George Simpson, who was the new Governor of the United Hudson’s Bay Company, was for two years Macdonell’s contemporary, and he in one of his letters says:  “Macdonell is, I am concerned to say, extremely unpopular, despised and held in contempt by every person connected with the place, he is accused of partiality, dishonesty, untruth and drunkenness,—­in short, by a disrespect of every moral and elevated feeling.”

Alexander Ross says of him, “The officials he kept about him resembled the court of an Eastern Nabob, with its warriors, serfs, and varlets, and the names they bore were hardly less pompous, for here were secretaries, assistant secretaries, accountants, orderlies, grooms, cooks and butlers.”

Satrap Macdonell held high revels in his time.  “From the time the puncheons of rum reached the colony in the fall, till they were all drunk dry, nothing was to be seen or heard about Fort Douglas but balling, dancing, rioting and drunkenness in the barbarous sport of those disorderly times.”  Macdonell’s method of reckoning accounts was unique.  “In place of having recourse to the tedious process of pen and ink the heel of a bottle was filled with wheat and set on the cask.  This contrivance was called the ‘hour glass,’ and for every flagon drawn off, a grain of wheat was taken out of the hour glass, and put aside till the bouse was over.”

As was to be expected this disgraceful state of things led to grave frauds in the dealings with the Colonists, and when Halkett, one of Lord Selkirk’s executors, arrived on Red River to investigate the complaints, a thorough system of “false entries, erroneous statements and over-charges” was found, and the discontent of the settlers was removed, though they were all heavily in debt to the Estate.

It had been the object of Lord Selkirk from the beginning of his enterprise to give employment to his needy Colonists.  Various enterprises were begun with this end in view, but they were all mere bubbles which soon burst.  John Pritchard, whom Lord Selkirk had taken as his secretary to London, was largely instrumental in floating the ill-starred scheme known as the “Buffalo Wool Company.”  Just as on the shores of the Mediterranean, shawls were made from the long wool of the goats, so it was thought that shawls could be made of the hair or wool of the buffalo.  A voluminous correspondence given in many letters of Pritchard’s to Lady Selkirk and other ladies of high station and to an English firm of manufacturers exploiting this project is before us.  Sample squares of the cloth made of buffalo wool were distributed and in certain circles the novelty from the Red River was the “talk of the town,” in London.