A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs Part 2

Nairne's first visit to Malbaie was, as we have seen, in the autumn of 1761, when he took possession of his seigniory. Not until the following year was the formal grant made by Murray. Long afterwards, in 1798, writing to a friend, Hepburn, in Scotland, Nairne recalled his arrival at his future home. "I came here first in 1761 with five soldiers [alas, we do not know their names!] and procured some Canadian servants. One small house contained us all for several years and [we] were separated from every other people for about eighteen miles without any road." He contrasts this with what he sees about him at the time of writing--a parish with more than five hundred inhabitants, with one hundred men capable of bearing arms, grist mills, fisheries, good houses and barns, fertile fields, a priest, a chapel, and so on. The five soldiers of whom Nairne speaks were no doubt men of the 78th Highlanders and ancestors of a goodly portion of the population of Malbaie at the present time.

Perhaps some of them had fought at Culloden; certainly all fought at Louisbourg and Quebec.

In the first days at Murray Bay Nairne was in debt. In 1761, probably to purchase his captaincy, he had incurred a considerable obligation to his friend General Murray; where Murray got 400 to lend him is a mystery, for he was himself always pressed for funds. With everything to do at Murray Bay, mills to be built, roads to be opened, a manor house to be constructed, it was not easy to get together any money; for years the debt hung like a mill-stone round Nairne's neck. But he had always a certain, if small, revenue in his half pay and, in time, he acquired, chiefly by inheritance, what was, for that period in Canada, a considerable fortune. In 1766, when Nairne was in Scotland, General Murray, who had himself just arrived from Canada, wrote urgently to ask for payment. Murray owed to a Mr. Ross 8,000 and could not borrow one s.h.i.+lling in England on his estates in Canada; so he said "delay will be a very terrible disappointment to me." But this disappointment he had to bear. In 1770 the debt was still unpaid and may have remained so for some years longer. Happily the friends.h.i.+p between the former comrades was not impaired by their financial relations. Murray promised to put Nairne in the way of being "very comfortable and easy" in Canada, if he would follow his advice, but nothing came of his offer. For some years after 1761 Nairne thought of returning to Scotland, whither ties of kin drew him strongly. But his father's death in 1766 or 1767 helped to weaken these ties. In any case Scotland offered no career and he must do something to pay the debt to Murray and to provide for himself.

Nairne's chief task as seigneur was to put settlers on his huge tract.

The seigneur, indeed, discharged functions similar to those of a modern colonization company, but with differences that in some respects favour the older system. Now-a-days the occupier buys the land and the colonization company gets the best possible price for what it has to sell; it can hold for a rise in value and, if it likes, can refuse to sell at all. Nairne had no such powers. Under the law, if a reputable person applied for land, he must let him have it. Settlers required no capital to buy their land, and, as long as they paid their merely nominal rent, they could not be disturbed in their holdings. The rent amounted to about one cent an acre, and some twenty cents or a live capon for each of the two or three arpents of frontage which a farm would have. The rent charge was uniform and depended not upon the quality of the land or upon the individual seigneur but upon what was usual in the district; moreover, under the French law, no matter how valuable the land became, the rent could not be increased and, though so trifling, it was rarely required until the settler's farm had begun to be productive. Sometimes in a single year Nairne would put as many as twenty brawny young fellows on his land to hew out homes for themselves.

Each of them got a tract of about one hundred acres and, as the annual rental received for a dozen farms would be hardly more than twenty dollars, the seigneur reaped no great profit from his tenants. It was only when a tenant sold a holding, that the seigneur secured any considerable sum. To him then went one-twelfth of the price. The other chief source of profit, as settlement increased, was from the seigneur's mill. To it all the occupiers of his land must bring their grain and pay a fixed charge for its grinding. In scattered settlements the mill brought little profit and was a source of expense rather than of income. But, as population increased, this "_droit de ba.n.a.lite_"

became valuable. The mill at Malbaie was, in time, very prosperous.

