John Nairne in the American Revolution
Nairne's work among the French Canadians.—He becomes Major of the Royal Highland Emigrants.—Arnold's march through the wilderness to Quebec.—Quebec during the Siege, 1775-76.—The habitants and the Americans.—Montgomery's plans.—The assault on December 31st, 1775.—Malcolm Fraser gives the alarm in Quebec.—Montgomery's death.—Arnold's attack.—Nairne's heroism.—Arnold's failure.—The American fire-ship.—The arrival of a British fleet.—The retreat of the Americans.—Nairne's later service in the War.—Isle aux Noix and Carleton Island.—Sir John Johnson and the desolation of New York.—Nairne and the American prisoners at Murray Bay.—Their escape and capture.—Nairne and the Loyalists.—The end of the War.—Nairne's retirement to Murray Bay.
When war with the revolted colonies grew imminent, it was obvious that a man of Nairne's experience in military matters would soon be needed. One aim of the government was to keep the French Canadians quiet by disarming their prejudices and impressing upon them their duty to George III. From Quebec, on July 13th, 1775, Nairne was given instructions to undertake this work for his district. Self-control and cool persuasiveness fitted him for his task, he was told; his work would be to visit all the parishes on the north shore, with the aim of winning the loyal support of the French Canadians during the coming struggle. Though fifteen years of tranquility under the mild British sway had made the habitants prosperous and averse to war, it was still possible to get from them useful military service, under the leadership of British officers. Nairne was to tell them that the Americans would borrow their dollars, take their provisions, pay for them only in worthless letters of credit upon the Congress, and even make free with their lands. He was to show, also, how bitterly the Protestant English colonies hated the Roman Catholic faith of the Canadians. A British fleet, he was to add, would soon arrive and, if the Canadians joined the revolt, the second British conquest would be shorter and not quite so gentle as the first; for "a fair and open enemy is a different thing from a rebel and a traitor."
Fifteen years earlier the Canadians had borne a heavy part in defending their country against the British assailant; now they were to fight in his interests. Whenever possible Nairne was to employ the same old Captains of militia who had fought the battles of France against the British; he was to make a roll of those fit to bear arms, and to report the number of discharged soldiers in his district. To him were entrusted commissions for Captains whom he might select; the inferior officers he might also name. The Church aided his work as much as possible, the Vicar-General sending to the priests instructions to this effect.
On taking up his task Nairne found that at Murray Bay there were thirty-two men between the ages of 16 and 55. When summoned to meet him they were respectful, but showed fear of having to serve in the army and pleaded that they were only a new settlement. Had there been, as is so generally supposed, many disbanded soldiers among them we should have had a different tale but, already, in 1775, most of the people at Murray Bay were French. Neither they nor their neighbours showed any zeal for the upholding of British rule in Canada. At Les Eboulements and Baie St. Paul, whither Nairne went, the inhabitants were respectful, as at Murray Bay, but also objected to military service. At Isle aux Coudres they disregarded Nairne's summons to meet him, while at St. Anne de Beaupré they made open manifestations of hostility.
In the actual fighting, now imminent, Nairne was eager to take part, and, on August 12th, he wrote to Sir Guy Carleton offering himself for any service and applying for a vacant captaincy. On the 9th of September he received an urgent summons to Quebec, and, from that time, for six or seven years, he was engaged in the great fratricidal struggle.
Again, in a time of crisis, Great Britain made special use of the Highlanders. Many of those who had served during the conquest of Canada had become settlers in the New World. Now at the call to arms some of them—between one and two hundred—rallied again to fight Britain's battles. They were formed into a regiment known as the Royal Highland Emigrants. It was not a regular corps but was organized for this special campaign only. Nairne's rank in the regular army was that of Captain; now he was given the duty of Major, though this promotion was not yet permanent. Malcolm Fraser served in the same corps as Captain and Paymaster. The commanding officer, Colonel Allan McLean, was brave and indefatigable and he and his Highlanders played a creditable part in the work of saving Canada for Britain.
