My neighbour, Mr. Fraser, tells me that by my looks and speaking he cannot think me so ill as imagined. You will think the same by my writing the above. My distemper is owing to Gravelly Ulcers and it is a great chance at my time of life to recover, so [we] should be prepared for the worst.

It is a satisfaction to me to have been able to write this letter, such as it is. My thoughts are every day and every night with my sisters and [I] figure myself frequently at your fireside. Remember I am not to write any more unless I get a great deal better. [I] shall refer you to Christine to correspond and to tell you all you would wish to know from this country. And now I have nothing but Compts. and love to send to all my friends—to Robie Hepburn as my oldest and nearest my heart—my blessings to his family, as to the Kers and Congaltons. And once more to Anny you and Mary and Mrs. Ker and my Polly and Tom. God bless you all. I am truly my dear Madie with much affection,

Yours for aye,

JOHN NAIRNE.

Nairne was not mistaken in his view that the end was near. He writes about this time to his physician at Quebec (there was no practitioner at Murray Bay) describing his symptoms and ends: "Now, dear Doctor, I dare say you think some apologies necessary for my troubling you so particularly with the complaints of an old man of 71, as his inward machinery is probably wore out and irreparable." In a last vain hope they took him to Quebec for medical care. But the machinery was, indeed, "wore out," and at Quebec, on July 14th, 1802, he closed his eyes on a world which, though it brought him labour and sorrow, he thought to be very good.

Among his own letters is preserved the printed invitation to his funeral:

Quebec, Wednesday, 14th July, 1802.

Sir,—

The favour of your company is requested to attend the Funeral of the late Colonel Nairne, from No. 1 Grison Street, on Cape Diamond, to the place of interment, on Friday next at one o'clock in the afternoon.

All that was most worthy in Quebec attended to do honour to his memory. He was buried in the Protestant cemetery; long after his body was removed to Mount Hermon Cemetery, to lie beside his son and grandson—the last of his race.

Nairne played his part with high purpose and integrity. Among his papers at Murray Bay is a prayer, intended apparently for daily use, in which he asks that he may be vigilant in conduct and immovable in all good purposes; that he may show courage in danger, patience in adversity, humility in prosperity. He asks, too, to be made sensible "how little is this world, how great [are] thy Heavens, and how long will be thy blessed eternity." It is the prayer of a strong soul facing humbly and reverently the tasks of life.[20] He would have wished to found a community English speaking and Protestant. But the forces of nature were against him. The few English speaking people who came in (and they were but a few scattered individuals) for the most part married French wives. The children held the faith and spoke the tongue which they learned at their mothers' knees. It was the course of nature, and always we are foolish to quarrel with nature. A granite monument marks the resting place where the good old man sleeps in the cemetery at Quebec, but some memorial might well stand at Murray Bay, that those who look out upon the majestic river, the blue mountains, the smiling valley should have before them a reminder of the "friendly, honest man" who, a century and a half ago, began to win their heritage from the wilderness.[21]

[Footnote 13: It may be convenient to state at once the dates of the births and deaths of each of these children:

Magdalen (Madie) (Mrs. McNicol) born 1767 died 1839. Christine Nairne " 1774 " 1817. John Nairne " 1777 " 1799. Mary (Polly) Nairne " 1782 " 1821. Thomas Nairne " 1787 " 1813. ]

[Footnote 14: See Appendix D., p. 277., for a formal memorandum drawn up by Nairne for his son's guidance.]

[Footnote 15: See Appendix E., p. 279. "The 'Porpoise' (Beluga or White Whale) Fishery on the St. Lawrence."]

[Footnote 16: "Les Anciens Canadiens," Chapter IV.]

[Footnote 17: Sir Alexander Mackenzie who accomplished in 1793 what was then the astonishing feat of crossing the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean and whose book, "Voyages from Montreal on the River St. Lawrence, through the Continent of North America, to the Frozen and Pacific Oceans," first published in 1801, attracted general attention, including even that of Napoleon Bonaparte.]

[Footnote 18: John Warren, the ancestor of the numerous family at Murray Bay of that name.]

[Footnote 19: Warren, Nairne's neighbour, had been visiting Quebec apparently for business reasons.]

[Footnote 20: See Appendix F., p. 286, for this Prayer of Colonel Nairne.]

[Footnote 21: The inscription to be placed on Nairne's tomb was long a subject of debate in the family. Two drafts remain at Murray Bay, both copious in length, and neither like the inscription now to be found at Mount Hermon Cemetery. (See p. 221.) In the taste of the time inscriptions were expected to give a full account of the career of the dead man. One of these inscriptions speaks of Nairne's "enjoying as a reward of his services a gift of Land on the River St. Lawrence. He had alike the merit and the happiness of converting a wild and uninhabited desert into a flourishing colony of above 1000 inhabitants, who regarded him as their Tender Friend and Patriarch. He died honoured with the esteem of all who knew him." The other inscription mentions what, otherwise, we should not have known, that Nairne received a wound on the Plains of Abraham. It goes on in verse:

"Though 'gainst the Foe a dauntless Front he reared, Ne'er from his lips was aught assuming heard; Modest, though brave; though firm, in manners mild, Strong in resolve, though guileless as a child; To honor true, in probity correct; To falsehood [stern] and urgent to detect; To party strange, to calumny a foe; The good Samaritan to sons of woe; At a late hour he heard the fatal call, Obeyed and died, wept and deplored by all." ]



CHAPTER VI

THOMAS NAIRNE, SEIGNEUR OF MURRAY BAY

His Education in Scotland.—His winning character.—He enters the army.—Malcolm Fraser's counsels to a young soldier.—Thomas Nairne's life at Gibraltar.—His desire to retire from the army.—His return to Canada in 1810-11.—His life at Quebec.—His summer at Murray Bay, 1811.—His resolve to remain in the army.—Beginning of the War of 1812.—Captain Nairne on Lake Ontario.—Quebec Society and the proposed flight from danger to Murray Bay.—Anxiety at Murray Bay.—The progress of the War.—An American attack on Kingston.—Captain Nairne on the Niagara frontier.—Naval War on Lake Ontario.—Nairne's description of a naval engagement.—Sense of impending disaster at Murray Bay.—The American advance on Montreal by the St. Lawrence.—Nairne's regiment a part of the opposing British force.—The Battle of Crysler's Farm.—Nairne's death.—His body taken to Quebec.—The grief of the family at Murray Bay.—The funeral.

At his father's death Thomas Nairne was the only surviving son. In 1791 the father had written of this boy, born in 1787 and thus only four years old: "Tom continues very stout but not easy to manage and [I] am afraid it will be difficult to separate [him] from his mother. He does not speak a word of English; neither do your sisters Mary (now called Polly) or Anny speak any other language than French; but I intend to send them all to Quebec next summer, where it's to be hoped they will soon learn to understand a little English." So to Quebec Tom was sent to begin his education. By 1798, when only eleven years old, he had gone to the relatives in Scotland and Nairne's friend, Ker, writes of him: "I think Tommie one of the sweetest tempered fine boys I ever saw and he will, I doubt not, be the comfort and delight of you all." Polly was there too—"a very good girl ... of great use to her Aunts to whom she pays every attention." Tom, like his brother John, was carefully instructed by his father. He must look after himself, dress, care for his clothes, and keep clean, without troubling others. Especially must he try to think clearly and speak distinctly—truly a sound beginning of education. His brother's death in 1799 made him an important person, the pride of his house. "There are many Tams now in this parish," wrote his father in 1801, "even a part of it is named St. Thomas, all in compliment to our Tom." At the time of his father's death in 1802, a boy of fifteen, Tom was attending the Edinburgh High School. Before me lies a coverless account book of octavo size in which are written by some careful person, in clear round-hand, recipes, scraps of poetry, problems in arithmetic and geometry, and among other things, "Tom's Expenses, 1796." A quarter at the High School costs 10/6, "Lattin books," 4/-, school money is 3/-, a ferret 3d., and so on. His sister Polly's expenses are entered in the same book and that young lady's outlay was more formidable. Items for the milliner such as "making up a Bonnet. 3/6," (young ladies still wore bonnets) are frequent. Miss Polly spent 6/- on ear-rings. Once when she took a "Shaise" it cost her 2/-, while "Chair Hire" is sometimes 1/6 and sometimes reduced to the modest proportions of 9d. No doubt for her health's sake she bought for 1/- a "Sacred Tincture" which, we may hope, did her good.

