The Highland regiment that came with Wolfe to Quebec was known as Fraser's Highlanders because recruited chiefly from that ancient and powerful Scottish clan. In the rising of 1745 the Frasers had supported the Stuart cause and they suffered when that cause was lost. In 1747 the head of the clan, Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat, an old man of 80, perished on the scaffold for his treason. The details of Lovat's career are amazing. In one aspect he was a wild, half barbarous Highland chieftain, in another one of the polished gentlemen and courtiers of his time. He was devoured by the ambition to be the most powerful man in Scotland. In that age others, more reputable than Fraser, found it wise to stand well with both royal houses, but he surpassed them all in tortuous treachery. In the rising of 1715 he was on the Whig side; in 1745 he was forced at last to come out openly for the Stuarts. For neither side did he really care: he was merely serving his own ends. Considering his deeds it is a wonder that he so long escaped the scaffold. When he was a young man a certain Baroness Lovat stood in the way of his own claims to be the heir to the title of Lovat; so he offered to marry this lady's daughter and thus end the dispute. When his advances were refused he determined to use force and seized Lady Lovat's residence, Castle Dounie, only to find that the young lady had been spirited away. He resolved on the spot to marry her mother who was in the castle. She was a widow of thirty-four, he a man of thirty, so the disparity of age was not great. Stories of what happened vary, but it is said that in the dead of night a clergyman was brought to Lady Lovat's chamber and she was forced to go through the form of marriage, the bag-pipes playing in the next room to drown her cries. The lady was connected with the great house of Atholl who warred on Fraser with fire and sword. Outlawed, he escaped to the Continent to survive for half a century of intrigue and treason.
Though profligate, cruel, treacherous and avaricious, so smooth was Lovat's address, so profound his knowledge of Scotland, and so strong his hold upon his own clansmen, that he always remained a man to be reckoned with. Since he served on the Hanoverian side in 1715 George I granted a pardon for his many offences; for his treason in 1745 George II let him go to the block. His last days in London were like those of a dying saint. He wrote to his son Simon Fraser, who led Fraser's Highlanders at Quebec in 1759, a beautiful spiritual letter. To the Major of the Tower he said he was going to Heaven where, he added, "very few Majors go." He was gay on his last morning:—"I hope to be in heaven by one o'clock or I should not be so merry now,"—and expressed his pity for those who "must continue to crawl a little longer in this evil world." He took what he called an eternal farewell from some of those about him: "we shall not meet again in the same place; I am sure of that." He practised kneeling at the block so that he might do it with dignity on the scaffold. A great crowd assembled to witness his execution and a platform fell killing several people. "The more mischief, the better sport," said Lord Lovat grimly, but he wondered that so many should come to see the taking off of his "old grey head." He carefully felt the edge of the executioner's axe to make sure that it was sharp.
No doubt there was a touch of madness in Lord Lovat but the Fraser clan was devoted to him. By his treason all his honours and estates were forfeited. At the time his heir, Simon Fraser, only twenty-one years old, was a prisoner in the Castle of Edinburgh, attainted for high treason. But so good was his conduct that in 1750 he received a pardon. Then, a penniless man, he was called to the Scottish Bar. But another career was in store for him. Some years later when Pitt formed his design to use the Highlanders in the Seven Years' War he made Simon Fraser Colonel of a battalion, to be raised on the forfeited estates of his family and from the clan of which he was head. Success was instantaneous. Within a few weeks Fraser was at the head of some 1500 men. They wore the Highland dress, with a sporran of badger's or otter's skin and carried musket and broadsword; some of them wore a dirk at their own cost. Among the officers were no less than five Simon Frasers,[3] three or four each of Alexander Frasers and John Frasers, and a good many other Frasers, among them a young Ensign, Malcolm Fraser, destined to rule one of the seigniories at Malbaie for more than half a century. Other Scottish names also appear, Macnabs, Chisholms, Macleans, and among them John Nairne who, like Malcolm Fraser, spent the best part of his life at Malbaie.
