There was an officers' guard under arms; colors were flying and after the reading of the Patent all the artillery belonging to Lord Selkirk, as well as that of the Hudson's Bay Company, under Mr.Hillier, consisting of six swivel guns, were discharged in a grand salute.
At the close of the ceremony the gentlemen were invited to the Governor's tent, and a keg of spirits was turned out for the people.
Having made such disposition as we shall see of the people, Governor Macdonell went with a boat's crew down the river to make a choice of a place of settlement for the Colonists.

A bull and cow and winter wheat had been brought with the party, and these were taken to a spot selected after a three days' thorough investigation of both banks of the river for some miles below the Forks.

The place found most eligible was "an extensive point of land through which fire had run and destroyed the wood, there being only burnt wood and weeds left." This was afterwards called Point Douglas.
He had, as we shall see, dispatched the settlers to their wintering place up the Red River on the 6th of September, and set some half-dozen men, who were to stay at the Forks, to work clearing the ground for sowing winter wheat.

An officer was left with the men to trade with Indians for fish and meat for the support of the workers.
The winter, which is sharp, crisp and decided in all of Rupert's Land, was approaching, so that their situation began to be desperate.
Governor Macdonell's chief care was for the safety and comfort during the winter of his helpless Colonists.
Sixty miles up the Red River from the Forks was a settlement of native people--chiefly French half-breeds--and to this place called Pembina came in the buffaloes, or if not they were easily reached from this settlement.

But the poor Scottish settlers had no means of transport, and the way seemed long and desolate to them to venture upon, unaccompanied and unhelped.