from this, the assiduous pains taken by our Missionaries to mould the people to habits of order, industry, and civilized regularity, in common life. I do not deny, however, that there may be ex¬ amples in the world of Protestant failure in cases of this nature, as well as of Romish success. Strength and Dexterity of the Natives . The Half-breeds, however, in those phy¬ sical qualities and feats of skill which pro¬ voke our admiration, do not appear to have gained upon the Indians whose blood is mixed in their veins. I have been assured, by one of the most respectable Factors, that ! - ,.ilKCTS V 11 — yy 107 he has seen an Indian pierce an inch plank with an unbarbed arrowy shot from his bow, the mere wooden point passing through and protruding on the other side. And as an example of dexterity of hand, and correct¬ ness of eye, the same Factor told me that he had seen one of these people, I think at a distance of 150 yards, send his arrow clear through a loop-hole in the wall of the Fort, three times out of four. Hardships and Adventures of European Inhabitants. The Factors and Traders themselves have many a tale to tell of severe endurance in their own persons, hair-breadth escapes, and perilous exploits. There is one old gentleman in the Settlement, who states, among a variety of other incidents, that he was once reduced, when separated from his party and lost, to seek subsistence by eating live frogs, or fishing for minnow by 108 means of a fragment of the buckle of his hat attached to a hair drawn from his head. There is possibly a little imagination which lends its aid to heighten some of these tales, and I forbear from pursuing them. It may not, however, be uninteresting to mention that we paid a visit to Mr. Ross, one of the survivors of the crew of the Tonquin, who happened to be on shore when she was blown up by her desperate and obstinate Commander. We read the ac¬ count of that awful catastrophe in Wasliing- ton Irvine’s Astoria, which, with some other historical works on the regions frequented by the fur-traders, and which I had never read before, were lent to us at some of the Forts to occupy a portion of our long days in the canoe, and to give us opportunity of comparison with our own observation and experience, so far as they went. Mr. Ross is mentioned by name in Irvine’s book. I am ashamed of the length to which this Letter has run in rendering details which 109 have no direct connexion with the great object of my journey. I have selected here and there, from the rough notes of which my Journal is composed, some matters of miscellaneous information, contained in an abbreviated mode of expression, within the compass of a very few short lines, which I thought might diversify and enliven my descriptions, and render them more attrac¬ tive to general readers—if destined to reach any such—as well as to convey to the Committee more clear and full ideas of the state and characteristic features of the community in its different divisions, and the whole condition of the country, in the bearing of these points upon the exertions of the Society. But in doing this, perhaps because I have wanted the skill of com¬ pression, I have found my matter expand itself far indeed beyond my own anticipa¬ tions. And being now—on the 8th of December—under the necessity of closing my Letter, I shall yet once more have to 110 trespass upon a patience on which I have already drawn with some freedom: for there are words which, if it please God, I have yet to utter: there are impressions, produced by the things which I have seen and heard , which I cannot but speak — things which stirred my spirit within me , and must prompt me to raise one poor feeble voice, that, if nothing more can be done by the Church for the spiritual interests of Prince Rupert’s Land, I may at least stand ac¬ quitted to my own conscience by having made the appeal. I am, Reverend Sir, Your very faithful humble Servant, G. J. Montreal. LETTER III. SOME ACCOUNT OF THE INDIAN POPULATION OF THE FUR COUNTRY, THEIR MORAL AND GENERAL CONDITION, AND THEIR SUPERSTITIONS; WITH AN APPEAL TO THE RELIGIOUS SYMPATHIES OF GREAT BRITAIN ON THEIR BEHALF. Parting at the Indian Settlement — Indian Work and Draicings. Quebec , Dec . 16, 1844. Rev. and Dear Sir, My labours being brought to a close at the Red River, I prepared, on the 10th of July, to embark with my party in the canoes, and took a final leave of my friends. The kind addresses which I separately received from my brethren of the Clergy, from the Protestant inhabitants generally, and from the Congregation of the Indian Church, 112 respecting which last it is pleasing to know that it was a spontaneous act, unsug¬ gested and unaided, was communicated to the Society in my Letter to you of the 27th of August, announcing my return to Quebec. The three Clergymen from above had come down to Mr. Smithurst’s to bid me and my Chaplain farewell; and we parted with many mutual expressions of regard, and fervent invocations of blessing. The fore- part of the day was occupied in packing up the presents with which we had been loaded by our different friends, consisting of specimens of Indian workman¬ ship, or other characteristic mementos of the Territory, which were put into a large box made for the purpose, and formed no trifling addition to the amount of baggage which was to be carried across the portages. Several Indian women were busy, up to the last moment, in finishing some trifling token of remembrance which they were anxious to put into our hands. They work 113 beautifully in bead-work, or embroidery with silk, or with the dyed hair of the moose, and with dyed porcupine quills. Fire-bags, leggings, belts for the fire-bag and powder-horn, all made of cloth, moc¬ casins of moose-skin, mittens and gloves of the same, or other soft leather, with baskets and boxes of bark, are the most common articles upon which they employ their orna¬ mental skill; and their sprigs, and other decorative devices, are executed not only with great accuracy, but often with a tasteful effect. Ihe fire-bags, which are sometimes of leather and trimmed with fur, are usually very richly and minutely wrought, and finished at the edge with a showy fringe. The beauty, nicety, and correctness of the fancy-work executed by the women, contrasts strangely with, the extreme rudeness of performance which I have seen when a delineation of natural or artificial objects is attempted in colours. I have in my possession a whole buffalo-robe, the i inner side of which is daubed all over with representations of human figures, some of them on horse-back, fire-locks and other im¬ plements interspersed, with marks or de¬ vices arbitrarily representing bodies of men in battle array, or other combinations of objects, the whole precisely resembling the first attempts at drawing made by a young and untaught child; a specimen of which is introduced in one of Wilkie's celebrated pictures. The gentleman—one of the Chief Factors—who made me a present of this robe, appeared to think that it was designed to exhibit a complete history of the exploits of the wearer, for these robes are thrown over the shoulders as a cloak. This specimen was procured from one of the Black feet Indians. Along the middle, from one end to the other, is a narrow strip of stained quill-work, with circles, at intervals, of the same material. A representation of the same sort of thing may be seen in Catlin’s book. These uncouth delineations are, I apprehend, the work of the men; but not so the quill-work. I do not know whether the Indians who are rather more in contact with the Whites, and nearer to the borders of civilization, imbibe thence a better use of the hand and eye in their copies from nature ; but along the shores of Lake Superior, and in some other parts of the route, we had observed drawings upon the face of the rocks, usually in places only acces¬ sible to very expert climbers, and this done perhaps in a spirit of pride and challenge, of various domestic animals, long-necked aquatic birds, schooners, and canoes, the canoes sometimes full of men, which, at the distance from which we saw them, appeared to exhibit a tolerably correct outline. They are made by scraping away the incrustations formed upon the surface of the rock, and leaving the lighter colour underneath; and in some places are very conspicuous objects to the eye. Departure. The last act of devotion in which we 116 united with the Indians had been on the evening of the day before, in the School- house, after the Confirmation held in the morning in the Church. They attend Mr. Smithurst every week-day evening in this way, to receive religious instruction of a familiar kind, in conjunction with which some prayers from the Liturgy are offered, and Psalms are sung. He never opens his Church except for full and regular service. These people, with whose aged Chief and his wife I had had a special interview by their own desire, now gathered around us, in front of the little Parsonage, by the river-side, men, women, and chil¬ dren, to bid us adieu at the moment of our embarkation. One woman, with the peculiar modesty of manner which I have before described, presented me, just as I was stepping into the canoe, with a simple bark basket of her own workmanship. An¬ other was present who had recently become a Convert, and had been baptized, on the evening before her Confirmation, by Mr. Maning. Mr. Smithurst accompanied us down to the mouth of the river, his own boat attending to take him back. I had great cause of thankfulness in being enabled to bring away Mr. Maning without delay ; for he had met with an accident the day before, which seemed to threaten either a most inconvenient detention, or the necessity of my leaving him to come down when the season should open again in the Spring. In stepping backward, he fell down a trap-door opening into the cellar, in the floor of one of Mr. Smithurst’s rooms. The jar of this fall was very severe, and shook his whole nervous system in a manner of which the symptoms were very distressing. We had to send about twenty miles for the Medical Gentleman in the service of the Company, who at once pro¬ nounced that Mr. Maning would be able to travel the next day, and used measures which, by the blessing of God, were found to verify his augury. Climate of the Red River . Having spoken of the opening of the season, I will here mention that, at the Red River itself, the climate, from all that I could gather, appears not materially to differ from that of Quebec. The “ sleighing” appears to be of much the same duration. The cold is probably a little more severe; for it occurs more frequently, according to the information given to me, that the mer¬ cury freezes in the thermometer. This has occurred at Quebec, I think about three times within the memory of living man. I do not think that at either place the power of frost has ever been known to descend much below that point, if at all.* * In a subsequent Letter, Jan. 16, 1845, the Bishop writes—“ In speaking of the climate at the Red River, comparatively with that of Quebec, I have probably underrated the degree of cold experienced in winter, at the former 119 In the regions further North, some of the Fur-traders have told me, in accordance with the accounts of Arctic explorers, that the spirit thermometer has indicated an approach to 60° below zero, by Fahrenheit. The winds which sweep over the open and level prairie at the Red River, are described as intensely cold and cutting in severe weather. During our stay, with the interruption of some hard showers, we had a delightful time: the season how¬ ever, was said to be unusually cool. On the way back it occurred, I think, only a couple of times, and that only during the height of the day, that we felt glad to raise the umbrella to shade ourselves from the sun glaring on the water. place. Mr. Maning received information that the temperature had been known to stand there at 52° below zero by the spirit ther¬ mometer : and that it descended as low as 40° more often than I supposed. I have still some doubt of the former of these two statements.” m I gave, in my first Letter, an account of what was most remarkable on the route, both up and down; but I may add here one or two circumstances which occurred upon our return, and which I did not then notice. Some incidents of the Route , before omitted . We overtook, at the Rainy Lake Fort, where we passed a night, a gentleman who has been established for a great number of years far on the other side of the Rocky Mountains, and is now one of the principal Factors of the Company. He was proceeding from that remote quarter to Canada, and had under his charge a couple of youths, the sons of another Factor, whom he was to place at School. There were also passengers with him, an elderly couple, decent sort of people, and he had, in this part of the route, two canoes like our own. But he had other companions, also, of a different cast; and the footing upon which they were with the rest, afforded a striking evidence of the strange state of society in some parts of the Ameri¬ can wilderness, and might serve as a check to the romance of feeling which is fasci¬ nated by the adventures and varieties of a half-Indian life, and attaches the idea of comparative insipidity to the settled habits of order and civilization. Two most atrocious criminals, who had, in a state of exasperation, murdered one of the Factors, in a very savage and barbarous manner, were placed in charge of this gentleman, professedly to be brought down to Canada for trial. The crime had been committed at one of the posts established in a portion of territory belonging to Russia, and held under lease from the Government of that country, by the Company. The nearest Russian authorities, it appears, refused to have any thing to do with the case, and as it would have been of mischievous conse- 122 quence to leave the perpetrators of this act of blood at large in the country where it occurred, matters were so managed as to send them off as prisoners to Canada. They were, however, when we saw them, perfectly at liberty; nor was there any thing, either in their deportment or in the state of relations appearing to subsist between themselves and their companions, which could indicate the character in which they were travelling. The party left the Fort in the morning, as usual, with song; and the two murderers, with all the nonchalance in the world, occupied their seats and handled their paddles, without any dis¬ tinction, as part of the crew, and joined in the cheerful chorus with which they started, nearly in company with ourselves. One of them was a French Canadian; the other, an Iroquois Indian. There is an act of the British Parliament which con¬ fers criminal jurisdiction over the Hudson’s Bay Territory upon the Canadian Courts 123 of Justice; but this crime haying been committed in Russian Territory it must probably have been sufficiently understood, perhaps by all parties, that these Courts could not be competent to try it. The men, in any case, could easily escape into the United States upon reaching the Saut Sante Marie . I met one of them, however, after my return, walking quietly and composedly through the village street of La Chine . Acts of violence committed upon the persons of the Factors or Traders of the Company must, I apprehend, be of ex¬ ceedingly rare occurrence. As far as I had opportunities of knowing, the general system pursued at the Forts, with reference to the treatment of the people employed, is such as to gain their attachment. And the Indian hangers-on, in seasons of want, draw largely upon the charity of these establishments. Kindness, united with firmness and decision, appears to be the secret of governing mankind throughout 124 the world, ill as it is understood in too large a portion of it. But where the spirit of Christian love, and a conscientious ad¬ herence to principle^ prevail, there the qualities before mentioned appear under a sanctified aspect; and it is then that they effectually promote the happiness and well¬ being of a community. Blessed are they who soiv beside all waters the seeds of such heavenly improvement in this world of sin and strife ! In descending the Ottawa, our guide, with more than half the crew, were, upon one occasion, in most imminent peril of their lives, and had a truly merciful deliver¬ ance. It was at one of the spots where slides are in process of construction by the Government, under a considerable grant