Thomas Nairne was an attractive boy. He lived with his father's executor and friend, James Ker, an Edinburgh banker, a wise, prudent, far-seeing, man. Mr. Ker was married to Colonel Nairne's niece and he received Tom as his own child. The boy was the inseparable companion of Ker's son Alick. Tom won praises on all sides. An Aunt wrote seriously that she had feared he was too good to live; and she comforted Nairne's grief at his son John's death by the thought of what Tom will be to him. He is "a happy chearful pleased little fellow always quiet at home"—but also "happy and at home wherever he goes." So thoughtful, she adds, is he that, entirely on his own motion, he deems it proper to write to his mother; one of these letters is before me—beautifully written in a large but well-formed schoolboy hand. "A very promising sweet young man," was the renewed judgment of his business-like guardian upon Tom in 1803, when he was a boy of only sixteen. By that time, it was thought that Tom had exhausted the advantages of the Edinburgh High School. The Edinburgh accent of the day did not suit the taste of his fastidious guardian, who hoped that in an English school a better manner of speech might be acquired. Tom's cousin and companion, Alick Ker, a boy a few years older, was going to school at Durham and thither also went Tom. The lads "are the greatest friends in the world," wrote his watchful aunt; "Alick does not know how to exist without Tom but Tom is more independent of Alick, for he is not so shy." In an aunt's, perhaps partial, view Tom was quicker and showed more application than Alick. "Tom advances with great deliberation in his height," she writes, which was very convenient, for, since Alick was older, Tom came in for Alick's out-grown clothes and this saved expense.

When the boy's school days were drawing to an end his future course was the topic of much discussion. Tom's father had wished him to study law, though not to practice it: in Canada, he thought, there was no lucrative opening for any one trained in the law unless he was made a judge. Old Malcolm Fraser, Tom's adviser after his father's death, would have had him, for safety's sake, adopt a civilian life; he was the last male of his house and therefore ought not to be exposed to a soldier's dangers. Tom's Edinburgh friends wished him to become a Writer to the Signet or, at any rate, to learn something about business since, as a landed proprietor, he must be a man of affairs. But the youth took the matter in his own hands. For his father's character and career he had always a great reverence; soldier's blood was in his veins, and nature had her way. Tom became a soldier and, when the school days are ended, we find the boy, not yet eighteen, Lieutenant in the 10th Regiment of Foot. Fraser wrote to Tom protesting against what he had done and from Maldon Barracks, in Essex, on April 5th, 1805, Tom answers his godfather's objections. Perhaps to add solemnity to his argument the old man had assumed the tone of a valetudinarian and Tom replies: "I would fain hope you had no reason for saying you would soon follow my dear Father. I hope God will spare you to us since he has thought proper to take my Father to Himself. Your loss would be irreparable, I having no other person to protect my mother and sisters as I have chosen a line of life in which I may never have the fortune of being near them." In spite of Fraser's appeal, Tom's resolution to remain in the army was unshaken.

It was an amazing era in Europe and well may Fraser have feared for the young Lieutenant's safety. While the boy was writing, Napoleon Bonaparte, with the lustre fresh upon him of a recent gorgeous coronation at Paris as Emperor of the French, was gathering at Boulogne a great army and hundreds of small boats with which this army might, he hoped, be thrown across into England within twenty-four hours. That country was very nervous but, for some reason, Tom's regiment, instead of being kept at home to meet the invader, was sent to Gibraltar. Here he remained inactive while world-shaking events were happening, while Trafalgar and Austerlitz and Jena were fought, and Pitt stricken with "the noblest of all sorrows," grief for the seeming ruin of his country, told those about him to "roll up the map of Europe," and died heartbroken. Not unnaturally at such a time Gibraltar seemed dull; a miserable place, Tom thought, a prison on a large scale. His friends wrote him letters containing an abundance of good advice, all of which he took with becoming modesty. A letter from Fraser of this character is still excellent reading; his counsels to the young soldier have added weight when we remember that the author was with Wolfe at Louisbourg and Quebec and now, nearly fifty years later, was still active in the militia forces of Canada.

Malcolm Fraser to Lieut. Thomas Nairne

From Murray Bay, 7th October, 1805.

My Dear Godson,—

I had the very great pleasure of receiving yours of the 5th April last at this place on the 15th September and as your sister Miss Christine has wrote you I must refer you to her for the news of Murray Bay. She left this for Quebec a few days ago and every thing continues to go well here and I hope will do so. Your mother improves your estate daily and if she lives ten years I am convinced that she will make it worth double what it was ten years ago and if after a peace, when I hope you will have a company, you can get exchanged into a Regiment serving in this Country without losing rank, you will by that means have an opportunity of examining your own affairs here and it will give the greatest pleasure to your mother and other relations and friends within your native country, and particularly to me, should I happen to live so long. Christine has I suppose wrote that you are now an uncle, your sister Madie having been delivered of a fine boy about two months ago, and I have the pleasure to tell you that she and her husband seem to be very happy and, tho' I did not at first approve of the match, that I am now quite reconciled to it as are all her friends here, as well as those in Scotland as far as I can learn.

Now as to yourself: tho' I had some objections to your going into the army so very young, yet now that you have become a soldier, I hope you will continue to follow the military life with ardour and Emulation as far as lays in your power and that you will endeavour to employ your spare time in acquiring the various accomplishments necessary to become a good officer. I would by no means advise you to avoid such innocent pleasures and amusements as are suitable to your age and rank. But I pray you beware of being led astray or going into any excess. I am very glad to find that the army is now in general much less addicted to (what was falsely called) the pleasures of the bottle than in former times, but you may still meet with temptations in that way which I hope you'll guard against. Try to resemble your late worthy father in temperance and moderation as well as in punctuality and exactness in doing your duty with strict subordination to your superiors, particularly to the commanding officer of your corps, as it is by his recommendation, commonly, that those under his immediate command may expect promotion. You must by all means avoid getting into any parties or factions against him, which I have known sometimes to have unfortunately happened to others; but there can be hardly anything more detrimental to the service as well as dishonourable to the corps wherein it takes place. I would also recommend to you ..., in case you are engaged in any action, to beware of passing judgment on the conduct of your Commanders, till at least you are of an age and have acquired experience to entitle you to give your opinion, as it is very common for a young man to be mistaken. You must also avoid any dispute or difference with your brother officers, for tho' there are unhappily some cases where a gentleman must vindicate his honour yet where I have known such things happen they might have been prevented with honour if the parties had not allowed their passions to get the better of their reason; and you must remember there is never honour to be acquired by being quarrelsome, but the reverse, and that your life ought now to be devoted to the service of your King and country. I know you will not be sparing of it when occasion requires.

I would also recommend to you to read useful books when you have time and to acquire a competent knowledge of History, both Ancient and Modern, especially that of the country in whose service you are engaged, as also such books as treat of your profession; and to pay particular attention to the lives and actions of those who have distinguished themselves in its service, who you will find to have been in general as remarkable for their moral, as for their military characters; and I hope you will endeavour to imitate them and, tho' you may not acquire the rank, you must remember that you cannot become a good general or even a good officer without first acquiring a competent knowledge of your profession. For this purpose (tho' I never had any proper knowledge of those matters myself yet I am sensible of my deficiency) I would have you study and read such books as treat of fortification and encampments; and as you are still very young I imagine you may soon acquire a competent knowledge by such reading, suitable to avail yourself of it on any emergency.

I must now recommend you to keep those who may be under your command in that degree of subordination and obedience which the service requires. But you must never forget that your inferiors, even the Private Man who serves in the ranks, is your fellow soldier and fellow-man, and that you are bound to show him every attention and humanity in your power. This was one of the many good qualities for which your father was remarkable, for which he was beloved by all ranks; and I hope you will imitate him. I must now conclude by recommending to you to let me hear from you once a year, at least, or oftener if an opportunity offers. Nothing can give more pleasure than to hear good accounts of you to

Your affectionate godfather,

MALCOLM FFRASER.

In short you must never forget that you may at times become responsible for the lives and honour of those under your command as well as for your own, and, it may even happen, for that of your King and Country, in some degree, and that you are to act accordingly. All this with more and much better you may read or hear from others; but I flatter myself that you will not think the less of it as coming from me.

It must be admitted that the soldier's ideal in that age for the British army was as high as our own. We are accustomed to think that a hundred years ago drunkenness was hardly accounted a vice. Perhaps it was not in civil life, but in the army, in young Nairne's time, sobriety was the rule. Writing on May 20th, 1807, he says that few in the army resort to drink, as a pleasure, even at Gibraltar, where wine is cheap and plentiful; the allowance in the regiment after dinner is but one-third of a bottle, and only now and then when there are guests is it usual to depart from this allowance. The deadly dullness and idleness of Gibraltar were its chief defects, the young officer thought.

