On their agile ponies they appeared like scourging Huns, to drive out the discouraged remnant of Colonists.
Each remaining settler was on the 25th of June served with a notice signed by four Nor'-Westers, thus: "All settlers to retire immediately from Red River, and no trace of a settlement to remain." (Signed) Cuthbert Grant, etc.
Two days after the notice was served the beleaguered settlers, made up of some thirteen families--in all from forty to sixty persons, who had remained true to Lord Selkirk and the Colony--went forth from their homes as sadly as the Acadian refugees from Grand Pre.

They were allowed to take with them such belongings as they had, and in boats and other craft went pensively down Red River with Lake Winnipeg and Jack River in view as their destination.

The house of the Governor, the mill, and the buildings which the settlers had begun to build upon their lots were all set on fire and destroyed.
The U.E.Loyalists of Upper Canada and Nova Scotia draw upon our sympathies in their sufferings of hunger and hardship, but they afford no parallel to the discouragement, dangers, and dismay of the Selkirk Colonists.
Alexander Macdonell's party of seventy or eighty mounted men easily carried out this work of destruction.

There was one fly in the ointment for them.

The small Hudson's Bay House built by Fidler still remained.
Here a daring Celt, John McLeod, was in charge.