of money from the Provincial Parliament, for the passage of timber. We had left the canoe, and, with part of the crew, had betaken ourselves for the night to a log¬ building put up by some Irish people em- 125 ployed about the slide, and situated at some distance. The canoe was to come round to us in the morning, having first a bad Rapid to shoot. The guide was perfectly at home in all the Rapids; but the slide, which had been constructed since we passed up, had forced the waters into new courses, and he was consequently at a fault. They were whirled in the arms of danger to seeming death: they were rapidly filling with water: the men were alarmed, and one cried this thing, and another that, their presence of mind beginning to forsake them all, except the guide. “ Nagez” said he, in a tone of stern command; “nagez: ne parlez pas” They obeyed: made a last desperate effort with their paddles, and gained a sort of little recess where the waters were comparatively quiet. As soon as they got safe on shore, they all fell upon their knees and performed their devotions _an example to better instructed persons, and professors of a more enlightened 126 system of faith. We were detained seve¬ ral hours for the repair of the canoe, and for drying the articles of baggage which had been left in it. In the course of the downward voyage, we lost two half days in mending our frail vessel. Return to La Chine . We reached La Chine toward the close of a fine day, on the 14th of August, and came in with song. The sound of the voices is cheerful, and gives life to the strokes of the paddle, urging the canoe with a rushing sound through the water, on which the old Norman airs of the voyageurs float, like the chimes of Church bells. But far other song* had I cause at the close of this *The songs are not profane or licentious — that, of course, would not have been suffered, even if there had been, which I had no reason whatever to suppose, any habit or disposition of the kind in the singers ; but they are light *-——-pa L y 127 journey to raise in my heart, even a song of thanksgiving unto my God, after having been permitted to visit those remote esta¬ blishments of the Church—to comfort the hearts of those faithful Missionaries—to dispense ministrations urgently needed, for which no provision exists within reach— and, may I dare to hope it, to give an impulse to endeavours which will result in something effectual for the permanent supply of these spiritual wants. To this subject I shall speedily return. I parted at La Chine with Mr. Maning, who, by the way, was once an aspirant to and nonsensical, and sometimes partake of a convivial character. The words, from the manner of singing them, are very imperfectly caught; and, in fact, many of the men them¬ selves seem to catch them from the leader as mere sounds without a meaning, slurring the words together, without attaching to them any definite ideas. The refrain , as in our familiar and childish songs, is often pure nonsense. the service of the Church Missionary So¬ ciety, and was known to the gentlemen presiding over their Institution at Islington; but, with several other young men, I be¬ lieve, about the same time, found the door not opening to him as he expected, and ultimately came out to Canada, where he entered the service of the Society for the Pro¬ pagation of the Gospel, in which he has been a very active and laborious itinerant Missio¬ nary, often enduring hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ . He went with me as a volunteer, his own duties having been provided for in his absence. Indian Population , and Extent of Field for Missionary Exertion . I come now to consider the Territory, and the whole tracts of country traversed by the Company in their operations, and dotted with their widely-severed posts, as presenting a field for the exertions of 129 religious zeal. And the value of whatever I have said respecting secular and temporal thi n gs is, that it may serve the purpose of giving a more palpable form and pres¬ sure, a more human reality, if I may so speak, to the interests of this vast region and its inhabitants, in bringing them before the friends of religion at home; and that it may lend, perchance, more attraction to a story which ought to be listened to, by diversifying its details. The same gentleman to whom I was indebted, as already mentioned, for a copy of the Census taken in the Red River Colony, has most obligingly furnished me with the fullest information which he could prepare, at short notice, respecting the Tribes at large. He states, however, the deficiency of certain data, not at the mo¬ ment at his command, “ without which it is not easy to determine either the number or the territorial limits of a people, in their divisions and subdivisions, whose habits are K constantly erratic in the pursuit of game, which affords the means of their subsist¬ ence.” It appears, also, that the discor¬ dant estimates, even of the oldest and most experienced residents in the Indian country, forbid all idea of arriving at an accurate knowledge of the amount of population, either as a whole or in detail. The Tribes themselves, however, occupying the country East of the Rocky Mountains, and resorting upon occasion to the Company’s Establish¬ ments, may be enumerated and distinguish¬ ed as follows below:— Mackenzie s River District — The Copper Indians: Inhabiting the Country about this River. The Loucheux or Quarrellers : The Hare Indians: The Dog-rib Indians : The Strong-bow Indians : Inhabiting Mackenzie’s River, and its Neighbourhood, and speaking different languages. Athabasca and Isle d la Crosse Districts — The Chipewyans, and a few of the Cree Tribe: Inhabiting the Country surrounding this Lake, and between it and the Isle a la Crosse District. Peace River District — The Beaver Indians, and a few Sauteux from the Rainy Lake : Inhabiting both sides of this River, and speaking a language different from that of the Chipewyans of Athabasca. Upper part of the Saskatchewan District — The Black-feet proper: The Blood Indians : The Piegans: * The Fall Indians: The Surcies : All these five Tribes are generally termed Black-feet, although they speak different languages, and have different customs and manners. * The first syllable is pronounced as in the French word pied. 132 Lower part of the Saskatchewan District The Stone Indians, or Assiniboins : The Crees : The Sauteux, or Ogibwas : These three Tribes are constantly at variance with the Black-feet, and the whole eight depend on the chase for subsistence. They — i. Q. the three Tribes—extend their habitations also to the upper part of Bed River and of Swan River. York Factory , Oxford , Norway House , Cum¬ berland , and lower part of Swan River Dis¬ trict — Mis-Kee-Goose, or Swampy Indians: These also extend along the sea-coast to James’s Bay. They evidently spring from the Crees, as their lan¬ guage is only a dialect of the Cree. There is said to be a mixture of the Sauteux in their origin. * I think I have seen this also written Muskaigos. 133 Churchill District— Esquimaux: Chipewyans, and a few Swamp Indians : Inhabiting the Country to the North of Churchill. These are all the Tribes on the East side of the Rocky Mountains who trade respectively at the posts indicated by italics. The source from which I re* ceived this information is one upon which I feel that I can rely ; and with the exception of the Mackenzie’s River District, respecting which the statements are less positively made, the whole account, I believe, is the result of personal acquaintance with the localities. The Indians in James’s Bay are generally classed with the Mis-Kee-Goose, and inhabit the countries about Albany, Moose, and East Main. Beyond the Rocky Mountains, the Com¬ pany occupy a territory extending from the North branch of the Columbia River to the line of separation from the dominions of 134 Russia, latitude 54° 40* North. These re¬ gions are inhabited by a vast variety of Tribes, speaking different languages, and frequently engaged in war with one another. They are generally considered more natu¬ rally acute than those on the Eastern side of the mountains, and more awake to the desire of instruction ; although it must not be inferred from this remark, that there is any characteristic deficiency in these points gene¬ rally pervading those on the Eastern side. I cannot give particulars. I should have received them from the same highly-intelli- gent and well-informed gentleman to whom I am indebted for the statements made above, if circumstances had not deprived him of access at present to some of his papers. Moral and General Condition of the Indians , and Practical Inferences . Here, then, are seventeen Tribes on the East side of the Rocky Mountains, beside the vast hordes, under manifold names, who range the immense regions lying between those heights and the Pacific Ocean, and are brought into contact with the servants of the Company, far out of its own Terri¬ tories, for purposes of trade—since its opera¬ tions, and its traffic with the Tribes, are pushed, over the surface of the globe, for a wide and long space beyond the limits of its chartered sway. And two questions now present themselves: 1. What is the condi¬ tion of all these nations , and kindreds , and tongues , and people ? 2. What is the duty lying upon the great country—whose in¬ fluence penetrates and pervades these dis¬ tant portions of the earth, and whose own prodigious resources are still swelled by what she draws from them—to meliorate that condition? To which a third may perhaps be added—What is within her power for effecting such melioration ? I need not say much with respect to the first. They are Heathen savages. The con- 136 f- dition and the habits of Heathen savages, I have had occasion to paint in my notice of those specimens with which I was in contact upon my route. But there are aggravated features to be contemplated when we look further into the interior, or follow the inquiry to the more remote rami¬ fications of the trade. Scenes of blood and treachery, from hereditary and cherished feuds; the trophies of the scalping-knife; the exposure of infants; the abandonment of helpless objects, when found burthen- some, to perish in the wilds—these are some of the examples among the Indians of that fierceness and cruelty of nature which has multiplied itself in many forms oyer the earth, since the day when it was said, The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground . The influence of the Company has been exerted, no doubt, suc¬ cessfully to a certain extent, to check some of these practices; and more decisively, I believe, for the discontinuance of certain mm r | 137 horrid barbarities exercised upon the widows of Indian warriors, as an established custom, and upon captive slaves at the will of their masters. But what is this improvement, as far as it goes, but a testimony to the humanizing influences of the Christian reli¬ gion, which, even in its general and indirect operation—i. e. apart from any endeavours to make converts to it, or teach it as a system of faith—engenders an abhorrence of acts like these ? and, consequently, to the un¬ speakably higher advantage of bringing that system to bear in its direct form upon the persons and the hearts of the Indians them¬ selves ? Crimes and atrocities prevail among professed Christians; and there is a remark made by that amiable and engaging writer, the late Mr. T. Simpson, to the effect,* that they need not be hasty to condemn the Indians for practices of a revolting nature which prevail among them, if only they look * I have not his work at hand. at home. But the difference lies in this— that these are practices allowed in the com¬ munity ; not repugnant to public sentiment, nor at variance with any system received as authority in morals. Within the Tribes themselves, there is no counter influence to cure or to repress them. They are found, in fact, incorporated with the sentiments and usages of the people. Superstition of the Indians , and Jugglery of tlieir Conjurors . With reference to the religion of the Indians, if it can be called by that name, it is well known that they believe in a great spirit called Manitou , a word which enters into the composition of many of their names of places; that they are afraid of this spirit, although their fear is not in the slightest degree whatever connected with a discerning sense of moral delin¬ quency; and that they yield an extensive cre¬ dence to the existence of spiritual agency. which they associate with the exercise of necromancy. I cannot find that they have anything which can properly be called worship, either private or public; but I took some pains to possess myself of the practices of their sorcerers, or conjurors, or Medicines, as they call them, and of the notions attached by the people to these performances; especially in a con¬ versation, of perhaps a couple of hours, wfith two intelligent Crees, now sincere Christians, and Communicants of Mr. Smithurst’s Congregation, who had been sorcerers of note in their heathen state, and who made me presents of certain imple ments of the craft—a hideous mis-shapen image, made of painted leather, stuffed, about three feet high ;* a conjuring-rattle; a * A drawing of it is here given. The face is of wood, flat, and without a nose : the eyes are brass studs. The fringe upon the arms and legs is of leather, mixed with small triangular pieces of tin: upon the sides and head, of —i — UR very rudely-executed imitation of a snake, of painted wood; and two small pieces of carved bone; the uses of which will be presently described. Communicating with these men through an interpreter, and with other persons present who might be said perhaps to put leading questions, I may certainly have been led into some mistakes upon lesser points—for I am perfectly aware of the difficulty of being accurate in such cases, and I have received from respectable sources within the Territory very conflicting accounts of many other peculiarities of the Indian beside his superstitions ; but I did my best to sift my information, and wrote down the result of my conversation while it was fresh: I believe, therefore, that I shall state nothing materially incorrect. According to the conclusions of my own mind, there is in these conjurors a great, but leather only. The leather is of moose-skin, and the colouring is laid on in making the image. IMAGE USED BY NORTH-AMERICAN INDIAN - CONJURORS. 