There had been futile talk of peace. On August 13th, 1806, Ker wrote to Murray Bay from Edinburgh: "We expect to hear of Peace between this country and France. The Earl of Lauderdale has been sent to Paris to treat. But what sort of peace can we make with Bona Parte?" What sort indeed? Peace was not to come during Tom Nairne's lifetime. He was getting ready meanwhile for an enlarged career. At Gibraltar he pressed his guardian to purchase him a captaincy. Those were the bad old days when promotion in the army went largely by purchase and Tom had been Lieutenant for little more than a year when, at a cost of L1,000, Ker bought for him the desired rank; he attained to this dignity at the age of nineteen. The purchase strained his resources severely but his family got some comfort out of the thought that he was advancing. There was an excellent library at Gibraltar and he had good opportunities for self-improvement of which he promised to avail himself. But the promise was hardly realized. At any rate Tom gave a very poor account of his own doings for, after he had returned to England, he wrote to his mother (from Chelmsford Barracks on March 19th, 1808) a not very flattering account of himself at Gibraltar:

Only figure to yourself a rock, about two miles and a half in length and scarcely the fifth part of that in breadth, and then most likely you will not be so much astonished at my making the above comparison [of Gibraltar to a prison], from which you may wisely suppose that those unfortunate beings who had the misfortune of being shut up in it led a most inactive and stupid life.... However, to give the Devil his due, I must not omit to observe that it contained a most excellent Library, by which means officers might improve themselves greatly and spend their leisure hours to their credit, provided they were desirous of doing so; particularly as nothing existed in that place to take off their attention from study; and I make no doubt but some young men had the sense to profit by that favourable opportunity. At the same time [I] am extremely sorry to inform you your promising son did not, in any shape whatever, and am much concerned to add that he spent a very idle life whilst there, doing nothing else the live-long day than riding or lounging; which I presume you will think was a complete disgrace to any man of a liberal education, in which I perfectly agree with you.... I sincerely hope and trust that he [your son] will mend as he becomes older and wiser.

Tom confesses himself at this time "a complete idle, good for nothing fellow," but he disarms his mother's reproaches when he adds that he is chiefly occupied in thinking of her and of his large estate in Canada where he longs to be. It had for him a new attraction, since his cousin Alick Ker was just going out to Canada, a Captain on the staff of Sir James Craig, the new Governor, who was related to the Kers. For the time Tom's family was content that he should be at Gibraltar, where he was safe, and where, too, as Ker prudently says, "he lives cheaper than he could in England, has a genteel [how the age loved that word!] society and the use of a large Library." He rode on the sandy beach; sometimes, until the coming of the French troops, the British officers were allowed to ride into Spain.

These diversions all came to an end on August 26th, 1807, when Tom turned his back on Gibraltar for good. Incredible as it may now seem, the voyage to England took nearly a month; he arrived on the 24th of September. The young man had been turning over seriously his future prospects. In a letter to his mother he makes some enquiry about his own probable income from his estate. While protesting that he is himself "a Devilish ugly fellow" he has some thought of getting his mother to choose a "rib" for him and, presumptuous as it may seem, she must be handsome. He was thinking now of a civilian career. At Gibraltar he had found that he was short-sighted, and long sight seemed a necessity to a soldier. But Fraser, to whom he poured out his woe, answered that short-sightedness need not interfere with his efficiency; Colonel Nairne had been short-sighted and yet, withal, a successful officer; the question of sight would matter only if he was in command, in face of the enemy, and, even then, he could get assistance. Fraser advised him to stay in the army until he attained the rank of a field officer, when he might retire on half pay to his estate at Murray Bay, "extensive but not valuable in proportion." In truth Tom, tired of the army, was home-sick. He says to Fraser that he is "feeling an indescribable degree of anxiety to see my dearest mother, sisters, and yourself, not forgetting to include my estate, where I often figure myself, strutting about like unto a mighty Bashaw; which peaceful idea I sincerely hope will be realized, some day or other, if it pleases God to spare me so long; ... my only desire is now that blessed time may be near at hand or even that I could afford to set out to Murray Bay without any further delay. However it is proper to drown that wish, for the present, amongst the noise of arms, as the whole world is up against us, and my assistance, though little enough, God knows, may be of some use. At all events it would be tasting the sweets of this life before I had ever felt the miseries of it." He ends by asking that nothing of which he is possessed may be spared "towards making Alick Ker pass a pleasant time in Canada."

The fear which the old aunt had ingenuously expressed that Tom might prove too good to live was happily belied, for he appears to have been a sufficiently idle young fellow, though, as his watchful guardian wrote, "a good economist"; the same guardian thought this extremely opportune, since "Bona Parte," with all Europe under his heel, was making it lively for the fortunate islands, and forcing them to levy a tax of 10% on incomes. "This tax," writes the indignant banker, "is one of the many blessed fruits of the French Revolution, and of the horrible tyranny and perfidy of their rascally Emperor."

Not long did Tom remain in England. Soon he was off with his regiment to Sicily, at this period garrisoned by British troops, and saved by a strip of inviolate sea from the grasp of the master of Italy. The sojourn in Sicily must have been dull. He was stationed at Syracuse, but his school training had not gone deep enough to interest him in Thucydides's marvellous story of the siege of that place or in the antiquities of Sicily. The chief surviving record of his sojourn in Sicily is an account from his washerwoman, "Mrs. De Lass," dated at Syracuse the 8th of March, 1809. His distaste for the army was now complete. His sister Polly had ended her school days and, by a fortunate circumstance, had gone out to Canada "under the protection of Sir William Johnstone's lady" and to Canada Tom was himself resolved to go. Early in 1810, he was back in Edinburgh, taking a few weeks' holiday with the Kers, resolved to go on half pay at once, if possible, or, failing this, to sell out, and after a delay of fourteen or fifteen months, to go home to Murray Bay. The intervening time he intended to spend in the study of farming; he had almost completed a plan for going into Berwickshire to reside with a farmer and thus equip himself as a land owner. His friends thought him changeable. "The Captain," wrote Ker on the 30th of March, 1810, "is a sweet tempered good young man but he wants steadiness.... I fear that after trying to be a farmer at Murray Bay he may tire and want to return to the army." So serious was Tom about his future bucolic life that he wrote to his sister Christine, as he had written before to his mother, to ask whether she did not think he should look round for a wife; such a companion would be necessary, he thought, if he settled down as a farmer in Canada. We can imagine that the proposition, from a youth of twenty-three, caused some dismay among the occupants of the Manor House at Murray Bay; but Tom was soon professing himself something of a woman hater and he never married.

His return to Murray Bay followed quickly. By a fortunate, or perhaps, in view of the tragic fate awaiting poor Tom, unfortunate, chance, instead of going on half-pay, he was able to exchange from the 10th Regiment of Foot to the Newfoundland Regiment. The chief reason for the exchange was that the Newfoundland Regiment was ordered to Canada, where Tom could get leave of absence to pay a long visit to Murray Bay and learn how its life would suit him. So, in the autumn of 1810, the young man was in Canada, which he had not seen since childhood. To Murray Bay he soon paid a flying visit; the longer leave of absence would come later. His competent, busy, prudent and affectionate old mother welcomed him with open arms. He had thought of himself as a young Bashaw strutting round among the people of his seigniory. No doubt they were much interested to see the young Captain; but his duties soon called him back to Quebec, from which place on December 3rd, 1810, he writes to his mother:

I have this moment finished drinking tea, all alone.... You have totally spoiled my relish for anything except for Murray Bay; my notions of things in general appear to be entirely changed. Murray Bay while viewed only in perspective afforded me a sort of pleasing reflection; but now that I have a nearer view and enjoyed its comforts my ideas have experienced a complete revolution. So you see what your society and most kind loving treatment have effected. You may therefore rest assured that no stone will be left unturned to try to get back in order that we may remain together in this world as long as it may please the Almighty to permit us. On my arrival here at 2 o'clock p.m. I proceeded to the Upper Town in order to look out for a bed, concerning the getting of which I had entertained my doubts being, tout ensemble, a queer figure, having on my covered handkerchief, thick great coat, Canadian boots, and round hat; in short at the first essay I was refused by a "No room in the house, Sir," a common reply given to those whose unfortunate appearance happens not exactly to please the harsh and scrutinizing eye of the lord of the mansion. I then turned my frozen steps towards this house of hospitality where after explaining mon besoin to the waiter he scrupulously and critically eyed me from top to toe, from head to foot, then turned on his heel to go to his master and report accordingly. During his absence I commenced a serious inspection of self to find if possible what had attracted his attention so pointedly towards my toes, when I observed the cause to be the silver chain of my over-alls peeping out from under my great-coat; which, no doubt, was the reason of having received a favourable answer; for on his re-entrance he asked me to sit down and I finally engaged a room.

