At Edmonton House, the head-quarters of the Saskatchewan District, and at the posts of Victoria and Fort Pitt, this state of lawlessness is more apparent than on the lower portion of the river.  Threats are frequently made use of by the Indians and half-breeds as a means of extorting favourable terms from the officers in charge, the cattle belonging to the posts are uselessly killed, and altogether the Hudson Bay Company may be said to retain their tenure of the Upper Saskatchewan upon a base which appears insecure and unsatisfactory.

In the foregoing remarks I have entered at some length into the question of the materials comprising the population of the Saskatchewan, with a, view to demonstrate that the condition of affairs in-that territory is the natural result of many causes, which have been gradually developing themselves, and which must of necessity undergo still further developments if left in their present state.  I have endeavoured to point out how from the growing wants of the aboriginal inhabitants, from the conflicting nature of the interests of the half-breed and Indian population, as well as from the natural constitution of the Hudson Bay Company, a state of society has arisen in the Saskatchewan which threatens at no distant day to give rise to grave complications; and which now has the effect of rendering life and property insecure and preventing the settlement of those fertile regions which in other respects are so admirably suited to colonization.

As matters at present rest, the region of the Saskatchewan is without law, order, or security for life or property; robbery and murder for years have gone unpunished; Indian massacres are unchecked even in the close vicinity of the Hudson Bay Company’s posts, and all civil and legal institutions are entirely unknown.

I now enter upon that portion of your Excellency’s instructions which has reference to the epidemic of small-pox in the Saskatchewan.  It is about fifty years since the first great epidemic of small pox swept over the regions of the Missouri and the Saskatchewan, committing great ravages among the tribes of Sioux, Gros-Ventres, and Flatheads upon American territory; and among the Crees and Assineboines of the British.  The Blackfeet Indians escaped that epidemic, while, on the other hand, the Assineboines, or Stonies of the Qu’Appelle Plains, were almost entirely destroyed.  Since that-period the disease appears to have visited some of the tribes at intervals of greater or less duration; but until this and the previous year its ravages were confined to certain localities and did not extend universally throughout the country.  During the summer and early winter of ’69 and ’70 reports reached the Saskatchewan of the prevalence of small-pox of a very malignant type among the South Peagin Indians, a branch of the great Blackfeet nation.  It was hoped, however, that the disease would be confined to the Missouri River, and the Crees who, as usual, were at war with their traditional enemies,