141 not an uncommon mixture, of which Mahomed appears to afford one of the most remarkable examples in history, of fanati¬ cism and imposture. The two men with whom I conversed, appear to have been sincere enthusiasts in their function at the time; although, with all this, they unreservedly stated that the conjurors are obviously acted upon by interested motives, since they re¬ ceive largely the rewards of divination and the wages of unrighteousness , beside being considered to be protected against the fatal charms exercised by others of the craft. One of them told me that his father advised him, when a youth, to train himself to become a conjuror, as the best speculation in which he could engage. They say that one man in twenty, some¬ times even one in ten, will be found to have acquired some portion of the art; in which, however, there are many degrees of excellence, and some accomplished pro- 142 fessors have an extraordinary influence and reputation. The preparation for assuming the task is made by fasting in one place and posture, night and day, with the face down to the earth. The ability of the Indian to endure the protracted privation of food is well known; and this they are said, in these voluntary fastings, to extend to eight, ten, or even twelve days. They believe that, during this process, they re¬ ceive communications from the invisible world through the medium of dreams. One of them described to me a huge figure which repeatedly appeared to him in his nocturnal visions, demanding an offering of fat, to be hung upon a certain tree; and his description reminded me of the genii pictured in the Arabian Nights, which I remember reading when a boy. Upon one occasion, this portentous and colossal visitor stood before him, with the tent of the family between his legs. And the effect upon the feelings and imagination 143 of the Indian could not fail to bring to mind the astonishingly sublime and thrilling description found in far different pages, those of the volume of eternal truth itself, in the fourth chapter of Job, 13—16, In the solitude of the night, with the body attenuated by fasting, the tone of the animal spirits consequently lowered, and the mind filled beforehand with ideas of a dark and mysterious agency, it is no wonder if the poor savage beholds awful and repulsive apparitions in his dreams. After having become qualified, by the revelations thus supposed to be imparted to*' him, to assume the office of conjuror, he prepares for any special exercise of his powers, by the erection of a conjuror’s tent or lodge—of which I have seen, in different places on the route, a skeleton or frame—formed of young saplings, or single branches stripped of the leaves and twigs, the whole encircled at intervals by bands or hoops of the same material, and covered f 144 ' with, dressed shins, of considerable height ; but only of a size to admit one man, in a recumbent posture or doubled together. Here they are prostrate, often being put in with their hands and feet tied by hard knots, which they contrive, by some trick, to disengage. AYhile they are lying in the tent, it becomes violently agitated, the top swinging rapidly backward and forward in the view of the spectators on the outside, who also hear a variety of “ strange sounds and voices, unlike the voice of man,”—the responses rendered “within to the conjuror, by his aerial visi¬ tants; after receiving which he supplies news respecting persons and affairs at a great distance. He is also believed to receive the power of inflicting disease and death upon persons some hundred miles off, whether his own enemies or those of his neighbours who have recourse to his magical skill. During the process going on in the conjuring lodge, without boldly 145 looking up, he catches glimpses, in the same plane with the topmost hoop of the lodge, of a number of objects like little stars. The Converts who have formerly been engaged in this craft, do not always shake off every remnant of the old habitual awe attached to their mysteries, and of the strong imaginative fascinations which have acted upon the excited mind. They some¬ times appear to shrink instinctively from the mention of the subject. One of the two whom I have specially mentioned told me that he now knew the power of sorcery to be all worthless falsehood; but that it had formerly had a strong hold upon his mind. Two specimens were given me of the instrument which is sent through the air to carry sickness or death to its appointed mark. They are small pieces of bone, about the length of a man’s thumb, or¬ namentally carved : one of them is sharply pointed at both ends; the other is of an oblong form, with projections £t the corners. L f 146 The Indians believe that it actually enters the person of the victim by an invisible aperture, after which, it was stated by one of my informants, that it returns through the air to the conjuror. The bone-imple- ments were sent to me after the close ol my interview with the ci-devant conjurors, and the explanations relating to them were given by other parties. I have found very similar superstitions still lin¬ gering among the Indians of Lorette, near Quebec, although they were settled in a vil¬ lage, as Roman Catholics, before the English conquest of Canada, and are now a race of mixed blood, whose language, in another generation, will be exclusively French. The sufferer who has been struck can only be dis-enchanted by another conjuror, and it is for this process that the aid of the conjuror is perhaps most frequently invoked. Being sent for when a member of a family is seriously ill, he comes with his rattle into the tent. The rattle has a resem- NORTH-AMSRICAN INDIAN CONJURING RATTLE. Xi •. to a. battledore, except that it i f • roe'id, and has a very short hs'ifUe. It is about a foot f in diameter* I no space between the two parclnnents !>ch are stretched upon it. is filled with, small pebbles or some other loose rattling substances* The specimen which I have —of which a drawing is here given—is painted Over, on one side, with what appear to be tahsmanic marks or ma¬ gical emblems: the triangle forms oie of these* and other figures, opposite to eaco other, to the man central stroke of which projections a • .*"tabbed Jiving a rude Resemblance to wanjs, are * -died the * — bikds, a name which the i:: >.*■> v - iu der, seeming, in this pais to p*»t profime mythology wh u. v ■ Uj. >/' ini strum fidmmti ah’ * II * •' : they are more himpir lit *} /iven to Mr. MUmc?. ^ 1 • uroi* performed be Vo * me with pulling himself into x 147 blance to a battledore, except that it is perfectly round, and has a very short handle. It is about a foot in diameter. The space between the two parchments which are stretched upon it, is filled with small pebbles or some other loose rattling substances. The specimen which I have —of which a drawing is here given—is painted over, on one side, with what appear to be talismanic marks or ma¬ gical emblems: the triangle forms one of these, and other figures, opposite to each other, to the main central stroke of which projections are attached having a rude resemblance to wings, are called the big birds, a name which the Indians give to thunder, seeming, in this point, to ap¬ proach that profane mythology which made the eagle the ministrum fulminis alitem . The devices vary: they are more simple in a specimen given to Mr. Maning. The quondam conjuror performed before me with his rattle, putting himself into a stooping posture, and then shaking it, with great vehemence and great rapidity, over his own shoulders, under his breast, and between his legs. I believe it is also shaken over the patient, and, with some muttered incantations and other mummery, the charm is completed. There is a mark in the centre of the rattle, and the con¬ juror has a kind of whistle in his mouth: with this whistle he pretends to suck out the disease from the patient, and then to pass it into the rattle through the central mark. There is a curious resemblance between the form and appearance of the Indian conjuring rattle, and those of an appendage of the sorceresses in the district of Kras¬ noyarsk in Siberia, as represented in the engravings of a German work, which I have not seen, and of which I am unable at present to give the title. It was observed by an excellent English lady now here, who I believe will permit me to call her my friend; and it struck her so forcibly, , V/ Aeu she* compared her recollections of hr. engraving with the rattle itself, which 1 put into her hands, that she wrote home tor a drawing made alter the* engraving, of 'which drawing I also forward you a copy. Speculations might be built upon this small coincidence, confirmatory of the persua¬ sion^ that America was peopled from Nor¬ thern Asia.* The use of th< i^rin mjlDtcink, in North American Angh -Indian phraseology, t # The Siberian affair i* perhaps a musical Instrument, having some resemble ce to a tambourine. It is not double ; but open on the under side, and held in the hi nd by means f a bur which there crosses it. The figure of the sorceress is represented as holding in, "hr other hand something which has the rap¬ per vice of a long feather; but may b- a fric ed and ornamented sticky with which to strike tile astrument* Still, this is an imj ^- ment of dmna f 7 on, and its sounds are probabK, like tliose of the rattle, conceived to carry a charm. 149 when she compared her recollections of the engraving with the rattle itself, which I put into her hands, that she wrote home for a drawing made after the engraving, of which drawing I also forward you a copy. Speculations might be built upon this small coincidence, confirmatory of the persua¬ sion that America was peopled from Nor¬ thern Asia.* The use of the term medicine, in North American Anglo-Indian phraseology, to * The Siberian affair is perhaps a musical instrument, having some resemblance to a tambourine. It is not double; but open on the under side, and held in the hand by means of a bar which there crosses it. The figure of the sorceress is represented as holding in the other hand something which has the ap¬ pearance of a long feather; but may be a fringed and ornamented stick, with which to strike the instrument. Still, this is an imple¬ ment of divination, and its sounds are probably, like those of the rattle, conceived to carry a charm. < 150 describe not only any article of potency for effects supposed to partake of a magical character; but even the person who is master of these effects, and operates with such articles—prepares us to find that medical cures, produced by common agents in their natural efficacy, are resolved by the Indians into the working of a charm, and made advantage of by the conjuror, as if they belonged to the secrets of his power. An Indian, after some violent ex¬ ertion, is perhaps exposed to cold, and suffers in some of the forms of malady which follow from obstructed perspiration. He applies to a conjuror, who, with all solemnity of performance, puts him into a small low tent made of sticks arched over, and covered tightly with skins. The place has been first thoroughly heated by means of red-hot stones, and steam is produced by pouring water on them; and thus, in fact by the process of a vapour-bath, but in the estimation of the Indian by the mysterious 151 force of a charm, the patient is relieved. The place constructed for the operation is called a sweating-house. The conjurors carry in their belts, or hanging at their sides, a little rudely- executed image, supposed to possess some powers of enchantment. Except in this kind of way, there is no superstition con¬ nected with images among the Indians. The images seem to be only a portion of the magical apparatus. Upon certain high days, I think twice a year, they hold a feast, for which a spacious tent is made. The images are then placed up at one end of it; sometimes such large, leathern, de¬ corated things, as were given to Mr. Maning and myself; but no act of worship or homage to them appears to be paid. In what precise light they are regarded, it is a matter of some difficulty to pronounce; and, in fact, the Indians themselves seem to me to have only a confused and mystic view of their attributes and powers; but 152 it does appear that they are, in some in¬ stances, designed to represent spirits, and to be fashioned in imitation of appearances made to the conjurors in their dreams. Upon the occasions here mentioned, when the images are set up, there are two heaps prepared upon the floor, or ground within the tent, of the down of the wild swan: upon each of these is laid a bladder full of fat. The conjuror first makes the entire circuit of the assembly, who are sitting in a line around the inner side of the tent, and places upon the head of each individual a small portion of this down. He then throws one of the bladders to the man nearest to him, who, having bitten out a piece of fat through the bladder, passes this on to his neighbour to do the same, and so it goes completely round. The piece of fat, taken out with the teeth, is believed to assure to the individual whatever he has previously made up his mind to wish for. One exclaims, after biting his morsel, I 153 have got life !— i. e. a long life for himself: another, I have got the life of my enemy! a third, I have got luck in my next hunting! a fourth, I have got rum ! A portion of the fat is burnt as an offering; but whether this be the contents of the second bladder, 01 the leavings of both, I did not learn. Before any of the ceremonies commence within, four men without fire their guns, one gun being pointed to each of the four cardinal points. The women and children are not admitted to the assembly. The image which I have, and the other implements of conjuration—among which there is one, namely, the snake, about the Use or meaning of which I am not sure— I have reserved to be presented to the Church Missionary Society, if they should think them worth having, as evidences of prevalent superstition in the scene of their labours which I visited. But they are far removed from having either beauty, costliness, or neatness of execution; and the Society has perhaps already, in its collection, better specimens of the same kind from the same quarter. They are, however, tangible proofs of imposture, dc lusion, and darkness. The proceedings which I have described in connexion with them, are, as I wish it to be kept in view, not things of which I have been an ocular witness; but results of my endeavours to collect and compare information from the best living sources within my reach when I was upon the spot. Many of the parti¬ culars have been verified to me by the independent testimony of different infor¬ mants—Europeans who have been familial with Indian life, or Indians who have become Christians. There are some of the Clergy who are distinctly persuaded of a direct diabolical agency, preternaturally manifested, m the performances of the conjurors: and cer¬ tainly there are some startling appearances connected with them; particularly in what takes places when the conjuror gets into his lodge, and in some parts of the ex¬ perience of conjurors who have since be¬ come Christians. Nor can it be doubted for one moment that these, and all similar delusions, are fostered and promoted by the father of lies. In my own judgment, however, so far as that may be worth stating, the marvellous appearances which sta o© er the mind may be resolvable into mere slight of hand, of which the effects, in their common exhibitions for money in Europe, are often perfectly wonderful and unaccountable till explained; and the im¬ pressions existing in the minds of the quondam conjurors may be traced, as I have hinted before, to a strongly-excited imagination acted upon by several conspir¬ ing causes, and creating its visions to itself with all the form of reality, as minds over¬ wrought by ghost stories will make spectral appearances out of natural objects. I have always been slow to believe in the super- 4 156 natural displays of infernal agency, apart from the contemporary displays of mira¬ culous power from above. When one is permitted, I am disposed to think that the other is to be looked for. That, in very many instances, the per¬ formances of the sorcerers are mere jug¬ gling cheats, is matter beyond dispute; and a remarkable example of this nature was related to me by a gentleman to whom I have already owned myself indebted for much information. He was present when one of these fellows pretended to conjure back, and to produce to view, bullets which he had told some of the Indians to throw, with all their might, into the river. He was either naked, or stripped for the pur¬ pose, and his very hair was searched in order to ascertain that he had no bullets concealed in it. The Factor observed, how¬ ever, that, in executing his various move¬ ments and gesticulations to operate the charm, he passed his hands over his face, 157 and was convinced that, by a piece of well- cealed dexterity, he took the bullets from his mouth,* and the Factor privately desired one of the other Indians, when the exhibi¬ tion was about to be repeated, to make a little notch in his bullet by which it could be recognized. The bullet produced by the conjuror was, of course, without the mark, and the cheat was detected. Concluding Appeal to Britain for the Es¬ tablishment of a Bishop of our Church in the Territory . The second and third questions which I have proposed above, relating to the duty which we owe to the Indians, and the power which we have to perform it, may now be considered together. It would surely be a happy consumma¬ tion to see these juggling fiends no more believed; to see these perverted minds disabused, which are capable of better and nobler things; to see these deceptions, de¬ lusions, and abominations, swept away ; to see these sottish and mischievous practices, with all their accompaniments of mora debasement, and of social and domestic degradation, displaced by the observances of Christianity and the habits of Christian men—the prayers, the praises, the teaching, the Sacraments, of the Church of the living God; the light of His blessed Word; the lessons of His heavenly love; the purifying efficacy of His holy truth; the practical fruits of His being made known m Christ to fallen, bewildered, and ruined man. The Bible warns us of the tendency, m nature, to superstitious mummeries and dark forbidden arts, and of their utter offensive- nessinthe sight of God-the pr