(From the St. Davids Spectator)

THE N. W. COMPANY & LORD SELKIRK.
YORK, SEPTEMBER 9 1816

Some time ago a report reached this place, that a party of Lord Selkirk’s Settlers on the Red River, had been massacred by some of the Natives or Half-Breeds, who inhabit that part of the country; this unhappily turns out to be but two well founded, and has led to an extraordinary transaction, which deeply interests the merchants engaged in the Canadian Fur Trade. Lord Selkirk having obtained possession of the North West Company’s establishment at Fort William and proceeding upon the supposition, that the Gentlemen of that Company, had by instigating the natives to make the attack on the Red River settlement, rendered themselves accessaries to the murder thereby occasioned, has committed Mr. McGillivray, Mr. Alexander McKenzie, and several other partners of the Company to the prison of Sandwich in the Western District of this Province, by his own warrant as a Magistrate of that District; these gentlemen arrived in this town on the 5th and 6th instant, under charge of Lieutenant Fouche, of the late Regiment De Meuron, acting as a Constable by his Lordship’s appointment, and assisted by an armed force composed of disbanded soldiers of the same regiment; the Judges being unfortunately absent on the Circuit, the prisoners have proceeded under escort to Kingston, in the hope of meeting Mr. Justice Campbell and the Attorney General, and where it is expected they will obtain their liberty under a Habeas Corpus.
The gentlemen of the North West Company, strenuously deny having in any way instigated the Half-Breeds to commit this murder, and on the contrary assert that his Lordship’s settlers were the aggressors, having forcibly possessed themselves of two small establishments belonging to their company, making the traders, in charge of them, prisoners, and destroying the forts; that had not this been the case, the influence of their agents would have been sufficient to have restrained the natives, and prevented bloodshed.
The North West Company have long been in the habit of trading in the Red River Country, and though a competition has always existed on the part of the servants of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and for some time the trade was disputed with them, by the members of the late New North West Company, yet although occasional disagreeaments and differences occurred between particular posts, no serious affray took place, at least nothing happened which can in any degree be compared to the exterminating spirit, the present rivalry has given rise to, and which if persisted in, may occasion such a ferment in the Indian Tribes, as will endanger the remote settlement of this Province.
A doubt naturally exists how far the Earl of Selkirk can be considered as a disinterested Magistrate, and whether from the train of previous circumstances which have led to this event, his Lordship is not a Party as well as a Judge in the cause; on this point I will not pretend to offer an opinion, nor do I decide whether Fort William, on the north west shore of Lake Superior is or is not within the Province of Upper Canada: this, however, I believe, by general usage considered as part of the Indian Territory, and I will venture to affirm that his lordship is the first Magistrate of the Western District of Upper Canada, who has taken cognizance of any crime committed therein; no doubt he has acted from ample legal advice, for it is difficult to conceive that a man of his Lordship’s abilities and cool judgement, should in a matter productive of consequences of such important magnitude have proceeded from mere impulse. Here the matter at present rests, litigation will no doubt ensue, and if the parties come into Court with the same animosity they have displayed in the Indian Lands, the gentlemen of the Robe cannot fail of extracting a glorious harvest; a fair competition is desireable in most trades, perhaps the Indian trade is an exception to this, and can only thrive by monopoly; if this is the case, it is certainly desireable that it should be in the hands of those whose labours have first explored the trackless wilds through which the trader prosecutes his hazardous enterprize, and whose energy has raised the Fur Trade to its present respectable state, and I must confess it would be a matter of regret to see it wrested from them, not by a man driven from necessity to embark in this laborious commerce, but by one who descends from the high character of a British Peer*, who forsakes those pursuits by which a Nobleman should disinguish himself, to follow the life of an itinerant wader in the Forests of North America.
A
FRIEND TO PROPRIETY.
*Who abandons the senate, in which his abilities would shine.