When the American colonies saw that the war was inevitable they saw too that Quebec was the key of the situation. Washington himself declared that in favour of the holders of Quebec would the balance turn in the great conflict. From the outset there was an eager desire to attack the Canadian capital. Washington believed—with some truth, indeed,—that its defences were ridiculous. He thought, too, that the Governor, Sir Guy Carleton, had no money to buy even provisions, that the Canadians were eager to throw off the yoke of Great Britain and to co-operate with the revolted colonies, and that some even of the few regulars to be found in Quebec would join the colonial army. To take Quebec seemed, therefore, comparatively easy, and the task was undertaken by a man with a sinister name for posterity as a traitor to the young republic, but a vigorous and able officer,—Colonel Benedict Arnold. Wolfe's rôle Arnold essayed to play and Wolfe's fame he fondly hoped would be his.
A fundamental difference existed, however, between Arnold's task and that of Wolfe. Wolfe's army had been carried to Quebec in ships; Arnold's was to advance by land. He chose the shortest route to Quebec from the New England seaboard. It lay through the untrodden wilderness and its difficulties were terrible. Half of it was up the Kennebec river along whose shallow upper reaches the men would have to drag their boats on chill autumn days in water sometimes to their waists; then they must take them over the steep watershed dividing the waters flowing northward to the St. Lawrence from those flowing southward to the Atlantic. Even when they embarked on the upper waters of the Chaudière, which flows into the St. Lawrence near Quebec, the hardships were killing. The numerous rapids and falls on that swift and turbulent river would wreck their boats. At the time no fleet defended Quebec. If, instead of advancing by this land route, the Americans had been able to bring, by sea, an adequate force as Wolfe had done, the later history of Canada might indeed have been different.
Arnold set out in the middle of September with 1100 or 1200 men,—"the very flower of the colonial youth" they have been called. Many were hardy frontier men trained in Indian wars, who knew well the difficulties of the wilderness. But now they were face to face with something more difficult than they had ever before encountered. When one Parson Emerson had committed the enterprise to the divine care in a prayer that, tradition says, lasted for one hour and three-quarters, the army began its struggle across the dreadful three hundred miles of forest. The swollen rivers swept away much ammunition and food, until upon the army settled down the horror of starvation. The boats proved to be badly built; their crews were always wet and shivering. At night the men had sometimes to gather on a narrow footing of dry land in the midst of a swamp and huddled over a fire that at any moment rain might extinguish. The cold became terrible. Many lay down by the trail to die. When the journey was half over, Colonel Enos, deeming it useless to lead the force farther amid such conditions, turned back. With him went some hundreds of men; but Arnold held on grimly. He pushed ahead to get succour for his starving force from the Canadian settlements near Quebec. With a few boats and canoes his party committed themselves to the Chaudière river. In two hours Arnold was swept down twenty miles, steering as best he could through the rapids, and avoiding the rocks, in the angry river. At one place all his boats and canoes were carried over a fall and capsized, the occupants struggling to land. But this reckless courage did wonders. By October 30th, after more than a month of unspeakable hardship, Arnold had reached the borderland of civilization in Canada, and was sending back provisions to his men. It is little short of marvellous that at Point Levi on November 9th he could muster six hundred men, five hundred of whom were fit for duty.
The Canadians and Indians had been very friendly; without their aid the greater part of Arnold's force would have perished. Even before Quebec he was dependent on their kindly offices. Its defenders, among whom were Nairne and Fraser, moved every boat to the north side of the St. Lawrence; the frigate Lizard and the sloop-of-war Hunter, pigmy representatives at Quebec of Britain's might upon the sea, lay near Wolfe's Cove ready to attack him if he tried to cross. But the Indians brought canoes and on the night of November 13th, silently and unobserved, they carried Arnold's force across the river almost under the bows of the ships watching for them. The Americans landed where Wolfe had landed sixteen years earlier. On the morning of the 14th, to the surprise of Quebec's garrison, a body of Americans appeared on the Plains of Abraham, not eight hundred yards from the walls, and gave three loud huzzas. The British answered with three cheers and with the more effective retort of cannon, loaded with grape and canister shot, and the hardy pioneers of Arnold's attacking force retired.