On January 9th, 1811, Tom wrote to say that a man had arrived from Murray Bay but without letters:

"What the Devil has come over those sisters of mine? Pray are they still behind the stove patching their old stockings? No time forsooth—Rediculous—Could not the lazy wretches have only wrote me the scratch of a pen merely to wish me a good New Year? Mr. McCord to be sure mumbles something about time; it is highly diverting to have country lasses talk about want of time, particularly those I am now speaking of, unless they have greatly altered for the better since I saw them last, and turned their hands to cow-keeping, tending of poultry, or something of that description; but I'll be bound for it they still employ themselves with nothing else except perching behind the stove, growling, and driving carriols."

He exhorts his sisters to take long walks in the fine cold weather. Then he dips into politics. There is to be an election at Murray Bay for the county of Northumberland and Mr. Bouchette, a Canadian, had asked for the interest of Tom as seigneur. He regrets that he cannot himself offer to stand since he is unsettled in plans, "and totally unacquainted with the language of the country"; a strange comment on the fact that in early youth he had known only French. The habitant had recently secured the right to vote but already pleased himself in exercising it. Though, as Tom says, "Dr. La Terriere of the adjacent seigniory of Les Eboulements, the Cures, and the Devil knows who" all wished Bouchette elected and Tom was himself anxious that a habitant should not be chosen, Bouchette failed and a habitant was sent to Quebec to represent the district in the Legislature.

Tom's letters written during the winter of 1810-1811 are full of the gossip and events of the time in Quebec. He is now obviously keen for self-improvement, and, in the manner of his father, for the improvement of others also; while congratulating Polly on the better style of her letters which are now "sprightly", he corrects her spelling. Among other things he is trying to complete a proper inscription for his father's tomb. He sends for the title deeds of his property in order that he may do homage to the governor Sir James Craig, and shows a lively interest in the management of his estate. His father's old friend, Colonel Fraser, was visiting Quebec which, more than fifty years earlier, he had helped to win for Britain but where now, it is somewhat sad to think, he has, as Tom says, very few acquaintances. So the young Captain spends two or three hours daily with the Colonel and finds that he has many interesting subjects to talk with him about. He drives with him into the country. He enquires about a house in Quebec which his mother had some thought of buying and talks of a trip to Montreal to buy a horse to send to Murray Bay. In the letters home Christine, "Rusty" is the special object of his teasing. She has been accustomed to spend the winters at Quebec, but is now at Murray Bay, and he asks how she likes the dull country at this season. "She never says anything about it, which is in her favour.... I trust that through the means of Picquet you contrive to keep her rusty dollars moving." Tom's absence from Murray Bay was soon to end. On March, 23rd, 1811, he wrote joyously that he has got leave of absence for six months, and is coming "to my own dear Murray Bay." Christine had been dangerously ill and he is naturally anxious to be at home.

So behold the young seigneur disporting himself at Murray Bay in the spring of 1811. Old Malcolm Fraser, at the manor of Mount Murray just across the bay, kept a watchful eye on the godson who, he had begun to fear, was not proving wholly satisfactory. The cause of Fraser's misgiving is not clear but he lectured Tom with tactful insight. Of his own career the young officer was now beginning to take a new view. During the long holiday at Murray Bay he had time to taste its pleasures and to learn its chief interests. He went out fishing and shooting; he sailed and rowed on the river; he occupied himself in the daily business of the seigniory, for which his competent mother had so long cared; she was now building a mill which would probably add to Tom's revenues. He made friends with the cure Mr. Le Courtois. This gentleman, a French emigre, who found a refuge in Canada, had thrown himself with great devotion into the rough life of a missionary among the scattered peoples, Canadians and Indians alike, of his remote parish. He was a man of culture and remained always a valued counsellor of the Protestant family in the Manor House.[22] But, in spite of all the interests and friendships at Murray Bay, Tom soon found that the little community hardly needed him. Every thing was well looked after, prosperous and promising. He would be only a fifth wheel to the coach and, before long, he had made up his mind that he had better stick to his military career.

Without doubt Tom was a young man of winning character. Malcolm Fraser, having studied him and lectured him, reconsidered his unfavourable estimate, and wrote to Ker on the 10th of October, 1811: "I think him incapable of any immoral or mean action; ... he seems to hearken to the lectures of his old Godfather tho' not perhaps always delivered in the most delicate Style." To his mother he was a tender son, and for his father's memory he showed a filial reverence. One of his first acts on arriving in Canada had been to arrange for the erection in Quebec of a proper monument in his memory—something that others had long talked about and which Tom brought to completion, but which has, alas, long since disappeared. Tom was in truth a man of action, and to action in the larger world he now turned. Towards the end of September, 1811, at the time when, to-day, Murray Bay's summer sojourners turn reluctantly homeward from the crisp autumn air and from the mountain sides beginning to show the season's glowing tints, Captain Nairne set out from the Manor House to join his regiment at Quebec. He had in mind a plan to go back to Europe and to get to Spain or Portugal for a share in the Peninsular War then raging. Fraser, now in his 79th year, writes on October 10th, 1811, his advice that the young man "should continue on full pay till he attains the rank of Major, by brevet or otherwise, and then, if he chooses, he may exchange and retire on the half of whatever full pay he holds at the time, and as soon as such exchange can be accomplished with decency and propriety." War with the United States was now impending, hardly a fitting time for a young man to withdraw from the army, and Fraser points out that "in the present situation of public affairs and at his age and fitness for service" Tom's retirement would be hardly decent. "Next to my own nearest connections," he continues, "my chief attention will be paid to Captain Nairne and the other connections of his late Father with whom I had the happiness to live in Friendship and intimacy from our first meeting (1757) till his Decease (1802) and I trust we shall meet again in a future state."

The young man thus returned to his military duties with his old friend's benediction and restored confidence. But to the family the plan for a military career was a sore disappointment. His sister Christine, its woman of the world, and the one most in touch with the Canadian society of the time, was keen that Tom should live at Murray Bay. To her entreaties he answers on October 6th, 1811, that there is no earthly use for him at Murray Bay where everything is so well looked after that his presence would do more harm than good. Time would hang heavy on his hands if he were always employed in fishing, shooting and navigating the river. It is better, he says, that he should continue in his present position and he intends to withdraw his application for half pay. When Christine returns to the charge and urges that Murray Bay is not to be despised the young man retorts that he never said it was and answers her with some dignity:

It will ill become me to despise the favourite residence of a person for whom I have at all times testified the greatest love esteem and respect. Indeed I think my behaviour hitherto might have spared me such a severe remark.... You charge me with being inconsistent and changeable, in which opinion you are not, I believe, singular; but until you point out to me where I have been so, I shall till then, plead not guilty in my own mind.

War was now brooding over Canada—the fratricidal War of 1812. But for the time Quebec was gay. There was hardly a week without a private ball, Tom wrote in February, 1812; and the assemblies, dinners and suppers were innumerable. He chaffs his sister Christine, whose rheumatic pains had apparently become a kind of family joke, and says that, since they are the enemies of high kicking, her inability longer for this pastime "is partly the cause of her sounding a retreat to the peaceful shades and grottoes of Murray Bay." Polly, the other unmarried sister, was more content to be at Murray Bay, with results that led to a family tragedy as we shall see later. Her brother pictures her driving his nag with her carriole through the country; so reckless is she that she is sure to run down some one. "Does she, proud and high, still continue hopping away to the country weddings?" His request that Pope's Works and The Spectator be sent to him seems to indicate a serious turn of mind. He is sending to Murray Bay The Lady of the Lake and The Lay of the Last Minstrel whose middle-aged author was just turning from poetry to win unprecedented success as a writer of fiction. In the spring he goes out shooting for snipe nearly every day; and he sends to Murray Bay for his fishing tackle. When a fellow officer falls ill he sends him down to Murray Bay for a month.

Soon came a more active life. War with the United States was near and Canada was getting ready. In May, 1812, Malcolm Fraser, led to Quebec from Murray Bay and the intervening parishes what militia he could muster. At the same time, he was made a commissioner to administer the oaths of allegiance: in extreme old age the veteran was ready again to do what he could. The Newfoundland regiment, to which Tom belonged, was ordered to the interior. The storm cloud drew near and burst on June 19th, 1812, in the form of a declaration of war by the United States on Great Britain. The Americans intended to pour troops into Upper Canada, but sparsely settled at that time, and quickly to occupy it. The frontier on the Niagara River was the chief danger point and the Newfoundland Regiment was sent up to Lake Ontario to aid in the defence. On July 3rd, 1812, Tom writes from Kingston in Upper Canada. The news has reached him that war has been declared; and already, busy with the task of placing men and supplies where they will be most needed, he has been the length of Lake Ontario in the Royal George; staying two days at York, now Toronto; going thence to Niagara and then sailing back to Kingston. At Kingston there are 1,000 militia and Carleton Island, (where Tom's father had commanded in the War of the American Revolution) has been taken by the British—an inglorious success for its garrison consisted of but three veterans and some women. The adjacent Indians, says the young Captain, "are anxious to be at the Yankees with their Toma-hawks." Altogether some exciting campaigns were in prospect and Tom was glad that his family was "snug at Murray Bay."