e-disposition, on the one side, to entertain the woe brood, who are described in our transla¬ tion under the names of wizards, witches, magicians, necromancers, soothsayers, sor¬ cerers, diviners, astrologers, seekers oi 159 enchantments, dealers with familiar spirits, and practisers of curious arts ; and the ready avidity of all these, on the other side, to profit by that corrupt credulousness, to which, in fact, they owe their existence. The Bible says. How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace and salvation . Well may we apply, in both instances, the language of that blessed Book to the regions here under our review —a review pregnant with instructive les¬ sons of duty toward the poor Indian, whose country we have occupied, and re¬ plete with unanswerable proof, although exhibited as yet upon a confined scale, of his capacity to benefit by what we can do for him. I have got life, is what he may be taught to say in a better sense than when he utters it, under the tuition of a conjuror, in biting fat out of a bladder: he may learn to say it with a happy refer¬ ence to Him, who came that we might have 160 life, and might have it more abundantly ; and of whom it is emphatically declared, that in Him was life, and the life was the light of men. I have got the life of my enemy, is what the Indian may be taught to repudiate as a sentiment befit¬ ting a human heart—he can learn to love his enemies, and instead of asking the life of his enemies, to ask an understanding heart TO DISCERN BETWEEN GOOD AND EVIL. Here is a country open to evangelization— a country, to borrow the language of the. Missionaries who have been sent to labour in it, larger than Russia—and how trifling is the beginning which has been made in the work; yet how encouraging the effect of that beginning as an incitement to enlarge, by God’s blessing, the borders of the Churches. Is it, then, not to be evangelized ? And if it is to be, who is to evangelize it? To what country is it an appendage? To what power does it belong? To what Church does it address i I 161 the call, Come over, and help us? The country is an appendage to Britain, to Christian Britain, to the first Empire upon earth; with a Christian Government; with a great Church Establishment; w T ith insti¬ tutions, laws, and customs connecting all her proceedings with the name of religion; with immense, inexhaustible resources ; with unequalled means and facilities of influence; with responsibilities before the God who rules over kingdoms, exactly proportioned to all the distinctions which are here enumerated. Shall it be said, that it is not in the power of such a country either to supply her own people in her own Colonies with spiritual succour, or—which is to our present purpose—to meet the demands actually presenting themselves in her Dependencies, for blessing the savage with the Gospel? What is the meaning of her prayer, offered all over the world when her people pray, “that God would be pleased to make His ways known M to all sorts and conditions of men, His saving health unto all nations”—if, in a country such as I am here speaking of, she can make no more effort, than, at this period of her occupation, to provide some¬ thing less than half-a-dozen Clergymen, and these without any Bishop to preside over them ? Great efforts have been made by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel for the Colonists—great efforts by the Church Missionary Society for Heathen lands; but what, after all, are the labours of both Societies together, considered as the act of Great Britain? It is called much, if a religious Society of the National Church in that country, having vast and various objects to accomplish in many regions for the highest interests of man, can raise £100,000 a year. Things are then said to prosper and flourish; but are there not single individuals in England who have the double and the treble of this income ? And what would be found the 163 aggregate, if calculated, of all the incomes amounting to or exceeding £5,000 a year ? Let it then be hoped that the Church Missionary Society will not be left without the means of energetically and extensively enlarging its operations in this most in¬ teresting and promising field; and that all other parties concerned will efficiently take their share in the same object. I am as much convinced that it is the duty of the English Government to plant and perpetuate the Church according to her full organization, and to provide standing institutions for training a local body of Clergy, in the distant dominions of the Empire, as that it is the duty of a father to see to the religious interests of his family; and whatever may be the issue of the Oregon boundary question, there is a large accountability of this kind in the region for which I am pleading. There IS NOT ONE CLERGYMAN OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND ON THE FURTHER SIDE OF THE 164 rocky mountains. The Hudson’s Bay Com¬ pany did at one time maintain a Chaplain at Fort Vancouver — they have ceased to do so. Within their own proper Territories they have one, namely at the Red River; so that in Hudson’sBay itself there is none. If I may judge from the kindness shown personally to myself, the facilities given to my operations, and the respect paid to my office, by all the gentlemen representing the Company’s interests, with whom I had to do, that body must be presumed well-affected to the cause ; and that its several proceed¬ ings are conducted on a liberal scale, I have had some occasion to notice. I hope that I may without impropriety suggest that the Company—an English Company, whose seat is in London—should be solicited to take some part, and to assume some share, of the burthen in establishing a Bishopric within its own Territories. At least, that they would countenance the undertaking, and go hand in hand with the parties engaged in 165 it. They are Lords Paramount there :* they can make any laws, not repugnant to the Laws of England ; issue their own money; appoint their own public Functionaries for the administration of the Territory; and raise, if they see necessary, a Military Force. What they have done for the Recorder of the Red River would, in my judgment, with certain aids given to him in travelling, suffice of itself for the maintenance of a Bishop whose Diocese should comprise the country East of the Rocky Mountains. This is now the thing to begin with: a great deal more will follow of itself. The Church * I have seen a printed copy of the Charter, and, if my memory serves me, the Territory is held of the Crown by the tenure that the Sove¬ reign, in case of visiting it, may demand an elk and two black beavers. In the strict sense of the word, the Sovereign is the Lord Paramount— “ since none seemeth simply to be Lord Para¬ mount, but only the King.” Minshaw’s Guide into the Tongues, 1627. II li B,il- \ I • i; • Missionary Society, and the Institution formed expressly for the establishment of Bishoprics in the Colonies, would help forward this object in different ways. Special benefactors may be raised up, when an interest is once excited by the appeal, perhaps within the number persons who are or have been connected with the Com¬ pany’s interests. Already a gentleman—the late Mr. Leith—who was a resident Factor in the Territory, has bequeathed the sum of £10,000, as yet, I believe, in litigation, toward the propagation of the Gospel in the scene of his former pursuits and occupa¬ tions ; with the interest arising from which sum, it is intended, if I am correctly in¬ formed, to establish a Mission and a School in Cumberland. It is the rule of the Company’s posts that the Factor or Trader in charge, when there is no Clergyman, should read the Church Service on Sundays to the persons who can be gathered to hear it. They have forwarded the erection and Ml 1 167 establishment of Churches at the Red River. Nothing, perhaps, has been want¬ ing to engage them in more effectually promoting the advancement of religion under the same auspices, but the impulse only recently given either to public autho¬ rities, or to the community at large, in the work of extending the Church. Their own temporal interests would be favourably affected by whatever they do in this way: the whole social condition of the Territory would be improved, and the way would be prepared for changes which must ultimately come. There are large tracts of country in which the diminution of the furs is already very sensibly, and by the poor Indians severely, felt. The day will arrive when the example of the Red River Settle¬ ment must be followed in other portions of the Territory; and, if I belonged to the Company, I should say that the sooner it comes, the better. Those vast regions, com¬ prehending here and there tracts favourable 168 for cultivation, cannot be doomed to be for ever tenanted only by wild beasts, and savages as wild: their resources of another kind must be turned to account; and in the mean time, there is little fear that any effects resulting directly or indirectly from the exertions of the Church will prema¬ turely accelerate the desertion of the hunts¬ man’s craft: that will be a long and gradual process, accomplished by little and little, rather behind than in advance of the cir¬ cumstances which demand it. At all events, the religious melioration of a country will always bring a good return to its Lords : and nothing will ever be lost by consulting the honour, and furthering the cause on earth, of Him who has all in His omnipotent hands. I may seem here to have made some observations which partake of presumption, as proceeding from a person of such limited experience in the Territory as myself. But the subject has taken a deep hold upon my 169 convictions, as well as upon my heart. I feel, with an indescribable force, the neces¬ sity of establishing a Bishop in those Ter¬ ritories. Perhaps I need not disclaim such an idea as that all the virtue of the Gospel is centred in the Episcopate, because I happen to hold that thorny office myself; but it is the Episcopal Church of England which is specially, distinctly, and loudly called to occupy that open field—it is the Episcopal Church of England which took the lead, and gave the impulse to other parties, in whatever has been yet done, of any note, for planting and extending any of the forms of Christianity in that land — it is the Episcopal Church of England, its interests being represented upon the spot by the Church Missionary Society, which has been conspicuously successful, by the fruits of its Schools and Missions, in diffusing blessings among the people ; and an Episcopal Church without a Bishop is an anomaly upon the face of it—a contradiction in terms: it is 170 like a monarchy without a King. A Bishop is necessary even for the existing establish¬ ment of Clergy, and the existing Congrega¬ tions ; who, in their extreme remoteness and utter severance from all the rest of the world, afford a sort of revived exhibition of the ancient sect of the acephali , against their own wills. A Clergy without super¬ intendence—a people who love the Church,* * The facts which I have detailed in my second Letter afford abundant evidence of this; and it might be confirmed from the more remote Stations, which I have not seen. In the Protes¬ tant division of the Red River Settlement itself, the continued accession of Europeans being the merest trifle in the world, and the few original European Settlers being destined, in the course of nature, soon to disappear from the scene, it may be said that the whole population will shortly be composed of persons trained exclu¬ sively in the Church of England—a happy spec¬ tacle of religious unity. Never, never may it be broken in upon! 171 without the means of Confirmation — Churches unconsecrated—the uniform and pervading influence of resident authority in matters Ecclesiastical unknown—Ordination upon the spot impossible, though subjects for it should be found, and the need for their services should be urgent—the near¬ est Bishop probably two thousand miles off, and the intervening country a waste howl¬ ing wilderness , and he under a disability, without special commission from home, to act for the Territory in this behalf — none to advise the Clergy in their perplexities, to strengthen their hands in seasons of difficulty, to relieve them of painful exercises of discretion in matters of local necessity or expediency, to comfort and encourage them in trouble—none to conduct measures of improvement with authority and weight on the part of the Church, in concert with the Society at home, or with the Functionaries of the Company upon the spot—no common point 172 of reference to which Clergy and people can look with confidence alike—no apex where the loose pieces, as it were, of the Church converge and are bound together in one. What a difference would the appoint¬ ment of this one individual, the local es¬ tablishment of this single office, produce in the whole aspect and prosperity of the Church! What can be more mortifying to our Clergy, more discouraging to our people, than to see, in the adjoining Roman Catholic Settlement, the Church of Rome giving full efficiency to her Ecclesiastical arrangements by the establishment of a Bishop of French origin, and to know that a second has been established in Columbia,* while the Church of the So¬ vereign and of the Empire remains yet among them in a defective and mutilated * His residence, I believe, is within the limits of the United States ; but his jurisdiction is considered to cross the Line. 173 form—and that, although she has suffici¬ ently proved her perfect adaptation to the peculiar task required in the Territory, and there is reason to believe that even 'now there are more Indian hearts prepared to receive the Gospel from her hands. The Church, in the early days of Chris¬ tianity, was planted in new regions by seating, at a central point, the Bishop with his Cathedral and his College of Presbyters, who ranged the country here and there under his direction.