Quebec was not in a happy situation. Montreal had already fallen to the Americans advancing by Lake Champlain, and to force the final surrender of Canada General Montgomery was hurrying to join Arnold at Quebec. For a time its defenders were uncertain whether Carleton himself, absent at Montreal, had not fallen into the hands of the enemy. A miraculous escape he indeed had. Leaving Montreal on a dark night, when the Americans were already within the town, Carleton went in a skiff down the river, both shores of which were already occupied by the enemy for fifty miles below Montreal. At the narrows at Berthier their blazing camp fires sent light far out over the surface of the water. Carleton's party could hear the sentry's shout of "All's Well," and the barking of dogs. But they let the boat float down with the current so that it might look like drifting timber, and, when they could, impelled it silently with their hands. At Three Rivers they thought themselves safe and Carleton lay down in a house to sleep. But, while he was resting, some American soldiers entered the house. His disguise as a peasant saved him; he passed out unchecked. The skiff soon carried him to an armed brig, the Fell, which lay at the foot of the Richelieu Rapids. He hastened on to Quebec, which showed joy unspeakable when he arrived on November 19th. Meanwhile Montgomery pursued his rival down the river and on December 1st he joined Arnold before Quebec.
Now the siege began in earnest. Carleton had 1800 men; Arnold and Montgomery can hardly have had more than a thousand, and these were badly equipped. For the Americans the prospects of success were, at no time, very great, unless they could secure help from the Canadians. This, indeed, was not wholly wanting. Montgomery's march along the north shore of the St. Lawrence to Quebec was a veritable triumph. He promised to the habitants liberty, freedom from heavy taxes, the abolition of the seigneurs' rights and other good things. Some of the Canadians hoped that, in joining the Americans, they were hastening the restoration of France's power in Canada—an argument however of little weight with many, who remembered grim days of hard service and starvation when, without appreciation or reward, they had fought France's battle. The habitants were, in truth, friendly enough to the Americans; but they would not fight for them. The invaders tried to arouse the fear of the peasantry by a tale that when the British caught sixty rebel Canadians, they had hanged them over the ramparts of Quebec, without time even to say "Lord, have mercy upon me," and had thrown their bodies to the dogs. But this only made the habitants think it as well perhaps not to take arms openly against such stern masters. The Church's weight was wholly on the British side. Canadians who joined the rebel Americans died without her last rites. Only one priest, M. de Lotbinière, a man, it is said, of profligate character, espoused the cause of the invaders. For doing so he was promised a bishopric: to see Puritan New Englanders offering a bishopric in the Roman Catholic Church as a reward for service, is not without its humour.
As December wore on Montgomery grew eager to seize his prey. Carleton sat unmoved behind his walls and allowed the enemy to invest the town. He would hold no communication with the rebel army. When Montgomery sent messengers to the gates, under a flag of truce, Carleton would not receive them; the only message he would take, he said, would be an appeal to the mercy of the King, against whom they were in rebellion. Montgomery, too, showed for his foe lofty scorn, in words at least. On December 15th in General Orders he spoke of "the wretched garrison" posted behind the walls of Quebec, "consisting of sailors unacquainted with the use of arms, of citizens incapable of the soldier's duty and He did what he could to make possible this Christmas festivity within Quebec's walls. His men got together some five hundred scaling ladders. Then heavy snow came and the defenders jeered at such preparations: "Can they think it possible that they can approach the walls laden with ladders, sinking to the middle every step in snow? Where shall we be then? Shall we be looking on cross-armed?" The clear and inconceivably cold weather was also one of Quebec's defences for, as one diarist puts it, no man, after being exposed to it for ten minutes, could hold arms in his half-frozen hands firmly enough to do any execution. But by nothing short of death itself was Montgomery to be daunted; steadily he made his plans to assault the town. Meanwhile Quebec was ready. Carleton ordered out of the town all who could not assist to the best of their power in the defence. Some shammed illness to escape their tasks. But this was the exception. Well-to-do citizens worked zealously, took their share of sentry duty on the bitterly cold nights, and submitted to the commands of officers in the militia, their inferiors in education and fortune. On the loftiest point of Cape Diamond Carleton erected a mast, thirty feet high, with a sentry box at its top. From this he could command a bird's eye view of the enemy's operations, to a point as distant as Ste. Foy Church. When one of the besiegers asked a loyalist Canadian