There is still, among the many irritating causes, all of which my limits will not permit me to dwell upon, one which must not go unnoticed.  Mr. Dewdney is not the gentleman who ought to have the immediate administration of North-West affairs in his hands.  He has neither the understanding nor the inclination to make him a suitable administrator.  Before all things he is there for himself; and he has even figured in the respectable role of land-grabbing.  I am sure that if the gentleman is to be provided for by the public no objection would be raised if Sir John were to propose that he be recalled, and receive his salary all the same in consideration of the position he holds in the regard of the prime-minister, and of those who are not exactly prime-ministers or ministers.  Mr. Dewdney has not alone got it into his head that an Indian has no understanding; but he must also endow himself with the conviction that he has no nostrils.  A friend of Mr. Dewdney got some meat, but the article stank, and the importer knew not how to dispose of it.

“O sell it to the Indians,” the Governor said; and, “Lo! to the poor Indian” it was sold; and sold at tenderloin prices.

“We can’t eat em meat.  He stinks,” the poor savage said.  “Em charge too much.  Meat very bad.”

“Let Indians eat their meat,” the just Mr. Dewdney retorted; “or starve and be damned.”  What right has an Indian to complain of foul meat, and to say that he has been charged too high a price for it?  He is only a savage!

Let Sir John take care.

Well, this was the state of affairs when Louis Riel, about a year ago, left off his wooing for a little while, and returned to the old theatre of his crimes.  He found the people chafing under official injustice, and delays that were almost equivalent to a denial of justice.  He did not care a fig for the condition of “his people!” but like the long-winged petrel, he is a bad weather bird, and here was his opportunity.  He went abroad among the people, fomenting the discord, and assuring them that if all other means failed they would obtain their rights by rising against the authorities.

But the plain object of this plausible disturber was cash.  The lazy rascal had failed to earn a livelihood among the half-breeds of Montana; and now was resolved to get some help from the Dominion Treasury.  Presently intimations began to reach the Canadian Government that if they made it worth M. Riel’s while, he would leave the disaffected people and return to American territory.  The sum of $5,000, it was learnt, a little later, would make it “worth his while” to go back.  This, if Sir John’s statement in the House of Commons is to be trusted, the administration refused to pay.

And now some good priests made up their valises, and travelled out of the North-West, and all the way to Ottawa, to present the grievances of their people to the ministry.  Archbishop Tache likewise showed himself at the capital on the same mission.