CHAPTER XXVIII.
WOLSELEY'S WELCOME.
Canada's military experience, ever since the excitement of the "Trent Affair," had been in dealing with a persistent band of Irishmen, posing as Fenians, and egged on by sympathizers in the United States.

Now there was trouble, as we have seen, in her own borders, and though here again, American influence of a hostile nature played its part, yet it was those connected with one of the two races in Canada who were now giving trouble in the Northwestern prairies.

Such an outbreak was more dangerous than Fenianism, for to the credit of the Irish in Canada, it should be said that they gave no countenance to the Fenian intruders.
The French people in Quebec, however, had strong sympathies for their race in the Red River Settlement.

No one in Canada believed that any injustice could be done to either the English or French elements on the banks of Red River, but Sir George Cartier fought strongly for his own, and was very unwilling to allow an expedition to go out to Manitoba with hostile intent.

Of the two battalions of volunteers that went out to Red River, one was from Quebec, but one military authority states that there were not fifty French-Canadians all told in the Quebec battalion.