THE LEADER OF THE CANADIAN REBELLION.
♦ It would seem, from an interesting passage in Captain Huyehe's " The Bed Eiver Expedition," that, after all, Eiel, who is nor leading another rising in Canada, might have been easily captured had Colonel Wolseley wished to take him (Bays the St James' Gazette). Captain Huyshe was on the Btaff of the expedition, and had excellent opportunities of seeing what took place. He says that Kiel would have "fought it out, had his men stuck to him " (he was reported to have said, on the very morning that the troops appeared at the gates of Fort Garry, that "it was as well to be shot defending the fort as to give it up and be hung afterwards"), and that Eiel refused to credit the report of the approach of the expedition until he actually saw them marching round the village, when he " hurriedly galloped off " about a quarter of an hour beforo they arrived at the fort. " There is little doubt but that Eiel and his two friends (Lepine and O'Donoghue) might have been easily taken prisoners had Colonel "Wolseley desired to do so ; but in his position he did not desire to trench on the civil authority, and refused to allow his soldiers to be turned into policemen or constables P" Many of the inhabitants, however, offered to capture " Eiel ' and his gang " if authorised to do so. Some even asked permission to take him dead or alive, and if they had got it, " would simply have shot him down on the first opportunity, without any parleying at all." Subsequently a warrant was obtained from a Justice of the Peace for the arrest of Eiel and his two friends on a charge of murder, false imprisonment, and robbery ; but, " being found to be informal, it was never executed;" though, adds Captain Huyshe, " there were no constables and no civil authority" until the arrival of the LieutenantrGpvernor designate, go Riel was permitted to get away to tlie United States, whence he returned to his own home in St Joseph's — a small hamlet about 30 miles west of Pembina, and chiefly inhabited by half-breeds — where he " was allowed to remain unmolested." One would think that an essential part of the suppression of a rebellion is the capture and punishment of the ringleader; and whatever reasons there may have been for permitting Eiel to escape literally out of our hands, the circumstance, regretted as it was at the time, is still more to be regretted now.