* And this, or the nearest approach to this of which the times are susceptible, is what is wanted now. It is wanted in Prince Rupert’s * It; would be very desirable, I think, to train some of the Natives for the Ministry; and to require it of some of the English Missionaries to learn Indian languages. But, upon the whole, although the mixture would he good, it is found that the European Cler¬ gyman has the most influence, and that the prophet who is in his own country is less 174 Land. The effect of my own flying visit, and imperfect ministrations, sufficiently de¬ monstrates the existence of the want. Most cheerfully, most gladly, would I re¬ peat the journey, under the same arrange¬ ment, every four or five years, if that would serve the purpose, so long as I may be spared in health and strength, and provided I could afford to steal the time from the yearly increasing duties of my own charge. But the fact is, that the fruits of such a visit as mine, instead of sufficing for the exigencies which exist, serve rather to set in strong relief the real character of those exigencies as demanding, imperiously, an established provision for the exercise of honoured. And Mr. Cockran is a strong ad¬ vocate for bringing the Indians as speedily as possible to the use of the English language, and stimulating them to the acquisition by some bars left in their way till they make it. He thinks this is the surest way to anglify them in their sentiments also. 175 the Episcopal functions upon the spot. And indeed, by the time at which another visit might be paid by myself, the Missions may be found so far to have extended . themselves, that it would be impossible to accomplish the journey, and to return, within the season open for travelling. But shall it be supposed that things are to be left for such a shift? Is it actually come to this, that the Church of Rome can establish two Bishoprics in ground which ought specially to be taken up by the Church of England, and that the Church of England cannot establish one ? I am not proposing any interference here with what the Church of Rome has positively in her hands, nor any control of her zeal by measures of intolerance: there is abun¬ dance of work for the Church of England to do without anything like this, and they are surely better blessings that she would dispense. We cannot think with compla¬ cency, if we love the truth of God, of 176 the extension of Romanism instead of Scriptural religion; but it is of the plain duties and the plain wants of the Church of England that I am speaking, independently of all other considerations, and as they exist in themselves. And cannot means be found to enable her for the discharge of these duties, and to supply these wants within her bosom; or, if means are provided, cannot men be found to use them? Forbid the thought'. I feel con¬ fident that, if that were my business, I could find the man, and a fitting man, myself. The branch of our Episcopal Church which subsists in foreign America has consecrated a Bishop for China, where we had carried war—a necessary war, it may be granted, and one ordained, in the providence of God, to break down the barriers of ages, and open the way for the introduction of blessings; but war was what we carried there-and if America can now carry, to that extreme point of the globe, the Church 177 in her completeness of form, can it be believed, can it be endured, that England should leave her own Dependencies unsup¬ plied? I am well aware that whatever other effect may be produced by these poor Appeals of mine—which, such as they are, I have made some sacrifices and some foiced efforts, in the midst of the pressure of other duties, to prepare—they will, if known at all abroad, stimulate other parties to pre-occupy as much as may be possible of the ground. It is not in a spirit of rivalry, or from notions of competition with them, that I desire to see our own Church doing her part. But let her do her own duty, and commit the issue to God above. I cannot, for one, withhold the expression of my feelings in the cause. While I have been musing of these things, my heart teas hot within me: the fire kindled , and I have spoken with my tongue. And I may speak, if so permitted, yet again, though in# a different way. It is N 178 for others to carry the work into effect— to deliberate, to plan, and to execute. But a move should be made at once— an earnest, a determined move, with the eye of faith turned up to God, the heart lifted in the fervency of prayer, and the hand put to the work without looking back. I am, Reverend Sir, Your very faithful Servant, G. J. Montreal. ADDRESS TO THE BISHOP FROM THE CHRISTIAN INDIANS AT THE INDIAN SETTLEMENT. To our Chief Praying Father from Mont- real— We, the Cree and Ogibwa Indians, Members of the Church of England, wish to say a few words to our Chief Praying Father. We thank you, Father, for having come this long way to visit us. Our Praying Father* told us that you intended to come two years since; but that you were taken very sick, and could not. Our hearts are very glad that you have come at last, and we thank God for sending you. We shall, with the assistance of the Holy Spirit, try to do what you tell us. We thank the’ English people in English country, across the great water, for sending us a Praying Father, and for paying a Teacher to teach our children. You see, Father, that nearly all our young people can read the Word of God. We now live very comfortably, and we owe all this to the * Mr. Smithurst. 180 a f m 11 j good* people in English country. If they had not pitied us, we should have been still Hea¬ thens. We pray every day for our great Mother, The Lady Chief, Victoria, and for her relations,* and also for our Chief Praying Fathers, f and for our Praying Fathers. J We hope God will take you safely back to your own home ; and we pray Him to bless you for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord. Signed, on behalf of the Indians, by me, Henry Prince, Acting for my Father Pigwys, Chief of the Red-River Indians. * The Royal Family. f The Bishops. X The Priests and Deacons. APPENDIX. An Historical Notice of the Formation and Progress of the Mission of the Church Missionary Society in Prince Rupert’s Land. As some of the readers of the foregoing com¬ munications may be anxious to know more of the Missionary labours which have been carried on by the Church Missionary Society in Prince Rupert s Land, it has been considered advisable to append to the Bishop of Montreal’s interesting Letters a brief historical notice of the North-West America Mission. Q / 4 182 Geographical Position and Inhabitants of Prince Rupert's Land . Communication is maintained between Eng¬ land and Prince Rupert’s Land either through Canada, by the route so fully described by the Bishop, or by means of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s ships, which sail from England about the end of May or beginning of June, and usually arrive at York Fort, on the shores of Hudson’s Bay, some time in the month of August. It is only during four months in the summer that Hudson’s Bay is navigable, on account of the ice. This may serve to give some idea of the secluded character of those remote regions. The Territories granted to the Hudson’s Bay Company, by a Charter from King Charles the Second in 1669, are of great extent, reaching from the Western boundary of Canada to the Pacific Ocean, and from the frontier of the United States, in about North Lat. 50°, to as far North as has hitherto been explored; with the exception of a portion to the North-West, which belongs to the Empire of Russia. This immense tract of country is varied by a J'WCV 183 succession of plains, lakes, and rivers; and it is intersected, between W. Long. 115°and 130°, by a chain of mountains called the Rocky Mountains, running from North-West to South-East. The Indians, who are thinly scattered through¬ out this vast extent of country, have no towns or villages ; but live in tents, and obtain a scanty subsistence by hunting and fishing. They have been so fully and graphically described by the Bishop, that nothing need here be added, except the fact that the Tribes among whom Missionary labours have been carried on by the Church Missionary Society are chiefly the Muscaigoes, or Swampy Crees, and the Saulteaux, a branch of the Chippeways. Earliest Labours of the Society , through the Rev . J. West. It was in the year 1820 that the attention of the Committee of the Church Missionary Society was first called to this scattered portion of the human family. Two proposals were then made to the Society, one of which had reference to the Indians who lived to the West of the Rocky Mountains. No available opportunity, however, occurred for acting upon this suggestion. 184 The other proposal related chiefly to the Indians on this side of the same chain of moun¬ tains, and was the result of the following circum¬ stances. In the year 1811, an Agricultural Settlement was formed on the banks of the Red River, to the south of Lake Winnipeg, by the late Earl of Selkirk. After an eventful history, this Settlement was increased, owing to the same place having been selected as a location for retired servants of the Hudson’s Bay Company. To this Settlement the Rev. J. West, an active friend of the Society, was, in 1820, appointed Chaplain. Being desirous, if possible, of avail¬ ing himself of any opportunities which his new position might place within his reach to benefit the surrounding heathen, he laid before the Committee a judicious paper, # on the most promising means of promoting the instruction of the Indians; and offered his services in carrying out some of the suggestions contained in it, by establishing Schools for the Indians in the vicinity of the Red River. The sum of 100Z. was accordingly placed at Mr. West’s See Appendix xii of the 20th Report. 185 disposal, for the year 1820, to enable him to make trial of his proposed plan. Mr. West left England in one of the Company's ships at the end of May 1820, and arrived at York Fort on the 15th of August. He remained here upward of a fortnight, while arrange¬ ments were made for proceeding to his destina¬ tion. During this period, he had many oppor¬ tunities of visiting the Indians in their tents, and was much impressed with their degraded state. One of them, named Withaweecapo, who had two wives, was prevailed upon to give up two of his children to Mr. West’s care to be educated, and it was arranged that one of them should proceed with him to the Red River, and that the other should follow. Mr. West wrote in 1841 — Well do I remember Withaweecapo bringing his son to me in his arms, as I sat in the boat waiting for him; and, as he parted with his boy, with tears of affection saying, “There, I give you my son to teach as you say ; because I think you will take care of him as you say, and will treat him as a father. But I shall come and see my boy.” It is an interesting fact, that fourteen years k afterward, Withaweecapo • fulfilled his intention. He came a distance of many hundred miles to “ see his boy.” During that visit, he heard and embraced the Gospel. He put away one of his wives, and was married to the other. He now sleeps by the side of the Indian Church. His widow is a Communicant, and all their children, seven in number, are Christians. On Mr. West’s arrival at Norway House, he obtained another Indian boy; and on entering the mouth of the Red River, after having tra¬ versed the whole length of Lake Winnipeg, he first became acquainted with a band of Saulteaux Indians, then encamped at Netley Creek as their summer residence, who, with their Chief Pigwys, occupy a somewhat prominent place in the sub¬ sequent annals of the Mission. The Settlement, at this time, consisted of a number of huts widely scattered along the margin of the River. There was a Roman Catholic Chapel in course of erection; and a small house adjoining, the residence of the Priest; but no Protestant Church or Schoolhouse. The state of the European and mixed population was such as might have been anticipated, where no oppor¬ tunities existed for Public Worship, and where 187 the sacred ordinance of marriage, with its holy sanctions and attendant obligations, had fallen into disuse. From his first arrival at York Fort, however, Mr. West found his ministrations well attended. One of the Settlers, being present at Divine Service at Fort Douglas, on the second Lord’s-day after Mr. West’s arrival at the Red River, stated that it was the happiest day of his life; as he had not been at a place of worship for thirty years, since he left England. In order that no time might be lost, a tem¬ porary log-house, conveniently situated near the dwellings of the Protestant Settlers, was repaired and opened as a School under the care of Mr. Harbidge, who had accompanied Mr. West from England with that view. The number of Scholars soon amounted to thirty. The Indian boys, how¬ ever, still continued under the personal care and instruction of Mr. West. In the beginning of the year 1821, Mr. West, in the discharge of his duties as Chaplain, visited the Company’s Trading Establishments at Bran¬ don House and Beaver Creek. During this journey of 500 or 600 miles, performed in a cariole drawn by dogs, he had frequent oppor- 188 tunities of intercourse with Indians, many of whom seemed to appreciate the kind interest which he took in their behalf; and he believed that several children would have been entrusted to him, if he had had an establishment prepared for their reception. One boy was sent to him, about three months afterward, by an Indian with whom he conversed on this occasion. When the time came for sending letters to England, in the following September, Mr. West was able to report favourably respecting his labours and prospects. He stated— Those boys who have been with me since last year can now converse pretty freely in English, are just beginning to read, and can repeat the Lord’s Prayer correctly. The other day, I gave them a small por¬ tion of ground for a garden, and I never saw European school-hoys more delighted than they were in hoeing and planting it. He also stated, that, as there was every pro¬ bability that many more children would be con¬ signed to his care, a School house, sixty feet by twenty, with rooms partitioned off at each end for a Schoolmaster and a hunter, was in course of erection as an establishment for them. Formation of the North - West America Mission. On the arrival of these communications in England, a Special Meeting of the Committee was held on the 28th of January 1822, to take them into consideration. This Meeting was attended by Benjamin Harrison, Esq., and Nicholas Garry, Esq., two of the Directors of the Hudson’s Bay Company, who gave such a detail of circumstances connected with the Red River Settlement, and the prospects of usefulness among the numerous Tribes of In¬ dians to which access by its means may ultimately be obtained, that it was unanimously determined that a regular Mission should be formed under the superintendence of Mr. West; that another Missionary should be sent out to his assistance; and that the establishment for Indian children should be carried on at the charge of the Society. Tidings of this arrangement were received by Mr. West with much joy and gratitude. He wrote, on the 28th of August— 190 No one ever received news from a far country which more gladdened the heart than your letters did mine. I read them again and again with lively emotions of gratitude, and with joyful hope, that, as the sinews of war are now afforded, the Banner of the Cross would he successfully unfurled among the British North-American Indians. At the end of this year, there were eight Indian boys and two girls, with a Half-breed woman to take care .of the children, upon the establishment. T^o‘.. of the boys, who were able to read the New Testament, and repeat the Church Catechism and the chief truths of the Christian religion, had been baptized, by the names of James Hope and Henry Budd; and the Schdolhouse had been completed, and used as a temporary place for Divine Worship. Building of a Church . A more suitable building for this purpose, however, was felt to be necessary; and in June 1823, a Church was completed. It was an humble structure, built of wood; but it was an object of much ' 1 rest, as being the first \ wmmmm 191 Protestant Church ever built in those wide regions where the Indians roam. On this subject Mr. West remarked— I have just had the happiness to see the accomplish¬ ment of the wish so feelingly expressed by the late Mr. Semple, who fell mortally wounded near the spot where our buildings are erected. In a Letter, dated in the year 1815, he observed— I have trodden the burnt ruins of houses, hams, a mill, a fort, and sharpened stockades; but none of a Place of Worship, even upon the smallest scale. I blush to say that, over the whole extent of the Hudson’s-Bay Terri¬ tories, no such building exists. It is surely high time that this foul reproach should be done away from among men belonging to a Christian Nation. I must confess that I am anxious to see the first little Christian Church, and steeple of wood, slowly rising among the wilds; and to hear the sound of the first Sabbath-bell which has tolled here since the Creation. As I was returning from visiting some of the Settlers about nine or ten miles below, one evening, the lengthened shadows of the setting sun cast from the buildings, and the consideration that there was now a landmark of Christianity in this wild waste, and an Asylum opened for the instruction and main¬ tenance of Indian children, raised the most agreeable sensations in my mind ; and led me into a train of thought which awakened a hope, that, in the divine 192 compassion of the Saviour, it might be the means of raising a Spiritual Temple in this wilderness to the honour of His name. In the present state of the people, I considered it no small point gained, to have formed a religious establishment. The outward walls, even, and spire of the Church, cannot fail of having some effect on the minds of a wandering people, and of the population of the Settlement. The Congregation at this time consisted, on an average, of from 100 to 130 ; and among the Sunday-scholars, 50 in number, were in¬ cluded several adult Indian women, married to Europeans. Having laboured so successfully in laying the foundation of the Mission, at the sacrifice, which he deeply felt, of being separated for three years from his wife and family, Mr. West resolved to visit England, with the intention of returning with them to the scene of his labours. Circumstances of various kinds, however, pre¬ vented the fulfilment of this last intention. 