what the queer-looking object on the pole really was he answered, "It is a wooden horse with a bundle of hay before him." A second remark capped this one: "General Carleton has said that he will not give up the town till the horse has ate all the hay; and the General is a man of his word." Although Montgomery did not eat his Christmas dinner in Quebec a few days later he was ready for an assault. The crisis came on the last day of the year 1775. Early on that day, between four and five in the morning, Captain Malcolm Fraser, in command of the main guard, was going his rounds in Quebec when he saw a signal thrown by the enemy from the heights outside the walls near Cape Diamond. Fraser knew at once that it meant an attack. He sent word to the other guards in Quebec and ordered the ringing of the alarm bell, and the drum-beat to arms. He himself ran down St. Louis street, shouting to the guards to "Turn out" as loudly and often as he could, and with such effect that he was heard even by General Carleton, lodged at the Recollet convent. It was a boisterous night and the elements themselves raged so fiercely that some of the alarms were not heard. But, in time, all Quebec was aroused and the guards stood at their posts. The alarm was completed when to its din was added the menacing sound of cannon. The besiegers began to ply the town with shells, and those who looked out over the ramparts could see in the darkness the flash of guns. Soon began from behind ridges of snow, within eighty yards of the walls of Cape Diamond, the patter of musketry. The Americans were seeking to lead the defenders of Quebec to believe that an assault on the walls of the Upper Town on the side of the Plains of Abraham was imminent and to hold the defence to this point. In fact the real danger was far away. The Manor House at Murray Bay Montgomery's was a hazardous plan. He had resolved to try to seize the Lower Town first and then to get his troops into the Upper Town by way of the steep Mountain Street, thus taking the defenders of the walls in the rear. It was a desperate venture, depending for its success largely upon the surprise of the garrison which Malcolm Fraser's thorough-going alarm had prevented. Montgomery himself, with a force of several hundred men, marched to the Lower Town from Wolfe's Cove along the narrow path under the cliffs, a distance of nearly two miles, with progress impeded by darkness, by heavy snow-drifts, and by blocks of ice which the tide had strewn along the shore. His men struggled on in the dark hoping to surprise the post which guarded the road below Cape Diamond at a point called Près de Ville. Here were some fifty defenders and the tale of what happened is soon told. The guardians of the post were on the alert, for at it, too, Malcolm Fraser's warning had been effective. As Montgomery bravely advanced, at the head of his men, there was a flash and a roar in the darkness and the blinding snow storm, and, a moment after, Montgomery lay dead in the snow with a bullet through his head. Two or three other officers were struck down. The British heard groans and then there was silence. As daylight came they saw hands and arms protruding from the snow, but only slowly did they realize that the chief of their foes was killed. Nairne was on duty elsewhere but he did not miss severe fighting. Arnold was to advance on the Lower Town from the north-eastern suburb, St. Roch's, to meet at the foot of Mountain Street Montgomery coming from the west. At first he was more fortunate than Montgomery. When the rocket from Cape Diamond went up he set out. The storm was frightful but it served to conceal Arnold's force from Quebec's sentries. The Americans passed under the height where stands the Hôtel Dieu. Here Nairne was stationed with a small guard. They spied the Americans in the darkness and kept up as effective a fire as the dim light permitted. But the assailants were able to advance along the whole east side of Quebec and to reach the entrance to the Sault au Matelot, a short and narrow street opening into the steep Mountain Street, by which alone the Upper Town could be reached. Here fortune favoured them for, apparently, in spite of Fraser's alarm, they surprised the guard at the first barrier by which the street was closed. The street itself they secured but when they reached the second barrier at its farther end, commanding the road to the Upper Town, it was well defended by an alert garrison. Arnold had already been wounded and taken to the rear and Morgan, an intrepid leader, was in command of the assailing force. Every moment he expected that Montgomery would arrive to attack the second barrier on the Sault au Matelot from the West as he attacked it from the East. But Montgomery was dead and Morgan waited in vain. While the Americans were checked by the second barrier, Carleton was not idle. There was an excellent chance to send a force out of the Palace Gate near the Hôtel Dieu, by which the assailants had passed, and to attack them in the rear. For this duty Colonel Caldwell was told off and he took with him Nairne and his picket of about thirty men. The force plodded through the deep snow in the tracks of the enemy who, about daybreak, were astonished to find themselves shut in by British forces at each end of the Sault au Matelot. A hand to hand fight followed. The Americans took refuge in the houses of the street and it was the task of the British to drive them out. In this Nairne distinguished himself. "Major Nairne of the Royal Emigrants and M. Dambourges of the same corps by their gallant behaviour attracted the attention of every body," writes an English officer.