There, remote and isolated, they seemed indeed safe—so safe that, to share the security, a general descent of their friends seemed imminent. At Quebec there was, for a time, something like a panic. "Every one here," wrote Mrs. Hale to Miss Nairne "is in a complete state of anxiety and suspense, not at all knowing whether we shall be attacked, or what may become of us. I have just now seen Colonel Fraser, who assures me I shall be welcome at your mother's house, in case we should be obliged to leave Quebec. [He] advised my writing for fear you should have applications from other quarters.... Many ladies are going to England.... My spirits are so depressed that I cannot pretend to amuse you with any anecdotes." Murray Bay offered its hospitality with great heartiness and Mr. Hale wrote, "I believe all Quebec mean to move towards you if necessary, so you must prepare."

Quebec was in a flutter of successive excitements, now certain that it was invulnerable, now fearing an immediate descent of the enemy, and always longing for peace. In England the Orders in Council which provoked the war were now revoked, and Malcolm Fraser wrote that this must soon bring peace in America, especially since New England and New York were against the war. Miss Nairne's friend in Quebec, Judge Bowen[23], wrote to her in November, 1812, announcing the armistice for six months, arranged some time before, and assuring the ladies at Murray Bay that all cause for anxiety was now past,—an illusive hope for the armistice was not ratified by President Madison and the war went on. We get echoes of social jealousies that may now amuse us. Sir James Craig, the late Governor, had repressed sternly the aspirations of the French element and had been specially friendly with the Nairne circle; he was indeed a cousin of the Nairnes' relative by marriage, James Ker. But now with Sir George Prevost as Governor things were changed. Sir George came from Halifax and Quebec society looked with green-eyed jealousy upon his "Halifax people." "They are not the right sort," Judge Bowen wrote to Christine Nairne:

It will be long before we meet a staff like Sir James Craig's gentlemanly men.... The castle affords no delight but to the Halifax people. They are all Gods, the Quebecers all Devils. As for me I have no desire to be deified.... Would you believe it Pierre Bedard [a French Canadian leader whom Sir James Craig had clapped into prison] is now Judge of the Court of King's Bench at Three Rivers. Would that poor Sir James[24] could raise his head to take a view of the strange scenes daily occurring here; but it is better he should be spared the Loathsome sight. What it will end in I dare scarcely express.

In these days there was ceaseless anxiety at Murray Bay. "We are all here in a complete state of suspense," wrote Christine Nairne, "... My brother is now in Upper Canada doing duty as a marine officer on board the Royal George. We are in the utmost anxiety about him but on the Almighty we rely for preservation in these horrid times." Echoes came of stirring events. Tom wrote of General Brock's succeeds in capturing Detroit and with it the American General Hull and his whole army. A little later the Detroit garrison was sent to Montreal and Captain Nairne, doing duty on the Royal George, carried General Hull—"the extirpating General" he called him in view of dire threats that Hull had made as to what he should do—with 200 prisoners from Niagara to Kingston and then in batteaux down the River St. Lawrence on the way to Montreal, through whose streets the Canadian militia marched their prisoners to the strains of "Yankee Doodle." Elated with the success against General Hull, Tom now expected to hear any day that the American fort at the mouth of the Niagara River had been taken by General Brock. He heard a much sadder tale. Instead of awaiting attack the Americans became the aggressors and crossed the river into Canada. In a successful attempt to dislodge them from Queenston Heights the gallant Brock was slain. The invaders were driven back; but all Canada mourned for Brock. Mrs. Bowen wrote to Christine Nairne, "I am sure you will have deeply felt the loss of poor General Brock. He was always a great favourite of yours as well as mine. Salter Mountain spoke in the highest terms of him in his sermon last Sunday."

As the war became more grim in character Captain Nairne formed a fixed resolve to see it through to the end. On October 5th, 1812, he writes from Kingston that in response to his former request he had just received notice of having been put on half pay. With this release he might now have retired to the serenity of Murray Bay. But, even though he had not changed his mind, this would have been to turn his back on fighting when men were most needed. So when Captain Wall of the 49th Regiment broke his leg, and was thus rendered unfit for service, with him Nairne effected an exchange. "I could not reconcile myself to the idea of sneaking down to Murray Bay and forsaking my post at the present critical period," he wrote to Fraser. That old soldier was delighted at Tom's spirit and made this note at the foot of the letter which announced this action:

Point Fraser, [Murray Bay], Oct. 23rd, 1812: I do hereby certify that my Godson Captain Thomas Nairne has, as I think, acted as becomes him and very much to my satisfaction—Malcolm ffraser.

From Prescott on the 29th of October, 1812, Tom wrote to his mother of his delight at being once more a regular "in that distinguished old corps the 49th." It was indeed a fine regiment. Brock had led it in North Holland and in 1801 it had been on board the fleet at Copenhagen with Hyde Parker and Nelson; it is now the Berkshire Regiment and the name "Queenston" where its commander, Brock, fell, is on its flag. Though a soldier not a sailor, Tom had now one gunboat and three armed batteaux under his command, and, when writing, he had just arrived at Prescott with the American prisoners taken in the gallant action at Queenston where Brock was killed. His tone is serious and tender. "When the war is over I trust in God we shall all have a happy meeting again at Murray Bay, perhaps never more to part during our stay in this world." It was now his plan that if he should outlive the war he would go to Edinburgh, find a wife and settle himself on his property without loss of time. A few days later, on November 15th, he writes from Kingston of a lively incident in which he has taken part. With six schooners and an armed tug, the Oneida, of 18 guns, all full of troops, the Americans had appeared before the place. At 4 o'clock on the morning of the 10th the adjutant of the 49th came into Tom's barrack room to arouse him with the news that the enemy was thought to be landing a force five or six miles above the town. "He lit my candle," says Tom, "and left. I immediately jumped out of bed, dressed myself in a devil of a hurry and sallied forth to the Barrack yard where I found three Companies of the 49th under arms, Gunners preparing matches and artillery horses scampering out of the yards with field pieces." He was soon sent to hold a bridge about three miles west of the town. The ships kept up a fierce cannonade for some time but it was so briskly returned that in the end they drew away having lost four men. But they had command of the lake, a supremacy not to be challenged until a British Commodore, Sir James Yeo, arrived in the following summer.

In his letters at this time Nairne speaks of his heavy expenses and says that even if the opportunity came to visit Murray Bay he could not go for lack of money. So he begs his mother to build all the mills and houses she can, and thus to make the profits which he sorely needs. He complains of hearing from home so rarely: "You have only wrote once, I believe, since I came to the Upper Country. What in the name of wonder are you all about? I hope Yankey Doodle has not run off with you. I am sure there can be no complaints of my being negligent in this way."

The scene changed rapidly. Early in February, 1813, Nairne was sent to Niagara. Here for a time he was stationed at Fort George. The Americans were now menacing Fort Erie on the Canadian side of the Niagara River. But things were looking well for the British. On January 22nd the British Colonel Procter defeated the American General Winchester at Frenchtown near Detroit and made him and 500 of his men prisoners. Now young Nairne talked even of "extirpating" General Harrison whom the English were attacking in what is now the state of Ohio. But again high hopes were dashed. General Harrison succeeded in forcing the British to evacuate Detroit; then he invaded Canada, and before the campaign of 1813 was over he defeated the British badly at the river Thames in what is now Western Ontario. Meanwhile about Niagara there was some lively campaigning. In March Nairne describes an exciting night journey in sleighs from Fort George to Chippewa near Niagara Falls where an American landing was feared. Echoes of more distant wars reach this remote frontier. This was the winter of Napoleon's terrible retreat from Moscow and word comes, "glorious news certainly if true," that 140,000 French have been captured by the Russians.

