Employment was to be supplied; work in the employ of the Hudson's Bay Company, or free grants of land to actual settlers, or even a sale in fee simple of land for a mere nominal sum; free passages for the poor, reduced passages for those who had small means, food provided on the voyage, and the prospect of new world advantages to all.
But the poor are timid, and they love even their straw-thatched cottages, and it needs active and decided men to press upon them the advantages which are offered them.

The Emigration Agent is a necessity.
The fur traders' country was at this time well known to many of the partners.

It was by employing or consulting with some of these fur traders that Lord Selkirk obtained a knowledge of the Western land which he was to acquire.

Years before the Colony began Lord Selkirk had been in correspondence with an officer who belonged to a well known Catholic family of Highlanders, the Macdonells, who had gone to the Mohawk district in the United States before the American Revolution, and had afterwards come to Canada as U.E.Loyalists.

One of these, a man of standing and of executive ability was Miles Macdonell.