[8] By ladders, taken from the enemy, they mounted to a window of one of the houses, from which came a destructive fire, and at the point of the bayonet drove the foe out by the door into the street. In the end, to the number of more than four hundred, the Americans were forced to surrender. The casualties included thirty killed and forty-two wounded. By eight o'clock all was over. "It was the first time I ever happened to be so closely engaged," Nairne wrote to his sister on May 14th, 1776, "as we were obliged to push our bayonets. It is certainly a disagreeable necessity to be obliged to put one another to death, especially those speaking the same language and dressed in the same manner with ourselves.... These mad people had a large piece of white linen or paper upon their foreheads with the words "Liberty or Death" wrote upon it." Nairne's account is modest enough. One would not gather from it that his own conspicuous courage had obtained general recognition.[9] Even with Montgomery killed, Arnold wounded, and quite one-quarter of their force dead or captured, those grim men who wished "Liberty or Death" had no thought of raising the siege. Ere long Arnold was again active and, for four months longer, the Americans kept Carleton shut up within Quebec. So deep lay the snow that to walk into the ditch from the embrasures in the walls was easy; buried in the snow were the muzzles of guns thirty feet from the bottom of the ditch. Sometimes Nairne was actively engaged in scouting work. In February we find him leading a party to take possession of the English burying ground in the suburbs; on March 19th, he went out into the open from Cape Diamond to the height overlooking the Anse de Mer. But nothing happened; a diarist expresses, on April 21st, his contempt for the American attack by writing: "Hitherto they have killed a boy, wounded a soldier, and broke the leg of a turkey."[10] The assailants were, in truth, impotent before the masterly inactivity of Carleton, who waited patiently behind his walls for the arrival in the spring of a British fleet. Counting upon this expectancy the Americans tried an old-time ruse. Between nine and ten o'clock in the evening of May 3rd, with the moon shining brightly and the tide flowing in and nearly high, a ship under full sail came into view from the direction of the Island of Orleans. With the wind behind her she swung in at a good rate of speed. Those who watched were, for a moment, sure that the long expected rescue had come. But, as she bore down to the cul de sac where lay the shipping at Quebec, she made no response to signals. At last, the British, after three vain efforts to draw a response, warned her to reply or they should fire. When this threat was carried out she was only some two hundred yards away. Then suddenly flames burst out on the ship, followed by random explosions; a boat left her side rowed very swiftly, and it was now apparent that she was sent to burn, if possible, the British shipping. It must have been an anxious moment when she was so near and heading straight for her prey. But, showing a natural prudence, those who steered left her too soon and, with no hand at the helm, her head came up quickly in the wind. By this time all Quebec had been alarmed and, as attack from the landward side was also expected, every man was soon at his post. The ship was a striking sight as, with sails and rigging on fire, she drifted helplessly before the town. When the tide turned she floated down, a mass of fire, with explosions shaking her from time to time, to the shallows off Beauport where she soon lay stranded, a blackened ruin of half-burnt timbers. Quebec still waited for rescue, and not in vain. At day break, on the 6th of May, a frigate appeared round Point Levi. Again went forth the cry of "A ship," "A ship." "The news," we are told, "soon reached every pillow in town." Men half dressed rushed to the Grand Battery, which was quickly crowded with spectators, who indulged in much shaking of hands, and in the exchange of compliments, as the character of the ship became clear. She was the British frigate Surprise, and, with much difficulty, had forced her way, under full sail, through the great fields of ice which still blocked the river. Following her closely were the Isis and a sloop the Martin. Quebec went wild with joy. But there was still serious business on hand. The Surprise brought a part of the 29th regiment and a good many marines. They were landed at once. Carleton lost not a moment and, by twelve o'clock of the same day, the gates of Quebec were thrown open and he marched out to attack the Americans. It was only a thin red line that stretched across the Plains of Abraham. But the Americans dared not face it. The newly arrived ships might, they feared, carry a force up the river and cut off retreat; so, after some