CHAPTER XVI.
THE JOLLY GOVERNOR.
Great crises in the world's history generally produce the men who solve them.

Cromwell, Washington, Garibaldi--each of them was the movement itself.

A wider philosophy may see that the age or the Community evolves the man, but as Carlyle shows, it is the man who reacts upon the community, becomes the embodiment of its ideal, and is the mouthpiece and the right hand of the age which produces him.
That Andrew Colville, a brother-in-law of Lord Selkirk, should select a young clerk in London and send him out to Athabasca to see the great fur-region of the Mackenzie River District, is not a wonderful thing, but that after one year of active service this young man should be chosen to guide the destinies of the great united fur company, made up of the Hudson's Bay and Nor'-Wester Companies is a wonder.
This was the case with George Simpson, a Scottish youth, who was the illegitimate son of the maternal uncle of Thomas Simpson, the famous Arctic explorer, who is known as having followed out a portion of the coast line of the Arctic Sea.
Anyone can see that from the proverbial energy that is developed in those of inferior birth, there was here one of Nature's commanding spirits, who would bring order out of chaos.
Moreover, the fact of his short service in a distant part of the fur country, left him free from prejudice, gave him an open mind, and permitted him to serve as a young man when he was yet plastic and adaptable--all this was in his favor.
Governor Simpson was short of stature, but possessed of great energy and endurance.

He was keen in mind and observing in his faculties.

Active and determined, he might at times seem a martinet and a tyrant, but he had at the same time an easy and pleasant manner that enabled him to attract to himself his servants and subordinates, but especially the savages with whom he had constantly to have dealings.