It is said that some of the last party to reach his Colony had seen him at Kildonan in Scotland, where he had visited them, and encouraged them in their departure for the Colony.

His first duties were to the unfortunate settlers, who had been brought back from Jack River.

Lord Selkirk gathered the Colonists on the spot where the church and burial ground of St. John’s are still found.  “The Parish,” said he, “shall be Kildonan.  Here you shall build your church, and that lot,” he said, pointing to the lot across the little stream called Parsonage Creek, “is for a school.”  He was thus planning to carry out the devout imagination of the greatest religious leader of his nation, John Knox:  “A church and a school for every parish.”

Perhaps the most interesting episode in Lord Selkirk’s visit was his treaty-making with the Indians.  The plan of securing a strip of land on each side of the river was said to have been decided to be as much as could be seen by looking under the belly of a horse out upon the prairie.  This was about two miles.  Hence the river lots were generally about two miles long.

His meeting with the Indians was after the manner of a great “Pow-wow.”  The Indians are fluent and eloquent speakers, though they indulge in endless repetitions.

Peguis, the Saulteaux chief, befriended the white man from the beginning.  He denounced the Bois-brules.  He said, “We do not acknowledge these men as an independent tribe.”

“L’Homme Noir,” the Assiniboine chief, among other things, said:  “We have often been told you were our enemy, but we hear from your own mouth the words of a true friend.”

“Robe Noire,” the Chippewa, tried in lofty style to declare:  “Clouds have over-whelmed me.  I was a long time in doubt and difficulty, but now I begin to see clearly.”

While Lord Selkirk was still in his Colony, the very serious state of things on the banks of Red River and the pressure of the British Government led to the appointment, by the Governor-General of Canada, of a most clear-minded and peace-loving man as Commissioner.  This appointment was all the more pleasing on account of Mr. W.B.  Coltman being a resident Canadian of Quebec.  Coltman was one man among a thousand.  He was patient and kind and just.  Though he had come to the Colony prejudiced against Lord Selkirk, he found his Lordship so fair and reasonable that he became much attached to the man represented in Montreal and the far East as a destructive ogre.

The Commissioner’s report covered one hundred pages, and it was in all respects a model.  He thoroughly understood the motives of both parties, and his decisions led to a perfect era of peace, and moreover in the end to the union of the Hudson’s Bay and Nor’-West Companies.