A few years earlier, two members of the Carrier Nation had murdered a couple Hudson's Bay Company men at Fort St. James. One native had been found and punished for this, but the other had yet to be caught. On August 6, 1828, the murderer turned up near by Fort St. James. Douglas found the man cowering under a pile of blankets in a sick women's tent, and went out to arrested the man, to have him executed.
There are varied accounts of this story. Though Douglas denies this, it has been rumored that he ordered the man beaten to death, then his corpse was dragged back to the Fort and fed to the dogs. The Indians who were related to the slain man wanted revenge. Kwah, Chief of Stuart First Nations and a relative of the culprit took, a band of some thirty or forty Indians and seized the Fort.
Douglas was pinned on a table with a dagger pointed at his throat. Amelia came out of hiding, and grabbed a dagger from one of the warriors. She rushed at her husband's assailant, but was quickly overpowered. One of the attackers grabbed her long hair, and put a knife to her throat. Her younger brother William tripped the attacker, and Amelia broke free and ran upstairs.
With the help of the interpreters wife, she then began to toss down trade goods, like tobacco and blankets at the Natives feet. To the Carrier Indians "throwing" a gift was a mark of respect, and the custom of compensation for a Natives death. The native attackers were satisfied by this gesture of compensation. Amelia had saved the life of her husband and those at the Fort, and diffused a vendetta between the Stuart Lake First Nations and the Hudson's Bay Company.
There after Douglas listened to Amelia's advice on dealing with First Nations people, learning that holding talks with natives was more effective than retaliation.
Years later, Douglas writes to his daughter Martha:
"They wish to make an example out of me, who am as you know a quite old gentleman enough, a sort of daredevil, fearing nothing. True I seized the Indian, a noted murderer, as stated, and secured him after a desperate struggle, but I did not shoot him with my own hands; he was afterwards executed for his crimes. It was a desperate adventure, which nothing but a high sense of duty could have induced me to undertake."
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