"It Is Perhaps Unnecessary Further To Explain The Reasons Of My Not
Proceeding To Red River.
As before stated, I had expected to do so in
company with Captains Glyn and Synge, without whom I should have
hesitated to undertake the more extended and responsible task at first
proposed.
I did not in any event expect that Governor Dallas would come
to Canada prior to the receipt of your official letter of the 6th July,
and for which I had been waiting from the 30th June until the 20th
July; and when he arrived, and especially when I found that the
purposes of my proposed journey had been in great measure previously
fulfilled by him, it became a question of whether it ought not to be
postponed. He had already folly advised the Governor and Committee of
the 'state of the Red River Settlement,' of its 'suitability for
settlement,' and of the general and highly favourable features of the
tracts, over which he had travelled for 1,800 miles in various
directions. The best route for a telegraph could be, and was,
suggested, to you from his own observations, corroborated and added to
by the personal experience of Mr. Hopkins and others, who had often
traversed the districts, and had resided for years therein. The entire
feasibility of constructing a telegraph across the Continent was not
only confirmed by these experiences, but by the practical views of
persons consulted, who had set up lines through even more difficult and
wilder tracts of country.
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