They were bad farmers and withal very bad subjects; quarrelsome, slothful, famous bottle companions and ready for any enterprise however lawless and tyrannical." A few years later we find it stated that they made free with the cattle of their neighbors, and the chronicler does not hesitate to say that the herds of the De Meurons grew in number in exactly the same ratio as those of the Scottish settlers decreased.
Some four years after the settlement of the De Meurons a sunburst came upon them quite unexpectedly.
Lord Selkirk in the very last years of his life planned to bring a band of Protestant settlers from Switzerland.

A Colonel May, late of another of the mercenary regiments, accepted the duty of going to Switzerland, issuing a very attractive invitation to settlers, and succeeded in shipping a considerable number of Swiss families to his so-called Red River paradise.
This band of Colonists, consisting as they did of "watch and clock-makers, pastry cooks and musicians," were quite unfit for the rough work of the Selkirk Colony.

In 1821 they were brought by way of Hudson Bay, over the same rocky way as the earlier Colonists came.

They were utterly poverty stricken, though honest, and well-behaved.

Their only possession of value was a plenty of handsome daughters.