193 Entrance of the Rev . D. T. Jones on the Mission, and Departure of Mr. West . In the mean time, the services of the Rev. D. T. Jones had been appropriated by the Committee to this Mission, and he accordingly sailed from England in the Company’s ship in June 1823. Mr. West left the Red River Settlement on the 11th of June, and arrived at York Fort on the 2nd of July. He then proceeded on foot to visit Fort Churchill, on the Western side of Hudson’s Bay, with a view to obtain some intercourse with the Esquimaux, in whom he felt deeply interested from some conversation which he had had in the preceding year with Captain Franklin and Dr. Richardson, when they returned from the Northern Land Expe¬ dition. Some interesting extracts from Mr. West’s Journal during this visit are given in the Twenty- fourth Report, pp. 202—4. He returned to York Fort on the nineteenth of August, and spent about three weeks with Mr. Jones, who had arrived three days before, con- ferring on the best means of promoting the Mission. At the end of this time, Mr. West sailed for England, and Mr: Jones, with two Indian boys brought by Mr. West from Fort Churchill, pro¬ ceeded on his journey to the Red River, where he immediately entered on the sphere of labour occupied by his predecessor. The account of his proceedings which Mr. Jones was enabled to send home in the summer of 1824 was most encouraging. He met with much countenance and support from the Authorities of the Hudson’s Bay Company. The Church had not only been crowded all the winter; but had become much too small to contain the Congregation, so that it be¬ came necessary to commence the erection of an additional Church. There were twelve Indian boys and two girls in the Establishment. The number of Sutf&ay-scholars had increased to 169. And the fca^emess of some of the Half- breed youths to obtain instruction, as well as the progress of the Indian children, and the sus¬ ceptibility of religious feeling manifested by them, were exceedingly encouraging. In reference to the Congregation Mr. Jones wrote— It is truly gratifying to my soul, on the Lord’s-day morning, to look out of my window, and see the people coming in groups, as far as the eye can reach ; and my pleasure is doubly heightened, when I per¬ ceive them, as they pass, to be principally Half-breed Natives and Indians. I am ready to cry, from the impulse of congenial feeling with the Psalmist, I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the House of the Lord ... whither the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord, unto the testimony of Israel, to give thanks unto the name of the Lord . Completion of a Second Church—Trials and Progress of the Mission . On the thirtieth of January in the following year, 1825, the New Church was completed and opened for Divine Service. It was built on a plain called Image Plain, about six miles lower down the Settlement than thj3 Upper Church. The Settlers subscribed liberally, according to their means, toward its erection. The Con¬ gregations at both Churches were large and attentive. 196 Mr. Jones at this time remarked— The work of the Lord is growing daily. I am hardly a day without some new encouragement to proceed. In the autumn of this year Mr. Jones was joined by the Rev. W. Cockran, to whose character and labours a most favourable and just testimony is borne by the Bishop. One event, which occurred at the close of this year, must not be omitted in this sketch—the admission of the first Native Indian to the Lord’s Supper. She was the wife of a European Settler, and had for a long time been most regular in her attendance on the means of grace. Her knowledge of divine things had increased rapidly, and her conduct corresponded with her professed determination to forsake all and follow Christ. Her daughter followed her example, and became an ornament to religion and a bless¬ ing to her neighbourhood. Mr. Jones could not help shedding tears of joy at this additional proof of divine approbation afforded to his labours. The year 1826 was a most eventful and trying 197 period to the Settlement and the Mission. The severity of the winter had been unprecedented. The buffalo in the hunting-grounds had pre¬ viously failed. The Settlers were compelled to support their cattle upon wheat and barley, thereby rendering it doubtful whether any would remain for seed. On account of the lateness of the season it was feared that no wheat-crops could be expected at all, and if any thing occurred to prevent the prosperity of barley and potatoes, a famine seemed inevitable. This distress was increased by the destructive inun¬ dation to which the Bishop refers, and which might well be regarded by the inhabitants as an era not to be forgotten. It prevailed from the beginning of May till the middle of June. Nearly every house in the Settlement was swept away, and the country laid under water as far as the eye could reach. The Missionaries, in common with the rest of the inhabitants, were obliged, for about a month, to leave their dwellings, and reside under tents pitched on a high spot of ground. A particularly interesting account of this distressing visitation is contained in the Missionary Register for 1826, pp. 633— p ]9S 637. In the midst of judgment, however, God remembered mercy. The Churches, School- houses, and dwellings of the Missionaries, were but little injured; the fears entertained respecting the barley and potatoe-crops proved groundless ; and the happy influence which their distresses produced upon the minds of the people illustrated the declaration of Scripture, When the judgments of the Lord are in the earth , the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness . During the next four years, the progress of the Mission was satisfactory and encouraging; but it was not marked by any occurrence of striking interest. Mr. Jones visited England for the benefit of his health, and returned to his labours accompanied by Mrs. Jones. The attend¬ ance at the two Churches continued to be good. The number of Communicants was greatly in¬ creased. In 1824, there were only six; in 1828, there were 134, of whom seven or eight were Indians. A school was opened for the reception of the daughters of gentlemen in the Hudson’s Bay Company’s service. There were altogether four daily Schools, beside Sunday-schools. The number of Indian children maintained and edu- 199 cated by the Society was about twenty; which number might have been almost indefinitely in¬ creased, had the means of procuring subsistence for them been less precarious. One pleasing fact in illustration of this should be noticed. Two Indian boys, who had been brought by Governor Simpson in 1825 from beyond the Rooky Mountains, went home on a visit to their parents, after they had been under instruction for about four years. They soon returned, bringing with them five other boys, four of whom were the sons of four different Chiefs, the heads of large Tribes in that part of the country, and each speaking a different dialect from the others. While this circumstance clearly manifested the confidence placed by the Natives there in the good faith of the White people, as well as their desire for instruction, it could not fail to suggest the pleasing anticipation that when these youths should return to their own friends, after having been instructed in Christianity, they might be made an extensive blessing. And this anticipation was not groundless. For when a Missionary visit¬ ed those remote districts many years afterward, he found a band of Indians prepared to welcome 200 his message, having learned to appreciate the blessings of the Gospel from one of these youths. Erection of a Third Church . On the return of Mr. Jones from England, another important step was taken in order to extend the benefits of pastoral superintendence on the banks of the Red River. A considerable population, consisting almost entirely of Half- breeds, had settled in the neighbourhood of a place called Grand Rapids, about fourteen miles from the Upper Church, and eight miles below what was then the Lower Church. This dis¬ tance obviously precluded them from availing themselves of the ministrations provided in those Churches, and at the request of an individual who opened his house for the purpose, one or other of the Missionaries went down once a fort- night to hold a Cottage Lecture, which was usually attended by about thirty of the inhabi¬ tants. This service was so much valued by the people, and appeared to be productive of so many beneficial results, that it was arranged that Mr. Cockran should take up his residence at Grand 201 Rapids. He was now able to hold a regular Ser¬ vice, first in his own house, and afterward in a Schoolroom. The number of attendants soon became so great that the need of a Church began to be urgently felt. The manner in which this object was accom¬ plished was very interesting. The people were all poor; but they offered willingly what they could, both in money and materials, as well as in labour. They first began by collecting stones for the foundation. Then he who possessed an axe went into tho woods to hew timber, which was hauled down to the intended site by him who possessed an ox, and thus by united efforts, and without any extraneous assistance, they succeeded in erecting a House of God, the best building of the kind that had yet been raised in Rupert’s Land. On occasion of the opening of this Church, May 1, 1832, Mr. Cockran wrote— It was a day of thankfulness, as well as a spiritual feast to us who were present: our cup truly overflowed with the remembrance of His goodness to us all the time we had been engaged in the work. Not one who had been employed in it was detained by sick- 202 ness from the dedication: none had paid the debt of sin : all were permitted, by the kindness of God, to see the object of our prayers and industry devoted to His service. About this time, Mr. Cockran introduced the spinning of flax into a School of Industry which he had previously established. Such an occupation was perfectly new to the children, who had never witnessed anything of the kind before. Formation of the Indian Settlement . Some account must now be given of what the Bishop justly characterizes as a “ great and most happy; but, in the first instance, most arduous experiment” of endeavouring “to es¬ tablish the Natives in settled habitations, and in a compact civilized community, as tillers of the soil.” Hitherto the labours of the Missionaries had been chiefly directed to the European Settlers, and their descendants of mixed blood. Some¬ thing had been effected by occasional intercourse with individual Natives; but, with the exception 203 of the Indian School, no systematic effort had been made in their behalf. It was the settled conviction of the Missionaries that nothing of a decided and permanent character could be effected for the religious instruction of the Indians, so long as they were compelled to wander about in search of a precarious subsistence, and thus were prevented from availing themselves, for a sufficient length of time, of the means of grace, and oppor¬ tunities of instruction. To those, however, who were acquainted with the Indian character, the very idea of inducing them to give up their erratic habits, and heathen customs and prejudices, appeared altogether visionary. But, formidable as the difficulties were, Mr. Cockran resolved to encounter them ; and to allow no discouragements, which faith and patience could overcome, to deter him from prosecuting the undertaking. Accordingly, having obtained the permission of Governor Simpson to try the experiment of locating the Indians near Netley Creek, in the neighbourhood of the spot where Pigwys and his tribe of Saulteaux were in the habit of pitching their tents during the summer, he had several interviews with the old Chief, in which he ex- 204 plained to him his intentions, and sought to obtain his consent and co-operation. The dis¬ tressed condition of the Tribe during winter was referred to, and the advantages of cultivation pointed out. Many questions were asked, and objections urged, by the Chief—Would they be required to lay aside the Indian medicine ? Would the Chief’s influence be lessened ? The change proposed was contrary to the customs of their ancestors, which they were unwilling to relinquish. At length, however, after repeated consultations with the old men of his Tribe, the Chief called upon Mr. Cockran, and announced his assent to the proposal; but he would give no encouragement at all to the idea of establishing a School for the instruction of the children. It was on the 18th of April 1832, when the River had scarcely become navigable by the breaking up of the ice, that Mr. Cockran set out to select a piece of ground on which to teach the Indians agriculture. The waves were running high, the North wind blew keenly, huge blocks of ice, piled up by the force of the water, gar¬ nished the sides of the River, and the whole aspect was chilling and dreary. On arriving at n 205 the Chiefs tent, he could not be prevailed upon to expose himself to the discomfort of the weather in order to assist in the selection. At the distance of from fourteen to sixteen miles below Grand Rapids, the land on both sides of the River, being low and swampy, appeared at this time to be almost inundated by the melted snow. The only dry spot was that which the Saulteaux usually choose for their summer encampment. There were many things which rendered it unsuitable as a permanent Settlement; but as it was a place to which the Indians were attached, and in which there were not many difficulties to be overcome in clearing the ground, Mr. Cockran fixed upon it as the most suitable for his present purpose. Commencement of Agricultural and Building Operations. To this place, on the 3rd of May, Mr. Cockran sent two servants, with oxen and agricultural implements; but the Indians had not yet arrived from their winter encampment; and when they came, instead of performing their promise to prepare the ground, they were holding a conjur- 206 ing feast in order to ascertain whether the proposed change would be beneficial. So great was their indifference, that the Chief could not induce any of his men to paddle the canoe to Grand Rapids, to procure an additional supply of the seed-corn and potatoes which was intended for their own benefit. At length, however, seven families were in¬ duced to cultivate a little; and among them seventy bushels of potatoes were planted, and ten bushels of barley, and three of wheat, were sown. An unpropitious season interfered with the pro¬ ductiveness of the wheat and potatoes, and afforded the Indians a.plausible ground for stating that they could not be expected to succeed in a course which was contrary to the customs and habits of their ancestors. The barley yielded an average crop, and on the 3rd of September, Mr. Cockran went down with seven sickles, and gave the Indians some instruction in the art of using them. Notwithstanding the awkwardness of their first attempts, these new students of agriculture at length succeeded in securing the harvest. Mr. Cockran’s next object was to build a house for the Chief. For this purpose, in addition to 207 his servant—an old man who could put up the frame of a house; but who never felt much in¬ clined to labour—he engaged the services of three Indians, who were as little accustomed to the business of a carpenter as they were to that of a farmer; a slight blister occasioned by the use of a hatchet being at any time sufficient to induce them to lay aside their employment. When this house was finished, another was commenced for the old man before referred to, who had agreed to spend the winter in that place. An Indian, whose name signifies Red Deer, had been more diligent and successful than the others in his farming operations, and he now applied for assistance to build a house, and a cellar to contain his produce. A man was engaged to assist him, and both laboured diligently till the house was completed. Another Indian, who belonged to a different Tribe, and came from the neighbourhood of Norway House, followed the same example, having obtained a grant of land from the Chief for the purpose. Thi3 completes the small number of those who were willing this year to profit by the means afforded them for adopting the habits of civilized life. 208 Change in the Locality of the Settlement—Establishment of a School and We eh-day Lecture. The little progress thus made, however, was sufficient to encourage Mr. Cockran to proceed with his benevolent plans. As has been already stated, the place in which these plans were hitherto carried on, originally chosen from its immediate vicinity to the Saulteaux encampment, had many disadvantages. Several families of other Tribes, chiefly Muscaigoes, or Swampy Crees,* had also manifested a disposition to * For some time many families of this Tribe had been drifting to the Red River Settlement, on account of their having relatives among the Half-breeds who resided there. Among these were some very old men, one of whom told Mr. Jones that he had left his own country, not with a view of bettering his outward condition ; but because he had heard that One from above had come to this world to save the souls of men, and he wished to learn something about Him. In 1832, at the Upper Church, Mr. Jones preached on LordVday evenings, through an inter¬ preter, to a Congregation of from, seventy to eighty of these people, whose regular attendance, and desire to learn, gave him much encouragement. settle, and it was undesirable, at present, that they should be brought too near the Saulteaux. Accordingly, in the following year, 1833, another very eligible location, three miles higher up the River, and about twelve miles from Grand Rapids, was selected on which to form a more permanent Settlement. To these Indians, as well as to the Saulteaux, Mr. Cockran sent a plough and a pair of oxen, some other agricultural implements, and a supply of seed-corn and potatoes. All wrought well ; the old Chief Pigwys, especially, setting a good example to his people by his diligence and perseverance. In the autumn, nine small houses were built at the new Settlement. Each house was twenty-four feet by sixteen, with a cellar for potatoes. Mr. Cockran remarked— I do not pretend to say that any of these cottages were either neat or elegant. The seams of the log walls were plastered with mud; the chimneys were of the same material; the roofs were thatched with reeds and covered with earth; the boards of the floors, and doors, and beds, were planed with the saw; and the windows were formed of parchment made of the skins of fishes. 