Canada’s military experience, ever since the excitement of the “Trent Affair,” had been in dealing with a persistent band of Irishmen, posing as Fenians, and egged on by sympathizers in the United States.  Now there was trouble, as we have seen, in her own borders, and though here again, American influence of a hostile nature played its part, yet it was those connected with one of the two races in Canada who were now giving trouble in the Northwestern prairies.  Such an outbreak was more dangerous than Fenianism, for to the credit of the Irish in Canada, it should be said that they gave no countenance to the Fenian intruders.  The French people in Quebec, however, had strong sympathies for their race in the Red River Settlement.  No one in Canada believed that any injustice could be done to either the English or French elements on the banks of Red River, but Sir George Cartier fought strongly for his own, and was very unwilling to allow an expedition to go out to Manitoba with hostile intent.  Of the two battalions of volunteers that went out to Red River, one was from Quebec, but one military authority states that there were not fifty French-Canadians all told in the Quebec battalion.  It had been proposed that Col.  Wolseley, who was to command the Red River Expedition, should be appointed Governor of the new province of Manitoba, but this was sturdily opposed by the French-Canadian section of the Cabinet, and Hon. Adams G. Archibald, a Nova Scotian, was appointed to the post of Governor.  Hampered thus, in so far as exercising any civil functions wereconcerned, Col.  Garnet Wolseley was chosen by the British officer in command in Canada—­General Lindsay—­to organize this expedition.  Wolseley was very popular, having served in Burmah, India, the Crimea and China.  The Ontario battalion soon had to refuse applications, and from Ontario the complement of the Quebec battalion was filled up.  It was decided also that a battalion of regulars, with small bodies of artillery and engineers should take the lead in the expedition.  Thus, a force of 1,200 men was speedily gathered together and put at the disposal of Colonel Wolseley.  Two hundred boats, each some 25 to 30 feet long, carrying four tons as well as fourteen men as a crew, were built; the voyageurs numbered some four hundred men.  No sooner did the Fenians in the United States hear of this expedition than they threatened Lower Canada, and spoke of interrupting the troops as they passed Sault Ste. Marie.  The United States also refused to allow soldiers or munitions of war to pass up their Sault Canal.  The rallying began in May, and though the troops were compelled to debark themselves and their stores at Sault Ste. Marie, portage them around the Sault and replace them in the steamers again, yet all the troops were landed at Port Arthur on Lake Superior by the 21st of June, their officers declaring “our mission is one of peace, and the sole object of it is to secure Her Majesty’s