Nearer home the chronicle was less glorious. The American fleet appeared before York (Toronto), burned the Parliament Buildings and public records, and carried off even the church plate, and the books from the library, of Upper Canada's capital, acts avenged by the burning of Washington later in the war. Flushed with success, the Americans now prepared to attack Fort George in overwhelming force. The 49th, Nairne's regiment, were the chief defenders. The attack came on May 27th, 1813. There was sharp and bloody fighting. Greatly outnumbered, the British were beaten; so hastily did they evacuate the fort that Nairne and others lost their personal effects. He writes, somewhat ruefully, that he has now only the clothes on his back and his watch, a purse, a family ring, and some trinkets. But this had its compensations; now he could carry everything in a haversack and blanket. Even paper, pens and ink are hardly to be got; he is writing on the last bit of paper he is likely to have for some time.

For many weeks the young man took his share in this campaigning in the Niagara peninsula. The British headquarters were by this time at Burlington Heights at the head of Lake Ontario, half way between Fort George and York, the ruined capital. By June the British had turned on the foe with vigour. On June 6th they rather stumbled into victory at Stoney Creek, capturing two American Generals, Winder and Chandler. On June 7th a British squadron, under Sir James Yeo, appeared off Burlington Heights, bombarded the American camp on the shore at Forty Mile Creek and compelled a retreat towards Fort George. Soon the British were menacing the enemy in Fort George itself. Nairne's letters, watched for, we may be sure, at Murray Bay with breathless interest, recount the incidents of the campaign. At Beaver Dam, only a dozen miles or so from Fort George, Lieutenant Fitzgibbon of Nairne's regiment, the 49th, entrapped an advancing party of Americans and, by the clever use of 200 Indian allies, filled them with such dread of being surrounded and massacred by the savages that nearly 600 Americans surrendered to little more than one-third of their number. These same wild Indians in their war paint were enough, Nairne thought, "to frighten the Black Deil himsel'," and their proximity in the campaign is one of many causes for which he thanks Heaven that the plague of war is so far removed from Murray Bay; even if it lasted for years, it would still not reach that remote haven, he says. Meanwhile Murray Bay can help him. Two pairs of socks, one flannel and one linen shirt, have been the modest increases to his wardrobe since the hasty exit from Fort George many weeks before. He begs his sisters to make him some shirts and socks, but not many, since on the marches, usually made at night, he has to carry all his belongings on his own back. The charge of a too elaborate transport service sometimes brought against the British army in modern campaigns seems to have no place in the War of 1812. The British, few in number and defending an immense area, had to do killing work. Nairne says that his men were able only rarely even to take off their accoutrements.

With the arrival of Yeo's squadron the war was again half military, half naval. Yeo was a brilliant young officer and the remote waters of Lake Ontario witnessed some clever naval tactics. The small fleets were evenly matched. Chauncey, the American commander, was very cautious and would not fight unless he could get the advantage of his longer range of guns, while Yeo, if he fought at all, preferred to fight at close quarters; so they manoeuvred for position, each declaring that the other could not be brought to bay. On August 3rd, 1813, Nairne wrote from Burlington Heights to Malcolm Fraser. In an earlier letter that veteran had expressed the desire of dancing at Tom's wedding and Tom had told him, with the prophetic saving clause "should I outlive this war," that to see his friend of eighty years dancing would be a considerable inducement to marry. He hopes that they may soon discuss the war "over a good bottle of your Madeira at Mount Murray."

He calls Burlington Heights the stronghold of Upper Canada. "The situation we have chosen is by nature a strong position being bounded on the east by Burlington bay, on the south by a commanding battery, ditch and parapet, this being the only side bounded by the mainland; on the west by a morass and creek; on the north by the continuation of this same creek, which here discharges itself into Burlington bay. The height of the land above the level of the water all round is upwards of 100 feet and the only side therefore necessary to fortify is the south, which I assure you is pretty strongly so." Here was the chief British supply depot and Nairne had just been sent thither to aid in repelling a menace from the American fleet. He had brought his force from Ten Mile Creek, in boats, on the open lake, and the journey, lasting all day, was ticklish enough. All the time the American fleet was in pursuit and it reached the narrow gateway to Burlington Bay only an hour and a half after Captain Nairne entered. The enemy intended to storm the heights, and landed 800 men for that purpose; but finding the position too strong, they re-embarked their force at daylight on August 1st, and bore away for York (Toronto) where they wrought new havoc in that undefended and "much to be pitied town."

On August 20th Nairne writes, still from Burlington Heights. This, his last letter, gives a dramatic account of a running fight between the rival fleets, in the dark, illuminated, however, by the flashes from their cannon:

It was a moment of great anxiety with us when the two fleets lay in sight of each other, the one wishing to avoid coming to hard knocks and the other straining every nerve to be at it. I rode 20 miles to see the hostile squadrons, and, for nearly two days, had the pleasure of observing their movements from the mountain at Forty Mile Creek, and I must confess I never saw a more gratifying or more interesting sight. At 11 o'clock on the night of the last day that I was there (the 10th inst.) Sir James Yeo contrived to bring them [the Americans] to a partial engagement and for an hour and a half the Lake opposite the Leo appeared to be in a continual blaze. I remained in a state of uncertainty as to the result till daylight when I observed the Yanky fleet steering for Fort George with two Schooners less than they had the evening before, and our fleet steering towards York with two additional sail. [They were the Julia and the Growler.] The Americans have besides lost two of their largest Schooners, which upset from carrying a press of sail, when our fleet was in chase of them.

While this dramatic fighting is going on before his eyes Nairne's one regret is that his present quarters are "completely out of the way of broken heads."

Meanwhile at Murray Bay events were happening. Colonel Fraser was kept busy. Some of the French Canadians already showed a restiveness that ended in open rebellion in 1837 and these misguided people now dreamed of using the war with the United States as an opportunity for throwing off the British yoke. At Murray Bay traitorous meetings were held. Fraser watched them closely and caused a number of the habitants to be imprisoned for a time on a charge of treason. For an old man of eighty he showed amazing vigour. His neighbours of the Nairne household were now in great trouble. Tom's elder sister by five years, Mary, the sprightly "Polly" of his letters, had brought grief to her family. She made a clandestine marriage with a habitant, the news of which, the young man, in his last letter preserved to us, wrote, "nearly bereft me of my senses." In those anxious days of domestic difficulty and of war the old mother and her two remaining daughters at the Manor House had assuredly enough to think of. Then came Fate's sharpest blow. The tradition is still preserved at Murray Bay that on November 11th, 1813, Mrs. Nairne, the Captain's mother, was in the kitchen at Murray Bay, when suddenly a sound like the report of a gun came up as it were from the cellar. She put her hands to her head, cried "Tom is killed," and sank fainting into a chair. The day and the hour were, it is said, noted by those about her.

By this time Thomas Nairne's regiment had passed from Burlington Heights to Kingston, at the opposite end of Lake Ontario, some two hundred miles away. The St. Lawrence River had now become the chief danger point for Canada. On October 21st the American General Wilkinson, with 8,000 men, left Sackett's Harbour near the east end of Lake Ontario, opposite Kingston, in boats, to descend the St. Lawrence and attack Montreal—the identical plan that the British had found so successful in 1760. In addition, as fifty years earlier, another American force was to advance through the country bordering on Lake Champlain so that the two armies might unite before Montreal. From the first the American plans went ill. The more easterly force met with ignominious defeat by a handful of French Canadians at Chateauguay. Wilkinson did little better. British troops, among them Nairne's regiment, were hurried down the river under Colonel Morrison to harass, if possible, Wilkinson's rear and to fire upon his 300 boats from the points of vantage on the shore. After a slow descent, day after day, on the night of November 10th the rear of the American force, under General Boyd, landed and encamped near Crysler's farm, a short distance above the beginning of the Long Sault Rapids on the St. Lawrence, to descend which needed caution. As the American rear was some distance from the vanguard, the British, though much inferior in numbers, thought the time favourable for attack. On the morning of the 11th when General Boyd was about to begin his day's march forward, the British, some 800 against a force of 1800, advanced in line. Their right was on the river and the line extended to a wood about 700 yards to the left. The American general did not refuse the gage of battle and a sharp fight followed. Boyd tried to outflank the British left and Nairne's company was sent forward to charge for one of the enemy's guns. When well in advance it was checked by a deep ravine lying between the two armies and the American cavalry made a movement to cut off the advancing party. The pause was fatal to Thomas Nairne. A musket ball entered his head just above the left ear; he died instantly and without pain. The British won the day. After a fierce fight the enemy fled to their boats, embarked in great disorder and fled down the river. Their generals, when they could hold a council, decided that the attack on Montreal must be abandoned.