desultory skirmishing, the investing army fled. It was now commanded by General Wooster, for Arnold had gone to Montreal. The flight soon became a panic. Arms, clothes, food, private letters and papers were thrown away. Nairne was in command of a portion of the Highland Emigrants, who were the vanguard of the British pursuing force, and was among the first to occupy the American batteries. On that very ground he had fought, victorious in 1759, woefully beaten in 1760; now, a victor again, he helped to drive back a force, some of whose members had been his companions in those earlier campaigns. That night the relieved British slept secure in Quebec, while the bedraggled American force was making its distressful way towards Montreal. Though the American army soon withdrew from Montreal and from Canada, the war was still to drag on for many weary years. Throughout the whole of it Nairne remained on active service. In September, 1776, we find him in command of the garrison at Montreal. In 1777 he was sent to command the post at Isle aux Noix which guarded the route into Canada by way of Lake Champlain. Here Fraser was serving under him as Captain; the two friends were usually together throughout the war. At Isle aux Noix Nairne remained until June, 1779. We get glimpses from his letters of the defects in the service at this time. There were involuntary evils, such as scurvy, caused by want of fresh meat and vegetables, but relieved by drinking a decoction of hemlock spruce. Moral evils there were too, such as gambling and drunkenness; in 1778 the commanding officer gave warning that he had heard of losses at play, and that those taking part in such practises would be excluded from promotion. The British officers showed sometimes a fool-hardy recklessness. On March 9th, 1778, one Lieutenant Mackinnon, with forty-five volunteers, set out from Pointe au Fer, near Isle aux Noix, to surprise an American post at Parsons' House, no less than sixty miles distant, and in the heart of the enemy's country. A few days later two of the volunteers returned with news that the attack had wholly failed, that six of the party were killed and six wounded, and that Lieutenant Mackinnon and four others were missing. So reckless an attack was bad enough and, in the General Orders, it was condemned as "a presumptuous disregard of military discipline"; only vigilance and watchfulness were required of the picket at Pointe au Fer, so that the enemy might not invade the province. At the incident the Commander-in-Chief was very angry. "I never saw the General in such a passion in my life," wrote an officer to Nairne. Mackinnon had surrounded the house in the darkness and both he and his men, as far as is known, had done their best. Though wounded and for a time missing, in the end Mackinnon got back crippled to Isle aux Noix. But he had failed, and whispers soon began that he showed cowardice in the attack; an absurd charge, as Nairne said, for he had given proof of rather too much, than of too little, courage. The accusation gave Nairne infinite trouble. The subalterns in the Royal Highland Emigrants refused to do duty with Mackinnon, and General Haldimand, who succeeded Carleton in the summer of 1778, would not take the matter seriously enough to grant a Court Martial, that Mackinnon might clear himself. For quite a year and a half the affair dragged on. In the end, at a Court of Enquiry, Mackinnon was acquitted. Haldimand told Nairne to rebuke the officers sternly for combining to subvert authority, for disrespect to their superiors, and for refusing, on the basis of futile reports and hearsays, to serve with Mackinnon. "I much mistake his character," wrote Nairne of Mackinnon, "if he can ... be prevented from calling one or two of those gentlemen to a severe account." A part of Nairne's duty was to watch the French Canadians and check sedition. In spite of the failure of Arnold's expedition many of them were still favourable to the American cause. They harboured deserters in the remoter parishes, gave protection and assistance to rebels, and threw as many difficulties as possible in the path of loyalists. Nairne found two men issuing papers from a printing press to foment sedition and sent them down to Quebec to stand their trial for treason. From Isle aux Noix Nairne was sent, in the summer of 1779, with fifty of his Royal Highland Emigrants, to command at Carleton Island, near Kingston where Lake Ontario flows into the St. Lawrence; some thirty-five years later his only surviving son held a military command at the same place. Here there was much to do in strengthening the fortifications and in keeping up communications with Niagara and other points in the interior. The situation was not without its embarrassments. Prisoners were sent in from Niagara and he had no prison in which to keep them. For want of fresh meat and vegetables there was much sickness. But the Indians were his greatest trial. Through him came their supplies and, to hold them at all, he had sometimes to serve out the rum for which such savages are always greedy. On July 4th, Nairne made a speech to these Mississaga Indians and said pretty plainly what he thought of them. Against the American scouts they had proved no defence; at night