In Canada the seigneur was not the oppressor of his people but rather their watchful guardian. He planned roads and other improvements, checked abuses, and enforced justice. At his side stood, usually, the priest. The moment a parish was established a cure was ent.i.tled to the t.i.the; near every manor house, the village church was sure to spring up.

Even when, as at Malbaie, the priest and the seigneur were not of the same faith they were often fast friends. Nairne's relations were good with the neighbouring cure, when, at length, Malbaie had a resident priest. Each village would thus usually have at least two men of some culture working together for its spiritual and temporal interests. Both remained in touch with the outside world; the priest with his bishop at Quebec, the seigneur with the representative there of the sovereign.

Upon each change of governor Nairne was required to appear at Quebec to render fealty and homage. With head uncovered and wearing neither sword nor spur he must kneel before the governor, and take oath on the Gospels to be faithful to the king, to be party to nothing against his interests, to perform all the duties required by the terms of his holding, and, especially, to appear in arms to defend the province if attacked. We find Nairne excused by General Haldimand in 1781 from discharging this ceremony, but only because he was away on active service.

When Nairne settled at Murray Bay he was unmarried and so, no doubt, were the soldiers he brought with him. Only after five or six years did he himself find a wife but we may be sure that his men did not wait so long. What more natural than that they should marry the French Canadian servants of whom Nairne speaks? A visitor at Murray Bay is struck with names like McNicol, Harvey, Blackburn, McLean, and one or two others that have a decidedly North British ring. Some, if not all, are names of one or other of the half dozen soldiers who settled at Murray Bay in Nairne's time. There was no disbanding there of a regiment, as tradition has it. In time the 78th Highlanders were disbanded, but certainly not at Murray Bay, and, though hundreds of them remained in Canada, only a few individual soldiers came to Nairne's settlement. Already when he arrived French Canadians were there and from the first the community was prevailingly French and Catholic. In 1784 when joined with Les Eboulements and Isle aux Coudres under a single priest Malbaie already had 65 communicants. As likely as not some even of the Highlanders were Catholics. In any case their children became such and spoke French, the tongue of their mothers; even Nairne's own children spoke only French until they went to Quebec to school.

When, from time to time, a missionary priest visited the place he baptized children of Catholic and Protestant alike, including even the children of the Protestant family in the manor house. The only religious services that the people ever shared in were those of the Roman Catholic Church. Nairne would have wished it otherwise. He held st.u.r.dy Protestant views, and wished to bring in Protestant settlers. On one or more of his visits to Scotland he made efforts to induce Scots to move to Canada.

But he met with no great success. A Scottish friend, Gilchrist, who had visited Nairne at Murray Bay, writes, in 1775, to express hope that he will not encourage French settlers who will rob him, who have "disingenuous, lying, cheating, detestable dispositions," and are the "banes of society." He adds, "I am glad you give me reason to believe you are to carry over some industrious honest people from hence with you. I am convinced 'twere easy by introducing a few such [to bring about that] the dupes to the most foolish and absurd religion now in the world might be warmed out and your quiet as well as interest established from Point au Pique to the Lake."[7] The Roman Catholic faith had more vitality than Nairne's correspondent supposed. It was Protestantism that should in time be "warmed out" of Murray Bay.