Meanwhile dead on the field of battle lay Thomas Nairne. When the action was over and the enemy had retired, his fellow officers bethought them of the body of their companion lying stark where he fell. Already some sinister visitor had been upon the spot for his watch was stolen—"as was not unusual on such occasions," wrote Nairne's Commanding-officer, Colonel Plenderleath, grimly. They dug a grave; Colonel Plenderleath stooped over the body to cut off for those who loved him a lock of hair falling over the dead face, and then, without a coffin, they laid him in the earth. But before the grave was filled a member of the Canadian militia stepped forward. He said that he had known Nairne's father, and begged that, for the esteem and veneration which he bore that gallant soldier, he might be allowed time to provide a coffin for his son. A rough box was hastily prepared. In this the body was placed and once more lowered into the grave and there, a few yards from where he fell, the mortal remains of Thomas Nairne were committed to the earth with the solemn rites of the Anglican Church.

The next day Colonel Plenderleath, who was not two yards away when Captain Nairne fell, wrote to Judge Bowen what words of comfort he could for Nairne's friends:

He was a gallant officer of most amiable Manners and Disposition.... It may be of some comfort to his family that he has fallen in the honourable service of his country. We obtained a complete victory, having beaten a force greatly superior to ours, driven him from the field of battle, and captured one Gun and several Prisoners.

If Nairne fell Canada was saved and the gallant young officer did not die in vain.

News travelled slowly in those days but bad news has swifter wings than good; a week after Thomas Nairne fell the particulars of his death had reached Quebec. It was Judge Bowen's painful duty to send to Murray Bay the intelligence he had received from Nairne's Colonel. He wrote to Mr. Le Courtois, the cure, giving the sad news and adding "I understand that the enemy have since crossed over to their own side.... Would to God their visit had fallen upon any other head than that of our poor friends." He begged Mr. Le Courtois, who, himself an exile from France because of the Revolution, had witnessed many sad days, to be the minister of consolation at this time. "You will, I am sure be the friend of the distressed and instil into their bosoms that peace which, I am afraid, nothing but your assistance and time can restore to them." Mr. Le Courtois was to hand to Miss Nairne a touching and wise letter from Bowen. "Do not, my dear Miss Nairne," he wrote, "give way to feelings but too natural upon a trying moment like this but rather exert yourself to speak comfort and consolation to your dear Mother. Recall to her that we are all but sojourners here on earth and that he is but gone before to those blessed mansions of eternal peace and happiness where she will one day meet him never to part again." Old Malcolm Fraser sent the sad news to Tom's friends in Scotland. "I am not fit to write much," he said, but he found comfort in the thought that the young Captain died gallantly and that the enemy "must have suffered great loss of men, as they were entirely drove off the Field and they lost a piece of cannon. But, alas! all this can afford little consolation to his good and afflicted mother."

Nairne's body was not allowed to remain where he had fallen. Judge Bowen thought he ought to lie at Quebec beside his soldier father and this was also in accord with Mrs. Nairne's wishes. Colonel Morrison, the officer in command on the field where Nairne fell, had already been transferred to the garrison at Quebec and every attention was paid to the task. Bowen ordered a strong oak coffin, large enough to contain that in which Nairne was buried, and with this itself in an outer box a man was sent to bring back the body. He bore a letter from the Bishop of Quebec to the clergyman who had buried Nairne. All was carried out as arranged. A second time Nairne's body was taken from the grave where it had been laid and its bearer began his long winter journey to Quebec. The sleigh with its sad burden, a moving dark speck on a white background, made its slow way along the wintry roads and by the shores of the ice bound St. Lawrence. We can picture the awed solemnity with which the French Canadian peasants heard the story of Nairne's fall as his body rested for the night in inn or farm yard. On January 20th, 1814, Bowen wrote to Mr. Le Courtois that the body would arrive by Saturday as it was at Berthier on the previous day when the stage passed.

The funeral took place at one o'clock on the 26th of January, 1814. Of the people of Murray Bay a single unnamed habitant was present, a man detained by Bowen in Quebec that he might witness the ceremony and carry back an account of it to his home. "I examined the body," wrote Bowen briefly of what must have been a grim task, "with the assistance of my friend Buchanan and there cannot now be the smallest doubt as to the identity of it. He was buried poor Fellow in the Cloathes he wore when killed. His Regimental Jackit and shoes which were put into his coffin I found in it upon opening it and have taken them out and will preserve them for his poor friends if so melancholy a Remembrance of him should be desired by them." The lock of hair cut off by Colonel Plenderleath at the funeral was brought to Quebec by young Sewell, one of Nairne's companions; the remainder of his effects, sent forward in a box, seem to have been lost on the way. At the funeral the six senior Captains in Quebec were his pall bearers and the mourners were fellow officers of the 49th and Quebec friends of his family—well-known names—Caldwell, McCord, Stewart, Hale, Mountain, Dunn and Bowen himself. A great crowd was present. "Never," wrote Bowen to Miss Nairne, "was a funeral at Quebec more generally attended." The death of the young officer was too tragic not to call forth the sympathy of a wide circle. Eulogies were pronounced upon him and they said only what was true—that a soldier, brave, lovable and promising had fallen on the field of honour.

[Footnote 22: See Appendix G., p. 287. "The Cures of Malbaie".]

[Footnote 23: Bowen's career was remarkable. He continued on the bench until 1866, having held the office of a Judge in Canada for well nigh sixty years.]

[Footnote 24: He had recently died, and it did not diminish the Nairnes' interest in him that he left L5,000 to their relative Ker.]



CHAPTER VII

A FRENCH CANADIAN VILLAGE

Life at Murray Bay after Captain Nairne's death.—Letters from Europe.—Death of Malcolm Fraser.—Death of Colonel Nairne's widow and children.—His grandson John Nairne, seigneur.—Village life.—The Church's influence.—The habitant's tenacity.—His cottage.—His labours.—His amusements.—The Church's missionary work in the villages.—The powers of the bishop.—His visitations.—The organization of the parish.—The powers of the fabrique.—Lay control of Church finance.—The cure's tithe.—The best intellects enter the Church.—A native Canadian clergy.—The cure's social life.—The Church and Temperance Reform.—The diligence of the cures.—The habitant's taste for the supernatural.—The belief in goblins.—Prayer in the family.—The habitant as voter.—The office of Churchwarden.—The Church's influence in elections.—The seigneur's position,—The habitant's obligations to him.—Rent day and New Year's Day.—The seigneur's social rank.—The growth of discontent in the villages.—The evils of Seigniorial Tenure.—Agitation against the system.—Its abolition in 1854.—The last of the Nairnes.—The Nairne tomb in Quebec.

With the death of Thomas Nairne almost end the dramatic events in the history of the family. It remains briefly to bring this to its conclusion, and to add to it some general account of a village of French Canada in the past and in the present. Captain Nairne's mother was now the owner of the property and it continued in her competent hands until her death in 1828. "Polly's" marriage had taken that daughter away and, though there was a reconciliation, no longer was the Manor House her home. Mrs. McNicol (with her husband and children) and Christine Nairne still lived there with the widow of Colonel Nairne, and life went on much as before, save that its interests were now narrowed to Murray Bay; no more was there an outside career, such as the young Captain's, to watch.

When Thomas Nairne was killed the struggle against Napoleon in Europe had reached a supreme crisis. Occasional letters to Murray Bay give glimpses of great events. On March 16th, 1814, an Edinburgh friend writes to Christine: "The Castle was fired to-day in honour of the successes of our allies in France who have again routed Bonaparte, who has retreated to Paris. His enemies are within twenty-five miles of that capital so we must hope that the Tyrant's fate is at the Crisis and that we shall soon enjoy the blessings of a permanent peace; much has Bony to answer for." Ker wrote a little later from Edinburgh to say that Bonaparte "is now a prisoner on board of one of our 74 gun ships," and to express the hope that by his fall Britons will soon get quit of the property tax.

On March 17th, 1815, we hear from another correspondent of the renewed firing of the Castle guns at Edinburgh, this time to announce the arrival from America of the ratification of Peace with the United States. "We only regret this had not been settled before the disastrous affair at New Orleans where we have lost so many brave men and able generals, but such are the horrors of war." Just as this peace came in America renewed war broke out in Europe. "That monster Bonaparte a fortnight since landed and raised the standard of rebellion in the south of France. The accounts from there are very contradictory." On March 22nd the news seems better. "Troops are assembling in defence of France and the traitor does not seem to have any adherents, so we would fain hope all may go well." The writer, a Miss Beck, sends, for the amusement of Murray Bay, the book "Guy Mannering," which is "in very high repute ... the author unknown, but very generally thought to be Walter Scott, the Poet."