they fired off guns in the neighbouring woods and created false alarms, which prevented Nairne's men from getting their proper sleep. "My men work hard in the day," he said, "and I will have them to sleep sound at night," and he warned the Indians that he would fire upon them if their noise disturbed him further. The savages, he wrote to Haldimand, are "almost unbearable, greedy and importunate." They behaved more like rebels than friends and their talk ended always in the demand for rum, "the cause of all bad behaviour in Indians." On the remoter frontiers the war was ruthless beyond measure. Sir John Johnson devastated the Mohawk valley, in the present State of New York, and some of his prisoners were received at Carleton Island. Of this inglorious warfare Haldimand's secretary, Captain Matthews, wrote to Nairne a little later [17th June, 1780], "You will have heard that Sir John Johnson has executed the purpose of his enterprise without the loss of a man, having destroyed upwards of an hundred dwelling houses, barns, mills, stock, &c., and brought off 150 Loyalists, besides Women and Children." The worst outrages came from the Indian allies, of whom Nairne thought so badly. From Niagara, on March 1st, 1779, Captain John MacDonnell wrote to Nairne of the terrible massacre at Cherry Valley, on the New York frontier, which excited horror throughout the colonies, and did much to inflame the hatred of the Americans for England. Not, however, the English but the Indians were really guilty. "There has nothing appeared," wrote Captain MacDonnell, "on the theatre of the war of near so tragical or rather barbarous a hue; the reflection never represents itself to my view but when accompanyed with the greatest horrors; both Sexes, young and old Tomahawked, Speared and Scalped indiscriminately in the most inhuman and cruel manner. But that there was all possible care and precaution taken to prevent them is undenyable. Captain Butler, who had command of the expedition, was indefatigable in his endeavours and exertions to restrain and mitigate the fury and ferocity of the savages often at the risk of the Tomahawk being made use of against himself as well as the Indian officers.... Out of a hundred and seventy scalps three-fourths were those of Women and Children." Butler's name is still looked upon in the United States as that of a fiend incarnate, but the testimony of his fellow officer seems to free him from blame for the worst of the horrors. Both sides were bitter, but Nairne himself never shows any vehemence of passion. In his view the war was a painful necessity, to be fought to the end without anger. Late in 1779, Nairne was recalled from Carleton Island. He reached Montreal on the 5th of December, and, two days later, secured leave of absence to look after his private affairs. At this time General Haldimand had matured a plan to take advantage of the remote position of Murray Bay to confine there some of his American prisoners. At Murray Bay they seemed particularly safe. There was as yet no road over Cap Tourmente; in any case to go in the direction of Quebec would mean seizure sooner or later; to go in the opposite direction would be to perish in the wilderness; and the only outlet was by water across a wintry river some twelve miles broad. On the 26th of January, 1780, Haldimand wrote to Nairne at Murray Bay that he was to erect buildings for rebel and other prisoners, and that, to do the work, some men were being sent down; he was to employ in addition as many of the inhabitants as he might think necessary. Nairne stayed on at Murray Bay in 1780 much longer than the two months for which he had originally asked. A part of his duty was to watch that American colony, so different in station and situation from the many Americans who now visit the spot. As yet there were no barracks in which to confine the poor fellows, and the climate of Murray Bay is not too hospitable in winter. Some kind of rough quarters must have been prepared for the prisoners, in the winter of 1779-80, and they were kept busy in helping to build the houses intended for their occupation. They seemed contented. One of them Nairne kept about his person. He knew where everything was placed and all the men were used, Nairne says, in the best manner he could think of. But liberty is sweet and they longed for their own land. So, early in May, 1780, when the ice was out of the river and there was a chance to get away, eight of them made a dash for liberty.