Читать книгу The Canadian North-west - Graeme Mercer Adam - Страница 4

Table of Contents

N adding to the already numerous works on the Canadian North-West, I have sought to make a contribution of more than passing interest. With this end in view, I have not confined the narrative to recent events; but have told the story from the beginning. It may fairly be claimed that there is some advantage in this. It will enable the reader to follow the successive steps in the development of the country, and to trace in the past history some of the remote causes of the present rebellion.

These revolts, in some degree at least, are the legacy of the days of monopoly and privilege. Neither the Hudson Bay Company nor the North-West Fur Company, of Montreal was a colonising institution. Both were opposed to the settler, and both desired to keep the territory wild and uncultivated. Only thus could it be useful to a great fur-trading corporation. Though the rule of these trading corporations has passed away, jealousy of the intruding settler remains, and the aggressive spirit of monopoly which marked the dominion of the companies still manifests itself. The Indian shares the one; the half-breed inherits the other. Both, it may be said, must be exorcised ere the North-West can become a desirable possession of the Dominion, and a safe home for the settler.

In dealing with the later revolt, I have in the main confined myself to the narrative of the spirited and successful effort of the volunteers and other Canadian troops to suppress it. However inadequately treated, the story has been told, I would fain believe, without partiality or exaggeration. Of the insurgents I have striven to write without prejudice. The immediate causes of the outbreak, and the question of responsibility for its occurrence, I have but lightly touched on, as the time has not yet come to speak or to write with full knowledge of the subject. The facts upon which dispassionateness could rely were, in truth, not before me. In whatever criticism of the Administration I have ventured upon, I hope I have not forgotten what is due by a subject to the Government of the country of which I am a citizen and have been a soldier. In what afterwards has to be said, when the nation's inquest on the insurrection has developed the facts, I would ask that the voice of patriotism be heard, rather than that of party objurgation.

In preparing the volume, I have been under repeated obligations, which I desire here to acknowledge, to Messrs. Hunter, Rose & Co., Publishers, and to my friend, Mr. Wm. Williamson, Bookseller, Toronto. I am also indebted to Mr. Wm. Houston, M.A., and to Mr. John Watson, his assistant; to Mr. W. H. Van der Smissen, M.A.; and to Mr. James Bain, jr.; the Librarians, respectively, of the Library of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, the Library of Toronto University, and the Toronto Public Library. To Mr. Bain I am chiefly beholden for facilities in getting access to works on the early history of Canada and the North-West, with which the Toronto Public Library has been enriched by the generosity of Mr. John Hallam. Mr. Bain's intimate acquaintance with Canadian literature enhances the benefit to be derived from consultation in this valuable department of the City Library.

To Mr. R. Lovell Gibson, of Montreal, to Mr. Fulford Arnoldi, and to my son, Mr. Græme Gibson Adam, of Toronto, my thanks are also due for ready aid in placing material at my hand in the preparation of the book.

THE AUTHOR.

Toronto, July 15th, 1885.