210 Each Indian who built a house was supplied with clothing, tools, and a more experienced man to assist and direct him. During this period, Mr. Cockran spent several days together at the Settlement, and frequently laboured with his own hands. • , A Schoolroom, forty feet by twenty, with a residence for the Master at one end, and a loft above to serve as a granary, was also completed. Lest the children should be dispersed by the necessity of searching for food during the winter, it was arranged that they should be provided with one good meal each day. With this view, twenty acres of land at the Rapids were sown with wheat, and a fishing party was sent to Lake Winnipeg to endeavour to obtain a stock of fish for winter consumption. It was also found absolutely necessary to supply the children with some articles of clothing. When all these arrangements were made, the School was opened on the 25th of November, with thirty-two children. Mr. Cook, whose father was an Englishman, and whose mother was a Cree Indian, was appointed Schoolmaster. On account of the utter absence of parental con- 211 trol among the Indians, it was found exceed¬ ingly difficult, at first, to maintain anything like order and discipline; but, by degrees, a marked improvement was observable in this respect. Shortly afterward, a week-day Lecture was established by Mr. Cockran, in the Schoolroom, for the benefit of the adults. The attendance at first was small; but it soon increased, and the Lecture became an object of much interest. The following spring brought with it the usual agricultural operations, and it was encou¬ raging to see the progress which had been made. On the 7th of May 1834, Mr. Cockran ob¬ served— The Indians continue to enlarge their farms. The Bay in which we have commenced is all covered with persons actively employed. Some digging up roots, others gathering them; some sowing wheat, and others planting potatoes. How soon the industrious hand of man can change the gloomy desert into a garden ! The only habitation which this Bay could boast of last spring was a solitary tent of Indians pitched here for the sake of taking fish. Now we can stand upon the opposite shore, and see the smoke of nine chimneys towering to the sky, upward of thirty children beguiling away the cheerful hours of the 212 morning in innocent mirth before they assemble to con their lessons. We can hear the sound of the axe and the saw, the cock crowing, the hogs grunting, and the ploughman driving his oxen. The Saulteaux Indians continued to manifest considerable opposition on the subject of having their children educated. Mr. Cockran, however, at last succeeded in obtaining from them a reluc¬ tant promise of nine children. A new School¬ room was accordingly built, toward the close of this year, near the Saulteaux encampment, for their especial use; but when it was finished, the children originally promised had departed with their parents to their wintering grounds. The School, however, was shortly afterward opened with five boys. First Baptisms at the Settlement—Hopeful Death of an Adult Indian . Mr. Cockran was this year permitted to see fruit far more important than civilization, result¬ ing from his labours. The self-denying rides along the bad roads from Grand Rapids to the Indian Settlement, in all kinds of weather, in order to attend the weekly Meeting which he had established, were more than compensated by see- ing some of the adults beginning to manifest an anxiety respecting their everlasting welfare. On the 11th of September he baptized ten adults, six children attending the School, and four infants. Several of the adults had applied for the ordinance ten months previously, and they had all given sufficient evidence of their sincerity to justify their reception within the pale of the visible Church. There was now a small company of those who were “ within ” to be guided and edified, and reminded of their Christian obligations to shine as lights in the worlds amidst a crooked and perverse generation . In little more than two months afterward, another Indian, who had for eighteen months been an orderly and improving character, and a regular attendant at the weekly meetings, became danger¬ ously ill. He had for some time felt strongly inclined openly to avow his faith in Christ; but the furious opposition of his wife and mother had hitherto prevailed to hinder him from publicly renouncing the customs of his forefathers. In the prospect of eternity, however, he fully resolved to encounter every opposition, and to profess the 214 faith of Christ crucified; and while the drum of the conjurer, employed by his relations, was sounding, he sent for Mr. Cockran, who, amidst a volley of abuse from the mother and wife, which made the dying man tremble, baptized him, and two of his children who belonged to the School. He died within three days aftprward; and was thus the first, in this part of the wilderness, who died in the profession of the true faith. It is a pleasing fact, that, not many weeks afterward, his widow entirely renounced her opposition, and became a Christian. Establishment of a Lord's-day Evening Service. In the beginning of 1835, by an arrangement with Mr. Jones respecting the duties of the Middle Church, Mr. Cockran was enabled to commence a service in the Indian Schoolroom on Lord’s-day evenings. By this means a better opportunity was afforded for calling the attention of the infant Christian community to the duties and privileges of the LordVday. The Congre¬ gation continued to increase, and an extract from Mr. Cockran’s Journal will show the encourage- ment which he derived, both here and at the Rapids, from this source— May 31, 1835—I preached, in the morning, at the Rapids, to a large and attentive audience. When I say large, I mean for this part of the world ; for, as we never see a concourse of people except at church, we are liable to more excitement on this head than those who frequently cast their eyes over immense multi¬ tudes. In England, I have often expressed with astonishment, What! so many in the market, and so few in Church! Here it is the reverse. On week¬ days, you may travel for miles, and not see a human face ; but on the Lord’s-day, when you draw near the Church at the hour of prayer, the track is covered with old and young and middle-aged, pressing forward to the House of God to pay the weekly tribute of praise to the Author of their being. When you enter Church, and glance at full 300 individuals waiting to join in singing the praises of God, you say with astonishment, This is the Lord's doing; it is mar¬ vellous in our eyes . In the afternoon, I visited the Indian Settlement, and preached there. The School¬ room was perfectly full, and the weather excessively hot. Their heads were well anointed with sturgeon oil, which rendered the effluvia of the place almost intolerable. I should be exceedingly happy if I could teach them to he more cleanly in their persons and in their houses; but, however severe I may be upon 216 them respecting their houses, their farms, and dirty habits, at their own homes, still, when at Church, I take them as they are, and welcome them. Further Evidence of Vital Religion . That something more than an external appear¬ ance of devotion was to be fotirid among some of the poor Indians who thus waited upon the Lord in His House, is evident from an interesting account, contained in the Church Missionary Record for December 1835, of the death of an Esquimaux lad, named Colon Leslie, and of the expressive and original terms in which an older Indian described the difficulties which he met with in his religious course, plainly showing that he was no stranger to spiritual religion as a matter of experience. Erection of a Flour-mill. In temporal things, also, another advance was made this year. Mr. Cockran mentioned the inexpressible pleasure which it gave him to see M an Indian ploughing his ground, with his own plough and ox; and his daughter driving it.” The quantity of corn raised in the Indian Settlement was now so considerable, that the want of a mill to grind it began to be very greatly felt; and after encountering many difficulties, the inde¬ fatigable perseverance of Mr. Cockran succeeded in accomplishing this object. A new impulse seem¬ ed now to be given to the Indian character. Mr. Cockran, describing a visit which hemade to the Indian Settlement on one occasion,remarked— It seems quite in a bustle to-day. Some were carrying the wheat to the mill upon their backs ; others were hauling it, with oxen, upon sledges. The mill was gliding steadily round, driven by a north- wind. I found 12 persons waiting for their flour. The grist-mill is the most conspicuous mark of civilization that we have planted in this rude waste, and its bene¬ ficial effect is strikingly felt by the savage. He seems all at once stimulated to develope a new character. On the blowing of the wind he is out with his wheat to winnow; gets it into his bag, runs to the mill, and stands in eager expectation of his turn. When once it is in the hopper, and the stones at work, he handles it as it falls into the box, to see if it be well ground. I thought it scarcely possible so to rouse the Indian’s drowsy powers. 218 Building and Opening of a New Church in the Colony—Establishment of Schools. While this remarkable transition from barbar¬ ism to civilization was taking place in the Indian Settlement, Mr. Jones was successfully prosecut¬ ing his ministerial labours among the more mixed population of the upper part of the Colony. The Congregations at the Upper and Middle Churches consisted of about 800 or 900, includ¬ ing children, and the number of Communicants amounted to about 130. The first Church, though reflecting great credit on the zeal and exertions of Mr. West, and of all who were con¬ cerned in its erection, being built of logs, was fast going to decay, and it was found necessary to erect a more substantial edifice of stone. This object was accomplished by a liberal subscription on the part of the Settlers, aided by a munificent grant from the Hudson’s Bay Company, and a smaller grant from the Church Missionary Society. The building was opened for Divine Service on the 26th of November 1834. It is capable of accommodating comfortably 700 peo- 219 pie, and 1000 might find room without being over-crowded. Five Day-schools, containing about 400 chil¬ dren, had been established ; beside two Semin¬ aries affording board, lodging, and education, to twenty- five young ladies, and thirty young gen¬ tlemen, children of the gentlemen engaged in the service of the Hudson's Bay Company. These were under the care and superintendence of Mr. and Mrs. Jones, assisted by a Tutor and Governess from England. At the different Sunday-schools, also, nearly 300 received reli¬ gious instruction. Moreover, the orderly de¬ meanour, moral conduct, and religious habits, of all classes, were, for the most part, satisfactory and cheering. Trials of the Mission—Death of Mrs . Jones . The year 1836 was a season of heavy trial to the whole Mission. A severe frost, which oc¬ curred in the middle of August, completely destroyed the wheat crops and all garden seeds. The buffalo hunters returned from the plains with empty carriages. The Company's ship, 220 after having landed her passengers at York Fort, was driven out of Hudson’s Bay by a severe storm, and compelled to return to England with¬ out having been able to land her cargo or to receive any despatches ; and thus the Mission was obliged to remain another year without communications from home, and supplies of various kinds which were urgently needed. But a loss, still more deeply felt, occurred by the sudden removal of Mrs. Jones in the midst of her usefulness; leaving Mr. Jones a bereaved wi¬ dower, and five children motherless. In the midst of these complicated difficulties and sorrows, however, there were some impor¬ tant and soothing alleviations. The barley har¬ vest was good, and the potatoes not altogether unproductive. The quantity of cattle which the people possessed, and the large stock of old grain which was in the hands of several, enabled them to pass the winter without much inconve¬ nience. The sympathy and sensibility called forth by the death of Mrs. Jones, was exceedingly touching. When Mr. Cockran, immediately on receiving the melancholy intelligence, set out to visit his afflicted brother, every one he met was ! 