The hope that all would go well in regard to Bonaparte was soon dissipated. Ker wrote on April 10th, 1815, a bitter letter:

We were flattering ourselves with being at Peace with the whole world when like a thunderbolt, the tremendous news of the monster Buonaparte's Escape from Elba, his landing and rapid progress through France, and the second Expulsion of the unhappy Bourbons burst upon us!... We have the immediate prospect of being involved in a bloody and interminable war, the consequences of which no man can foretell. The French army, Marshalls, and Generals have covered themselves with indelible Disgrace and shewn themselves, what I always thought them, the most perfidious and perjured traitors and miscreants that the world ever produced, and the rest of the French Nation are a set of the most unprincipled Knaves and Cowards that ever were recorded in history. I trust however that their punishment is at hand and that the Almighty will speedily hurl vengeance on their guilty heads. Among other evils, a new tax on Property, with additions, is said to be in immediate contemplation and God knows how we shall bear all the accumulating Burdens to which this Country must be subjected.

Just at this time came old Malcolm Fraser's end. At the age of 82 he died on June 17th, 1815, the day before the battle of Waterloo. He had entered the army in 1757 and apparently was still serving in the Canadian militia at the time of his death so that his military career covered well nigh sixty years. One instruction given in his will is characteristic; it is that his body might "be committed to the earth or water, as it may happen, and with as little ceremony and expense as may be consistent with decency." His removal was a heavy blow to the family at the Manor House. It was Christine who kept most in touch with the outside world and to her the letters of the period are nearly all addressed. They contained the gossip of Quebec,—how in December, 1814, a Mr. Lyman—"a bad name for a true story to come from,"—had brought word of peace negotiations at Ghent; news of General Procter's Court Martial and of a fee of L500 paid to Andrew Stuart, one of the lawyers in the case. The letters are few and in 1817 they cease altogether. During the spring of the year Christine had been ailing. On a June day she drove out for an airing and, as she alighted from the carriage, expired instantly. The feeling of the Protestant family towards the Roman Catholic Church is shown in the fact that she left a small legacy to the cure, Mr. Le Courtois.

There now remained but two daughters. In May, 1821, "Polly" died in Quebec at Judge Bowen's house. Her old mother followed in 1828. Of Colonel Nairne's large family but one child remained, Mrs. McNicol. Her husband, Peter McNicol, appears to have been a quiet and retiring man and of him we hear little. He was an officer in the local militia and, in 1830, became a Captain in the second Battalion of the County of Saguenay. There were two sons, Thomas and John. Thomas, the elder, was to get the estate at Murray Bay; for John India was talked of; but his mother could not let him go—"our family has been too unlucky by going there." In 1826, when a youth of twenty, Thomas made a tour in Europe. Then, or later, the young man fell into dissipated habits and he died in early manhood. There remained only John. When he came of age in 1829 he too travelled in Europe; in April he was at Rome and there saw the newly-elected Pope, Pius VIII. He returned to Canada quite a man of the world and for a time lived in Quebec, engaged in business. But in 1834 when his father Peter McNicol died[25] John's prospects changed. The seigniory belonged to his mother, during her lifetime, but he was the heir. It seemed desirable that the name of the first seigneur should be continued and, in 1834, by royal warrant, John McNicol adopted the name and arms of Nairne. Once more was there a John Nairne. In 1837 we find him empowered to take the oath of allegiance from the habitants—to show that they were not in sympathy with the rebel Papineau. His mother, the old Colonel's last surviving child, died in 1839. She was a kindly woman, of genial temper, with a fine faculty for friendship; so intimate was she with Malcolm Fraser's daughter that she wrote "I do believe, nay am sure, she has not a thought with which I am not made acquainted." She never lost her sympathy with young people and her delight in their "innocent gaiety."

As in 1762, so now again in 1839, a John Nairne ruled at Murray Bay. The young seigneur soon took a wife. In 1841 he married Miss Catherine Leslie, of a well known Canadian family, a bride of only seventeen, and then settled down at Murray Bay to live the life of a country gentleman. He became Colonel in the militia, took some part in politics on the Conservative side, and studied agriculture. He was resolved to keep up the dignity of his position and set about rebuilding the manor house. The work was begun in 1845 and completed by the autumn of 1847; the new structure with little change is the present Manor. It is of stone covered with wood, a capacious dwelling with some fine rooms, and admirably suited to its purpose. To John Nairne an heir was born in 1842 and named John Leslie Nairne and the prospect seemed excellent for the final establishment of a Nairne dynasty in the seigniory. But, alas, this was not to be. The child died in his third year and the last of the Nairnes ruled at Murray Bay knowing that with himself the family should become extinct.

We must turn now to study the type of community of which he was the chief. A singular type it is, French in speech, Roman Catholic in faith, half feudal in organization, in a land British in allegiance, if not in origin. Long the determined rival of the Briton in America the French Canadian, though worsted in the struggle, remains still unconquered in his determination to live his own separate life and pursue his own separate ideals. When the British took Canada they fondly imagined that in a few years a little pressure would bring the French Canadians into the Protestant fold.[26] Immediately after the conquest preparations for this gradual absorption were made. The Roman Catholics were to be undisturbed but, as soon as a majority in any parish was Protestant, a clergyman of that faith would be appointed and the parish church would be given over to the Protestant worship. The minority would, it was hoped, acquiesce, and, in time, adopt the creed of the majority. The most illuminating comment upon these expectations is the fact that, during the half century after the conquest, Protestantism made probably not more than half a dozen converts among the Canadians, while of Protestants coming to the country during that time hundreds went over to the Church of Rome. In other ways too the type in French Canada has proved curiously persistent. A Lowland Scot of twenty-five married an Irish woman of twenty-three and went to live in a French Canadian parish. Hitherto they had spoken only English but after twenty-five years they could not even understand it when heard. They explained that at first they spoke English to each other but when the children went to school they used only French. So the parents yielded "C'etait les enfants, M'sieu!"

A modern critic of France[27] has announced, as a sounding paradox, that the French, even of present-day anti-clerical France, are a profoundly religious people. Certainly this appears in France's efforts in Canada. When the Roman Catholic faith was first planted there the ground was watered with the blood of martyrs, done to death by brutal savages. At the very time when in France Pascal's satire and scorn were making the spiritual sincerity of the Jesuits more than doubtful, in Canada these same Jesuits were dying for their faith almost with a light heart. They and others, like-minded, won New France for the Catholic Church and to that Church the conquered habitant has since clung with a tenacity really heroic. He accepts its creed, he believes in its clergy. Whatever license of conduct marked the clergy of France in the bad days before the Revolution, the clergy in Canada during the 300 years of its history have been notable for a severity in morals so austere that hardly once in that long period has there been a whisper of scandal. In consequence, they have always retained the respect of the people and to-day, in every village, the cure commands extraordinary influence.

It may be that to the Church chiefly does the habitant owe the preservation of his identity. Inferior to the heretic conqueror in social status, the habitant yet retained in religion the sense of his own superiority. Was he not a member of an ancient body, in the presence of which Protestantism represented a mushroom growth of yesterday? The Church taught him that wealth, honour, and worldly power were not always given to the faithful; they had the truer riches of spiritual privileges and spiritual hopes. What mattered the pride of life in the face of these eternal treasures? So the habitant went his way. Led by his teachers he showed striking tenacity of character. He would not follow the customs of the English. He looked with suspicion upon their methods. Even in agriculture, where he had everything to learn, he would not imitate him. Their language he would not learn, their religion he abhorred; so he remained, and he remains still, true to his own traditions, a Gallic island in the vast Anglo-Saxon sea of North America.

The habitant has not proved a pliable person. The very name shows his sense of his own dignity. Though he held his land under feudal tenure he would not accept a designation that carried with it some sense of the servile status of the feudal vassal in old France. So the Canadian peasant, a feudal tenant en censive or en roture, yet wished not to be called censitaire or roturier, names which he thought degrading; he preferred to be called a habitant, an inhabitant of the country, a free man, not a vassal. The designation obtained official recognition in New France and has come to be the characteristic word for the French Canadian farmer among English-speaking people.

In other respects too the Canadian has been hardly less assertive. Earlier writers, while they call him obliging, honest and courteous, speak also of his self-conceit, boastfulness, fondness for drink. At Malbaie Nairne found him defiant when his spirit was aroused. Not less tenacious than the men were the women. Malcolm Fraser tells how when he was stationed at Beaumont, near Quebec, in January, 1761, he sent one of his men to cut wood on the property of a certain habitant, the man himself consenting. But Madame, his wife, was not pleased. She abused Fraser, called him opprobrious names, and, in a war of words, remained, he admits, mistress of the field. The wrathful virago carried her appeal to Murray in Quebec, who, she said, had passed many officers under the rod and Fraser found himself called upon to explain the matter. In a petition he humbly begs that some "recompence" (of punishment of course) may be made to the woman for "the insolent expressions used by her as well against the general, as the officers, who have the honour to serve under His Excellency."