[11] No doubt under cover of night, they stole a boat and put out boldly into the great river across which, in so small a craft, few ever venture, even in mild summer weather. Almost wonderful to relate, they reached the south shore in safety. Nairne was uncertain whether they had gone up, down, or across the river. He hurried to Tadousac, crossed to Cacouna and then went up the south shore. At St. Roch he found that the men, rowing a boat, had been seen to pass. On May 14th this boat was found abandoned. On the 15th the men were seen on the highway carrying their packs. We are almost sorry to learn that the poor fellows were in the end captured and taken to Quebec. Nairne reported the flight of these men on the 14th of May. Their example was contagious for, on the 18th, while he was absent in their pursuit, four others made off, found a small boat on the shore some nine miles from Malbaie, and put out into the river, where their tiny craft was seen heading for Kamouraska on the south shore. A few days later two others also escaped. These had not courage to strike out into the river, and one of them was caught at Baie St. Paul. Nairne offered a reward of four dollars for each of the prisoners and probably all were taken. A sequel of the incident was that a non-commissioned officer and eight men of the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment were sent to guard the remaining prisoners at Murray Bay—a task apparently beyond Nairne's local militia. This guard was, no doubt, composed of Germans; one wonders to what extent they fraternized with the French Canadians. It is amusing to read that, when one of them deserted, he was brought back by a habitant. In 1781 we find Nairne stationed at Verchères on the south side of the St. Lawrence, nearly opposite Montreal. He was now in charge of the expatriated Loyalists who had found refuge in that part of Canada. A whole corps of them were billeted in the two parishes of Verchères and Contrecœur—the officers chiefly at Contrecœur. They lived, of course, in the cottages with the habitants. On December 16th, 1781, Nairne writes to General Riedesel, a German officer who played a conspicuous part on the British side in the Revolutionary war and was now in command at Sorel, that the Canadians do not mind supplying firewood for the loyalist officers but that they rather object to having the same people quartered upon them for two years at a time. Though an occasional officer had said that the Loyalists were not obedient, he adds that they were quiet and orderly people. Some of them had large families and must have crowded uncomfortably their involuntary hosts. These colonial English living in the households of their old-time enemies, the French Canadians, make a somewhat pathetic picture. We see what domestic suffering the Revolutionary War involved. Some were very old; one "genteel sort of woman," a widow, had four children, the youngest but four months old; there was another whose husband had been hanged at Saratoga as a spy. Very large sums passed through Nairne's hands in behalf of the Loyalists. One account which he renders amounts to about £20,000.[12] Nairne's regiment, the Royal Highland Emigrants, had been put upon the permanent establishment in 1779. Sometimes he complained that his own promotion was slow; not until the spring of 1783 was he given the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. Having reached this goal he intended, as soon as he decently could, to sell out and retire. Late in 1782 we find him again in command at Isle aux Noix and not sure but that he may at any time be surprised by the Americans. It seems odd that, though Cornwallis had already surrendered at Yorktown, and the war was really over, Nairne was still hoping for final victory for Great Britain; on February 8th, 1783, he writes: "It is to be hoped that affairs will at last take a favourable turn to Great Britain; her cause is really a just one." In fact preliminary articles of the most disastrous peace Great Britain has ever made had already been signed. Nairne was now anxious to go home. But even in June, 1783, he could not get leave of absence from Isle aux Noix for even a fortnight. Conditions were still unsettled. American traders were now pressing into Canada but Nairne sent back any that he caught; the cessation of arms was, he said, no warrant as yet for commercial intercourse and many suspicious characters were about. The troops from Europe were returning home. General Riedesel, about to leave for Germany, wrote from Sorel on July 6th, 1783, a warm letter of thanks to Nairne for the attention, readiness, and punctuality of his services. Not long after, in the same year, Nairne was at last free. He now sold his commission, receiving for it £3,000. With the sale he renounced all claim to half-pay, pension, or other consideration for past services and the sum he received was, therefore, no very great final reward for his long services. There had been some competition for this commission and its final disposal throws some light on promotion in the army under the purchase system. General Haldimand insisted that Captain Matthews, who appears to have been his relative, should get it, since the General "must provide for his own family." At this time Malcolm Fraser too thought of selling out but he made difficulties about terms and the opportunity passed; Fraser was, indeed, to live to see recruiting service in the war of 1812. When the war was over, Nairne hurried to Murray Bay and to the country life in which he delighted, and in his correspondence we soon find him discussing not high questions of national defence but the qualities of "a well-bred bull calf" and of an improved plough. "I have more satisfaction," he says, perhaps with a touch of irony, "in a country life and [in] cultivating a farm than even [in] being employed as first major of the Quebec militia." Henceforth his heart is wholly at Murray Bay and in his interests there.
(The upper view from the West, the lower from the East)