To prevent this Nairne did what he could; for a long time he entertained hopes not only that the Protestants at Murray Bay might be held to their faith but also that the Roman Catholics would be led into the Protestant fold. His chief complaint against the Roman Catholic Church was in regard to education. There was woeful ignorance. Nairne was in command of the local militia and he found that officers of militia, and even a neighbouring seigneur, could not read. When Roman Catholic services were held at Murray Bay, as they were regularly before he died, the tongue was one that the people did not understand. At the services there was nothing "but a few lighted candles, in defyance of the sun, and the priest singing and reading Latin or Greek.... None of us understands a word." He complains of "the greatest deficiency in preaching sentiments of morality and virtue." Indeed, very few of the priests could preach or say anything in public beyond the Latin ma.s.s. Nairne tried to secure better means of educating his people. Probably earlier also, but certainly in 1791, he was writing to the Anglican Bishop of Quebec to help him to do something. He lives, he says, in "the most Northerly and, I believe, the poorest parish on the Continent of America." The people cannot read and have no literary amus.e.m.e.nt. Their idle days they spend in drunkenness and debauchery and he wishes something done for them. Ten years later Nairne is returning to the charge. There are five Protestant families in the neighbourhood. They cannot even be baptized except by the cure. They cannot get any Protestant instruction; so the Protestant children are reared Roman Catholics. Nairne wished to have a Protestant clergyman established at Murray Bay; he could make that place his headquarters and carry on missionary work in the neighbouring parishes.

But the five Protestant families at Murray Bay soon became three, for Nairne says, in 1801, that his and Colonel Fraser's families and one other man, an Englishman, are the only remaining Protestants. He and Fraser, he adds, are growing old and, in any case, it was doubtful whether the Englishman would attend service.

Yet Nairne still begged for a Protestant missionary. He desired most of all a free school. The teacher should be, he says, French but able also to preach in English; there was now no school at Murray Bay; a free school and a church system which would release the people from paying t.i.thes could work wonders and, probably, most of the people would soon become Protestants. Knowing the tenacity with which the French Canadians have clung to their faith, it seems hardly likely that Nairne's dreams would have been realized. At any rate nothing was done.

At that time there were hardly more than a dozen Anglican clergymen in all Canada and the Bishop of Quebec had no one to spare to look after the few scattered sheep at Murray Bay. On the other hand the rival Church did not forget her own. Long before the British conquest occasional services had been held at Malbaie and these were continued, with some regularity, until a resident priest came in 1797. The visiting priests worked hard. They were, Nairne says, "industrious in private to confess the people, especially the women, which branch of their duty is deemed most sacred and necessary." Against this tremendous power of the confessional, Protestantism had nothing that could be called an opposing influence. When a Protestant died he might not, of course, be buried in the Roman Catholic burial ground. For these outcast dead Nairne set aside a plot near his own house, where, still, under a little clump of trees, their bones lie, neglected and forgotten. Not more than half a dozen Protestants were ever buried there and this shows that even the Protestant pioneers were few in number; hardly one of their children remained outside the Roman Church.

Nairne thought the Canadians not too p.r.o.ne to industry and he deplored the mult.i.tude of religious holidays that gave an excuse for idleness.

In a year there were not less than forty, in addition to Sundays, and on some of the holidays, such as that of the patron saint of the parish, there were scenes of great disorder. Nairne wrote on the subject to the Roman Catholic Bishop of Quebec asking him to take steps to ensure that the people might come to think it not sinful but virtuous to work for six days in the week. The Bishop promised consideration of the matter.

Already it had been under debate and in the end the Bishop gave orders that labour might continue on most of the Church's festivals; that of the patron saint of the parish was in time abolished. Nairne thus helped to bring about a considerable industrial reform. But beyond this he achieved little.

The French Canadians, who occupied his vacant acres, have shown both a marvellous tenacity for their own customs and also a fecundity that has enabled people, numbering 60,000 at the time of the British conquest, to multiply now to some 2,500,000, scattered over the United States and Canada. To govern them has never been an easy problem. Nairne says that the French officer, Bougainville, who had known the Canadians in many campaigns, called them at Murray's table a brave and submissive people; he thought they needed the strong hand of authority and added that he was sure the British method of government would soon spoil them. Under the French regime they had had no gleam of political liberty. For twenty years before the conquest France had exacted from them the fullest possible measure of military service. The British ended this and brought liberty. Its growth is sometimes so rapid as to be noxious, and, no doubt, some of those who came to Nairne's domain gave him much trouble.

