that colony, or rather of the Assiniboyne district,[196] had issued a proclamation {332} forbidding all persons whomsoever, to send provisions of any kind out of the district. The Hudson's Bay traders had conformed to this proclamation, but those of the Northwest Company paid no attention to it, thinking it illegal, and had sent their servants, as usual to get provisions up the river. Mr. M'Donnell having heard that several hundred sacks of pemican[197] were laid up in a storehouse under the care of a Mr. Pritchard, sent to require their surrender:[198] Pritchard refused to deliver them, whereupon Mr. M'Donnell had them carried off by force. The traders who winter on Little Slave lake, English river, the Athabasca country, &c., learning this, and being aware that they would not {333} find their usual supply at Bas de la Rivière, resolved to go and recover the seized provisions by force, if they were not peaceably given up. Things were in this position when Messrs. de Rocheblave and