The head of the Nairne clan, a John Nairne, third Baron Nairne, had fought for the Stuarts in 1745. He died an exile in France. Of how close kin to him was the young Highland Officer, John Nairne, who settled later at Malbaie, we do not know. His family was of course Jacobite. In "Waverley" Sir Walter Scott mentions a Miss Nairne with whom he says he was acquainted, and this lady appears to have been one of the sisters of Captain John Nairne. In 1745, as the Highland army rushed into Edinburgh, Miss Nairne was standing with some ladies on a balcony, when a shot, discharged by accident from a Highlander's musket, grazed her forehead. "Thank God," she said, "that the accident happened to me whose principles are known; had it befallen a Whig [the name then identified with the anti-Jacobite party] they would have said it was done on purpose."[4] At Murray Bay there is still a miniature portrait of Prince Charlie given it is said by himself to Miss Nairne.
Before fighting under Wolfe John Nairne had followed the Dutch flag. Just before the rising of 1745, when a youth of only 17, he, like a great many others of his countrymen, is found serving in the well known "Scots Brigade"; many years later at Malbaie, he tells in his letters, of old companions in this service with well known Scottish names—Bruce, Maclean, Seton, Hepburn, Campbell, Dunbar, Dundass, Graham, and so on. In the pay of Holland Nairne remained for some nine years. He made, he says, "long voyages" possibly to the Dutch possessions in the far East. But he was glad of the chance to serve his own land which came when Britain, embarked upon the Seven Years' War, was anxious to recall her banished sons and to find soldiers, Scots or of any other nationality, who would fight her battles. So John Nairne left the Dutch service to join the 78th Highlanders and henceforth his loyalty to the house of Hanover was never questioned. From the first, since Scotland offered only a poor prospect of a career, Nairne may have thought of remaining in the new world when the war should end. The Highlander of that day, like the Irishman, found better chances abroad than at home. Unlike Nairne, Malcolm Fraser, a younger man, had not seen foreign service. The two met for the first time when, in 1757, they both joined the 78th Highlanders. Soon they became fast friends and for nearly half a century they were to live in the closest relations.
Fraser's Highlanders had landed at Halifax in Nova Scotia in June, 1757. Their dress seemed unsuited to both the severe winters and the hot summers of North America and a change of costume was proposed; but officers and men protested vehemently and no change was made. During the campaigns in America the Highlanders boasted, not with entire truth as we shall see, that they with their bare legs enjoyed better health than those who wore breeches and warm clothing. At Louisbourg they did well. At Quebec a Highland officer's knowledge of French proved a great boon. When, in the darkness of the momentous morning of September 13th, 1759, Wolfe's boats were drifting down with the tide close to the north shore near Quebec, intending to land and scale the heights at what is now Wolfe's Cove, a French sentry called out sharply from the bank, "Qui vive?" A Highland officer, who had served in Holland, was able to reply "France!" without betraying his nationality.
"A quel régiment?" demanded the sentry.
"De la reine," answered the Highlander, giving the name of a well-known French regiment commanded by Bougainville; and then he added in a low voice, "Ne faites pas de bruit; ce sont les vivres"—for a convoy with provisions was expected by the French. The Highlanders were at the forefront in the stiff climb up the heights which proved to be Wolfe's master stroke. Malcolm Fraser has left his own account of that morning's work. The troops, he says, had been in the boats since nine o'clock on the previous night. At about twelve they had set out with a falling tide and they landed just as day was breaking. The light infantry struggled up the hill first, the French meanwhile firing on the boats, killing and wounding some of the occupants; but "the main body of our army soon got to the upper ground, after climbing a hill or rather a precipice, of about three hundred yards, very steep and covered with wood and brush." By ten the army was drawn up in order of battle,—"in a masterly manner," John Nairne said later,—on the Plains of Abraham, the bag-pipes of the Highlanders screaming a wild defiance to the foe. Then followed that brief death grapple, fatal to the leader on each side. Fraser and his Highlanders, we are told, rushed at the enemy with their broadswords in such irresistible fury that they were driven with a prodigious slaughter into the town. The Highlanders suffered as much after the battle as in it, for General Murray led them to reconnoitre in the direction of the General Hospital and a good many were shot by the French from bushes and from houses in the suburbs of St. Louis and St. John. To the French the Highlanders seemed especially ferocious, possibly owing to the wild music of their pipes, their waving tartans, their terrible broadswords, and perhaps, also, their partially naked bodies. They were indeed christened "the savages of Europe."