"No people," Nairne said of them, "stand more in awe of punishment when convinced that there is power to inflict it, as none are so easily spoiled as to be mutinous by indulgences." Some of them showed striking intelligence: in 1784 we find Nairne recommending for appointment as Notary one Malteste (no doubt the well-known name Maltais is a later form) as a "remarkable honest, well-behaved countryman with more education than is commonly to be found with one in his station." The dwellers at Malbaie were for the most part a quiet people entirely untouched by the movements of the outside world. "Nothing here," wrote Nairne in 1798, "is considered of importance but producing food to satisfy craving Stomachs, which the people of this cold and healthy country remarkably possess, and to feed numbers of children.... They have no other ambition or consideration whatever but simply to procure food and raiment for themselves and their numerous families."

They had a very clear idea of their rights. Nairne's grant conferred upon him those of fis.h.i.+ng and hunting. But the inhabitants declared that when land was once granted, the seigneur lost all control over the adjoining waters. Nairne wished, for instance, to prohibit the spearing of salmon at night by the Canadians, with the aid of torches or lanterns. But they had never been hampered by such restrictions and, when Nairne tried to check them, they said that they would not be hindered. It was in vain that he said "I had rather have no power at all and no seigneurie at all [than] not to be able to keep up the rights of it." When, in 1797, he ordered one Joseph Villeneuve to cease the "flambeau" fis.h.i.+ng at night, the fellow "roared and bellowed" and set him at defiance; no less than twenty companions joined him in the fis.h.i.+ng. They would acknowledge no law nor restraint and seem to have had _force majeure_ on their side. It was not until long after that the legislature at Quebec pa.s.sed strict laws regulating the modes of fis.h.i.+ng.

Whatever the limitations on the seigneur's authority he had the undoubted right of control over fis.h.i.+ng in rivers and lakes until the adjacent lands were conceded to occupiers. It was important, therefore, not to grant lands which carried with them the best fis.h.i.+ng and Nairne's ardent friend Gilchrist kept exhorting him from Scotland on this point.

"There is no place ... I would so willingly and happily pa.s.s life in,"

he wrote, in 1775, "as in your Neighbourhood and often have I been seized with the memory of your easy and uncontrolled way of rising, lying, dancing, drinking, &c., at your habitation.... One hope ... I wish to be well founded and that is that your Stewart, Factor or Attorney, has not conceded any lands with the River in front from the Rapides du Vieux Moulin. If otherwise, you have lost more than the profits [which] all above Bra.s.sar's will yield in our lifetime. The fis.h.i.+ng in that part of the River is alone worth crossing the Atlantic."

Over trade Nairne and Fraser tried to exercise some real control. Their grants gave them no right to trade with the Indians and in reality no authority over trade. But they were guardians of the law and took steps to check traders from violating it. One Bra.s.sard, who lived up the Murray River, seems to have been a frequent offender. It was easy to debauch the Indians with drink and then to get their furs for very little and the seigneurs needed always to be alert. In 1778 we find Malcolm Fraser making with one Hugh Blackburn a bargain which outlines what the seigneurs tried to do in regard to trade. Blackburn binds himself in the sum of 200 to obey certain restrictions: he will not attempt to debauch the Indians belonging to the King's Posts; in no circ.u.mstances will he sell them liquor; nor will he sell liquor on credit to anyone. He will obey the lawful orders of Nairne and Fraser relative to the carrying on of his trade; he will pay his debts, and will make others pay what they owe him, refusing them credit if accounts are not paid within six months. In consideration of these pledges by Blackburn Fraser guarantees his credit with the Quebec merchants. The difficulty in regard to trade with the Indians settled itself by the tragic remedy of their gradual extinction. In 1800 Nairne says that the Micmacs, once a great nuisance, are now rarely seen.

Nairne was a good farmer and his letters contain many references to farming operations. At Murray Bay, he says, plowing goes on for seven months in the year, from the middle of April to the middle of November.

