Even the avenues of Government power seemed by influential Nor'-Westers to be closed against him.

An appeal to Sir Gordon Drummond, the Governor-General, could obtain no more than a promise of a Sergeant and six men to protect him personally should he go to the far West, and the appointment of himself as a Justice of the Peace in Upper Canada and the Indian Territory was grudgingly given.
The active mind of his Lordship occupied the time of winter well.

He planned nothing less than introducing to the banks of Red River a body of men as settlers, who could, like the returned exiles to Jerusalem, work with sword in one hand and a tool of industry in the other.

The man of resource finds his material ready made.

Two mercenary regiments from Switzerland which had been fighting England's battles in America had just been disbanded, and Lord Selkirk at once engaged them to go as settlers, under his pay, to Red River.