221 equally disconsolate—“a shake by the hand,a few faltering words, a deep sigh, and a flood of tears, were all that passed.” Her loss was regarded by the whole Protestant population as the heaviest of that trying season. Their language was, " Our crops have been smitten by the frost; our supplies are cut off by the non-arrival of the ships i seed-time and harvest will come again ; a new summer may bring another ship ; but Mrs. Jones will never return ! ” Among the Roman Catholic population; also, there was a feeling of sympathy, and even the untutored savage showed, by his silent grief, that he had lost a friend. Illustrations of the Effect of the Gospel . Many interesting instances might be adduced to illustrate the power of religion in influencing the minds, and improving the characters, of various classes of the population; but two accounts must now suffice. The first is a narrative, related by Mr. Jones, of the death of an Indian boy who had been educated at the Indian School, and baptized by the name of Jack Spense. Mr. Jones observed, in his Journal, under the date June 26, 1836— 222 I found him dying of consumption, and in a state of the most awful poverty and destitution, in a small birch-rind covered hut, with nothing but a few fern- leaves under him, and an old blanket over him, which was in a condition not to be described. After recovering from my surprise, I said, “ My poor boy, I am very sorry to find you in this state : had you let me know, you should not have been lying here.” He replied, “ It is very little I want now, and these poor people get it me ; but I should like something softer to lie upon, as my bones are very sore.” I then asked him concerning the state of his mind; when he replied, that he was very happy; that Jesus Christ, the Lord of Glory, had died to save him, and that he had the most perfect confidence in Him. Observing a small Bible under the corner of his blanket, I said, “Jack, you have a friend there: I am glad to see that: I hope you find something good there.” Weak as he was, he raised himself on his elbow, held it in his attenuated hand, while a smile played on his countenance, and slowly spoke, in precisely the fol¬ lowing words—“ This, Sir, is my dear friend. You gave it me, when we all went down to live at Mr. Cockran’s. For a long time I read it much, and often thought of what it told. Last year, I went to see my sister at Lake Winnipeg ”— about 200 miles off— “ where I remained about two months. When I was half-way back through the Lake, I remembered that I had left my Bible behind me. I directly turned 223 round, and was nine days by myself, tossing to and fro, before I could reach the house ; but I found my friend, and determined that I would not part with it again; and ever since it has been near my breast, and I thought I should have buried it with me; but I have thought since, I had better give it to you when I am gone, and it may do some one else good.” He was often interrupted by a sepulchral cough, and sunk down exhausted. I read and prayed, the hut hardly affording me room to be upright even when kneeling. The evening sun was pouring its rays through the holes in the bark-covered hut: and I could not but mentally exclaim, on coming away, What a scene for the pen of a Legh Richmond ! The other instance of the influence of divine grace, although it occurred four years later, may be here introduced. It will be seen in the fol¬ lowing eloquent and pathetic advice given by an Indian father to his son, who was setting out on a long and hazardous journey. Mr. Cockran wrote, in his Journal— July 26, 1840—I returned home, in company with a Native whose son had gone on a long journey, near to the Rocky Mountains. I was delighted to find that he had sent his son off with the most pressing injunction that he would pray to God at least twice every day, and read the Bible as often as he might have an opportunity. He said, “ My son, as long as 224 you have been in my house you have seen me pray: let this put you in mind that there is a Being, whom we cannot see, who gives us all things. You go to Church: there you hear that this Great Being, whom wicked men hate, and are afraid of, is Love. When you go through the plains, you will not see me praying ; you will not hear th,at God is Love. There you will meet with men whose hearts are cruel; who will stand up against you; who have no pity: they would drive an arrow through your heart; they would take your scalp from your head, and drink your blood. My son, when night comes on, before you close your eyes, ask Him who draws the darkness round you to look and pity you, and spread His hand over you; for you are alone, far from home, and have no other friend but Him. When morning comes, and your eyes first see the light, thank the Best of all Beings for His protection ; and ask Him to go with you on your journey, to turn men who have bad hearts on one side, that they may not meet you. Should you be in danger, never forget that the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin. Trust in it: God has accepted of it as the sacrifice for your soul *, and through this, you and I may meet in heaven.” The father said to me: “ My heart was light and happy when I saw my son take his Bible and some Tracts; and when he squeezed my hand, with the tears in his eyes, and said, ‘ I will remember Him who is over us all, till I meet you again.* ” 225 Progress of the Indian Settlement. The number of Indians who embraced Chris¬ tianity at the Indian Settlement was constantly increasing. On the 24th of December 1836, five Native women were baptized, one of whom had come a distance of 90 miles to seek admis¬ sion into the Church; and this at a season when the thermometer was 25° below zero. About this time there were 47 Christian families, com¬ prising about 260 individuals. The Schoolroom having become much too small to accommodate the Congregation, Mr. Cockran found it necessary to build a Church. In the prosecution of this object he was liberally supported by the more affluent inhabitants of the upper part of the Colony, an d the Congregation at the Rapids were especially forward in rendering their aid. Alto¬ gether, about 9 ol. 15s. was contributed, in labour, produce, or cash. In this Church many faults, which had been committed from inex¬ perience in building the other Churches, were avoided. Its size is about 54 feet by 24, and it will accommodate about 300 persons. The 226 day on which it was opened, January 4, 1837, was exceedingly cold and tempestuous ; but the Church was quite full, all the Officers of the Hudson’s Bay Company, as well as several of the Settlers, being present.* Return of Mr. Jones to England—Appeal for more Missionaries , and Arrival out of the Rev. J. Smithurst. In 1838, Mr. Jones was compelled by domestic circumstances, as well as by the state of his health, to visit England. He intended to return to his labours; but it pleased God to order otherwise. He gradually became weaker, and last year he was taken^awav from this world of • j tc • Txu • r.v sin and suffering. ^ ,, When Mr. Jones left the Red River, he was the bearer of several letters and messages to the Committee, urging, with affectionate earnestness, the importance of sending out’additional Missio¬ naries to them. After service at the Indian Church, on the 9th of August, the old Chief * A description of the locality of the Indian Settle¬ ment, and of the interesting appearance of the Church, is contained in the 39th Report, pp. 123, 124. 227 Figwys came to Mr. Jones, and said, “ I send by you a letter to the Missionary men in England: tell them not to forget me : I want the Word of Life to be always spoken in my land.” Another Indian, who appeared to take the lead among the Muscaigoes, sent a similar message : adding, with much vehemence of gesture, “ Tell them to MAKE HASTE : TIME IS SHORT, AND DEATH IS SNATCHING AWAY OUR FRIENDS AND RELATIONS VERY FAST : TELL THEM TO MAKE HASTE.” In allusion to the efforts made by the Church of Rome, the Indians, in their general letter, made the following affecting appeal— Mr. Jones is now going, to leave us. Mr. Cockran is talking of leaving us. Must we turn to our idols and gods again ? or must we turn to the French Praying-masters for protection and assistance, where a good few of our children and relatives are gone to ? W e see not less than three French Praying-masters have arrived in the River, and not one for us. What is this, our friends? The Word of God says, that one soul is worth more than all the world. Surely, then, our friends, 300 souls are worthy of one Praying- master.” This appeal, taken in connexion with the solitary . condition of Mr. Cockran, who had to divide his labours among the Congregations of four Churches, was irresistible; and accordingly the Rev. J. Smithurst was appointed to this Mission. He arrived at the Red River in September 1839, and with a praiseworthy eagerness to be among the people committed to his charge, took up his residence at the Indian Settlement even before the house which was being prepared for his recep¬ tion was completed. The advantage of having a resident Minister, as might be expected, was very great. Each succeeding year has exhibited a marked improvement, both in the temporal and spiritual * condition of the Christian Indians: their numbers are constantly increasing by the addition of new families, desirous of civilization, and inquiring after Christianity; and the testi- * One interesting fact, mentioned by Mr. Smithurst in 1840, must not be omitted— When the Christian Indians are out on a hunting excur¬ sion, they usually spend the LordVday together, and abstain entirely from the chase. One of them is in the habit of reading the Church-service ; and after singing, they all talk over what they can remember of the Word of God taught them either in Church or in School. 229 mony of several competent witnesses, acquainted with the Indian character, and experienced in the country, has been of the same satisfactory tenour as that which the Bishop has borne in his valuable letters. Arrival of the Rev. A. Cowley and Mr. J. Roberts—Return of Mr. Roberts . In 1841, the band of Missionary labourers was strengthened by the addition to their number of the Rev. A. Cowley, and Mr. J. Roberts. Mr. Roberts laboured usefully for two years as a Catechist, and has subsequently returned to this country. Mr. Cowley has been engaged in as¬ sisting Mr. Cockran in the Upper Settlement, and in superintending the formation of a new Station at Manitoba Lake. Since the ordination of Mr. Me Allum, Mr. Cowley has given his whole time to the Manitoba Station. Summary of the Stations in the Colony. By the last accounts, the number of persons attending Public Worship in the four Churches R 230 J N at the Red River, amounted to 1723; the number of Communicants was 454; and there were 9 Schools, containing 485 Scholars. Formation of the Cumberland Station — Appoint - ment to it of the Rev. J. Hunter , and his Arrival. In 1839, the Committee had the satisfaction to find that the Hudson's Bay Company were disposed to countenance and promote the forma¬ tion of a Missionary Station at Cumberland House, one of their Posts, about 500 miles from the Red River. The financial circumstances of the Society prevented the Committee from avail¬ ing themselves of this opening to the extent which they desired. Tn order, however, that some beginning might be made, Mr. Henry Budd, who had been for some time in connexion with the Society as a Schoolmaster, was sent to that neighbourhood in June 1840. When he had been labouring for about a year, he was enabled to send home an encouraging account of the success which had attended his exertions. After the lapse of another year, the Rev. J. Smithurst was anxious to visit the infant Station, with a view to strengthen Mr. Budd’s hands, and to V 2.31 baptize such as might be prepared for that ordi¬ nance. This desire was increased by his receiving a communication, through Mr. Budd, from the Indians of that district, earnestly requesting him to visit them. As the journey occupied twenty- six days, Mr. Smithurst’s joy may be well imagined when the guide made the pleasing announcement, “ Mr. Budd’s place is just behind that point of wood. A few minutes brought him within sight of the infant Mission Establishment, which he thus described— The Schoolhouse in the centre, Mr. Budd’s house on the South side, and the children’s house on the North, appeared respectable buildings ; and struck me as reflecting very great credit upon Mr. Budd’s industry. A gentle slope from the houses toward the river appeared to have been cleared, but not fenced; and in the rear, a neat square field was fenced in, and under cultivation. Our boat was soon observed, and the School children flocked down to the beach to welcome our arrival. Their appearance was highly satisfactory, considering the short time which had intervened since they were taken from their native woods. Notwithstanding the unfavourable circumstances under which we arrived, amid a deluge of rain, the first impression upon my mind was so pleasing, that I quite forgot the tedious- / 232 ness of twenty-six days’ travelling through a solitary wilderness. The School was found to contain thirty-one Indian children, all neat and clean. On examina¬ tion, it appeared that they had made very good progress in learning. There were but few adult Indians at the Station when Mr. Smithurst arrived, because they were necessarily engaged in procuring subsistence, at a fishing-place about a day’s journey off; but he was informed that they would not fail to reach the Station on Saturday, according to their regular custom. Accordingly, on that day he wrote— In the afternoon, a whole fleet of canoes made their appearance, and formed a most pleasing scene. The party, consisting of from sixty to seventy persons, pitched their tents alongside the Mission Establish¬ ment, in order to attend the services of the Lord’s- day. This was indeed one of the most cheering sights I ever witnessed; and called forth feelings of the deepest gratitude to God, that He should have inclined the hearts of so many to seek after the way of salvation. Up to a late hour on Saturday evening, as well as on the following morning, Mr. Smithurst was 233 engaged in a close examination of the Candidates for Baptism individually. He reported, that “ the result of the examinations was highlv satisfactory.” June 26, 1842, is a day much to he remember¬ ed in the annals of this Mission. In the after¬ noon, Mr. Smithurst had the privilege of ad¬ mitting into the Church of Christ, by Baptism, eighty-five Indians; of whom thirty-eight were adults, and the remaining forty-seven their children. In the summer of 1843, Mr. Budd reported that the eighty-five baptized Indians continued stedfast in the faith, and manifested an increasing desire after divine things ; and that there were fifty-eight Candidates for Baptism awaiting the arrival of a Clergyman. The urgent need of an ordained Missionary for this interesting Station was met by the appointment of the Rev. J. Hunter, who with Mrs. Hunter arrived at York Fort in August last, and hoped to reach his destination in the course of the following month. By accounts received from Mr. Budd subsequently to Mr. Hunter’s departure, it appears that the number of Candidates for Baptism had increased to ninety- 234 two. There were thirty-two children in the School, nineteen of whom could read. Most of those who had been baptized had crops of potatoes growing, and had prepared wood for building houses. At this Station there are now nearly 200 Christian Converts, who, four years ago, were all Heathen, and who had then never heard the glad tidings of the Gospel. When it is considered that Mr. Budd was one of >the first Indian boys consigned to Mr. West’s care in 1820, it will be readily allowed that the account of this Station furnishes a most striking illustration of the value of Native Agency. Manitoba Lake, and Fort Ellice . The Station at Manitoba Lake, to which allusion has already been made, is about 120 miles West from the Red River, and was commenced by the Rev. A. Cowley in 1842. Another attempt has also been made at Fort Ellice, near Beaver Creek, on the great plain of the Missouri, about 300 miles from the Settlement. Both these Stations are in too incipient a state to require any lengthened notice at present. Visit of the Bishop of Montreal. It only remains that some reference should be made to the important visit of the Bishop of Montreal. From the time of his consecration in 1836, Dr. Mountain cherished the intention of visiting this distant branch of the Church of Eng¬ land, and the proposal was heartily seconded by the Society. The prior claims of his own Diocese, however, interfered with the carrying out of this intention until 1842, when he fully hoped to be able to accomplish the object. But a severe illness obliged him to defer the visit until last year. The account of the journey, and other infor¬ mation communicated in the Bishop’s Letters, cannot fail to be regarded as highly interesting; and all who read them will doubtless agree with the Clergy of the Mission in considering that “ the self-denying zeal which stimulated, and the persevering industry which accomplished, this pious, noble, and arduous enterprise, entitle his Lordship to our warmest acknowledgments of gratitude.” * * Address of the Clergy to the Bishop. 236 The visit has greatly cheered the hearts and strengthened the hands of the Missionaries, and there is every reason to believe that, under God s blessing, it will greatly tend to the stability and extension of the Mission. The impression produced upon the Bishop's mind by what he saw is sufficiently evident in his Letters. It may be well, however, to add the fol¬ lowing short but satisfactory testimony, extracted rom a letter to the Secretary, dated August 27, written immediately after his Lordship s return to Quebec— It is impossible that I can write to you, after my visit, without paying at least a passing tribute to the invaluable labours of those faithful men whom the Society has employed in that field of its extensive operations: and the opportunity which was afforded to me of contrasting the condition of the Indians who are under their training and direction, with that of the unhappy Heathens with whom I came in contact on the route, signally enabled me to appreciate the blessings of which the Society is the instrument, and did indeed yield a beautiful testimony to the power and reality of the Gospel of Christ. — ISS Hi < 80.1331