But the Canadians do not plough well; they do not understand how to preserve the crops when cut; and, on the whole, are backward in agriculture. He himself preserved for a domain more land than he could ever get cleared, for this clearing was heavy work. Some of the soil at Murray Bay is very good. Gilchrist writes indeed to say that he has been talking in Scotland about Nairne's land. "On my mentioning that you had lime, without digging for it, it was acknowledged that you possessed all the advantages possible and that anything might be done with ground such as yours which is dry; and I verily believe would you thoroughly lime your land you may keep it in crops as long as you please and have prodigious returns." Good farming, he says, Nairne may have and he should preserve good fis.h.i.+ng; then Murray Bay will be perfect. "If I have the pleasure of seeing your sisters, I'll represent Mal Bay as the counterpart of Paradise before the fall." He adds some local characterizations. "Catish will do for Eve, La Grange for Adam, and Dufour for the Devil."

Nairne was married in 1766 to Christiana Emery. Of her history I know nothing, except that she was born in Edinburgh and married in Canada.

Soon after marriage Nairne paid a long visit to Scotland and there in 1767 the freedom of the borough of Sterling was conferred upon him. Mrs.

Nairne must have been considerably younger than her husband, for though he lived to ripe old age, she survived him by twenty-six years, dying at Murray Bay in 1828. Whether she brought any dowry I do not know; Nairne certainly had had in mind the improvement of his position by marrying.

Nine children were born to them but three died in childhood of an epidemic fever that broke out at Murray Bay in 1773 while Nairne was in Scotland. A fourth child, Anne, died of consumption. Five children lived to grow up--three daughters and two sons.

Canada seemed so remote that it was not easy for Nairne to keep in touch with his kin. The scattering of families, one of the penalties Imperial Britain, with a world wide domain, imposes upon her sons, had taken Nairne's brother Robert to India. At a time only ten years later than Clive's great victory of Pla.s.sey, Britain's grasp on the country was, as yet, by no means certain and India was amazingly remote; five years usually elapsed between the sending of a letter to India from Canada and the receipt of a reply! On January 5th, 1770, Robert Nairne writes from Marlborough, India, acknowledging a letter from his brother John, only recently received, dated April 21, 1767. The brothers discuss family news and family plans, their old father's health, the desirability of settling down at home in Scotland, the life each is living, remote from that home. Though an officer, Robert engaged in trade and made some money. "The Company's pay is hardly subsistence," he says, "and here we have not, as on t'other side of India the spoils of plundered provinces to grow fat on. I keep my health very well and if I want the satisfaction, I am also free from many Anxietys, people are subject to who are more in the glare of life." He was in a retired place, where there were few people and perennial summer, with "no variety of seasons nor of anything else." Time pa.s.ses insensibly, he says; "in India years are like months in Europe ... I write, read, walk and go in company the same round nearly throughout the year. Here we have little company; yet everyone wants to go to out settlements where they are quite alone. I cannot account for it. Mal Bay is your out settlement. Do you like that as well as Quebec?"

Robert Nairne was something of a philosopher. "Have you ever so much philosophy," he writes to the seigneur of Murray Bay in 1767, "as to think everything that happens is for the best? I am so far of that mind that content and discontent I think arises [_sic_] rather from the cast of our own thoughts than from outward accidents and that there is nearly an equal distribution of the means of happiness to all men, and that they are the happiest that improve their means the most." He felt the weariness of exile, the Scot's longing for his own land. "Certainly to a person of a right tone of mind if there are enjoyments in life, it must be in our own country amongst our friends and relations. With such conditions the bare necessaries of life are better than riches without them.... Death is but a limited absence and you and I are much in that state with regard to our friends at home."

It was not long before Robert Nairne's letters ceased altogether. In 1776, John Nairne received at Murray Bay the sad news that, in November or December, 1774, his brother had been killed in a petty expedition against some local tribesmen. A native chieftain had murdered, cooked and eaten a rival who was friendly to the East India Company and Robert Nairne with some natives, and only three Europeans, went up country, through woods and bogs, to seize the offender. When there was fighting his natives fled, and he was shot through the body. It was a pity, says John Nairne's correspondent, Hepburn, to lose his life "in so silly a manner." He would soon have been governor of Bencoolen and was in a way to make "a great figure in life." Of his fortune of 6,000 John Nairne received a part. Twenty-five years after his brother's death Nairne was to get at Murray Bay similar news of the loss of his own son in distant India. It has levied a heavy tribute of Britain's best blood.

In 1774 Nairne again revisited Scotland. Though no politician, he must have heard much about the Quebec Act, then before the Imperial Parliament. The Governor of Canada, Sir Guy Carleton, after careful consideration of the whole question, had reached the conclusion, not belied by subsequent history, as far as the Province of Quebec is concerned, that Canada would always be French and that, with some slight modifications, the French system found there by Britain should be given final and legal status under British supremacy. So the Quebec Act was pa.s.sed in 1774. While the British criminal law was introduced, the French civil law, including the land system under which Nairne held Murray Bay, was left unchanged. The Bill gave the Church the same privileged position that it had enjoyed under Catholic sovereigns. The t.i.the could be collected by legal process; taxation for church purposes voted by the parochial authority called the _fabrique_ was as compulsory as civil taxes, unless the person taxed declared that he was not a Roman Catholic; and the whole ecclesiastical system of New France was supported and encouraged. The Bill caused much irritation in Protestant New England, which saw some malicious design in the establishment of Roman Catholicism on its borders. The Continental Congress of 1775 denounced the Quebec Act, and even the Declaration of Independence has something to say about it.

It is obvious that Nairne disliked the Bill. His irrepressible friend, Gilchrist, wrote giving a picture of its probable dire social results, upsetting all domestic relations between the two races. The Bill, says Gilchrist, "is the most pernicious [that] could have been devised. Judge of the Fetes now that the fools have got the sanction of the British Parliament to their beggaring principles. It is not clear that your Protestant servants will [even] be allowed to work upon their [the Roman Catholic] idle days. What would you and I think on being told by these black rascals [the priests are meant of course] that our people, I mean Protestants, durst not obey our orders without a dispensation from them?"

The social consequences of the Quebec Act did not prove as revolutionary as Nairne's animated correspondent feared. Less than is usually supposed did the habitant like it since it placed him again under the priest's and the seigneur's authority, suspended since the British conquest. To the English colonies it added one to other causes of friction that boded trouble to the British Empire. In the previous year the people of Boston had defied Britain, by throwing into their harbour cargoes of tea upon which the owners proposed to pay a hated duty, levied by outside authority. The Quebec Act brought a final rupture a step nearer and at last there was open war. "The colonists have brought things to a crisis now, indeed;" wrote Gilchrist; "the consequences must be dreadful to them soon and I am afraid in the end to our country." To Great Britain indeed disastrous they were to be and soon the seigneur of Murray Bay was busy with his share in preparing for the conflict.

[Footnote 7: The Lake is no doubt Lake Nairne, the present Grand Lac.]

CHAPTER IV

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 a.s.sault 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-s.h.i.+p.--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 sh.o.r.e, 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 leaders.h.i.+p 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 a.s.sailant; 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 Beaupre 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. Was.h.i.+ngton 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. Was.h.i.+ngton 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 role 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 s.h.i.+ps; 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 Chaudiere, which flows into the St. Lawrence near Quebec, the hards.h.i.+ps 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 s.h.i.+vering. 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 Chaudiere 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 hards.h.i.+p, 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 un.o.bserved, they carried Arnold's force across the river almost under the bows of the s.h.i.+ps 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 sh.o.r.es 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 pa.s.sed 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 sh.o.r.e 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 Lotbiniere, 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.