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
[a gibe at the corps in which Nairne served] a few miserable emigrants."
He went on to promise his troops that when they took Quebec "the effects
of the Governor, garrison, and of such as have been active in misleading
the inhabitants and distressing the friends of liberty" should be
equally divided among the victors. The opposing sides showed, in truth,
the bitterness and exasperation of family quarrels and abandoned the
usual courtesies of war. The Americans lay in wait to shoot sentries;
they fired on single persons walking on the ramparts. It was reported to
the British that Montgomery had said "he would dine in Quebec or in Hell
on Christmas"--gossip probably untrue, as a British diarist of the time
is fair enough to note, since it is not in accord with the dignity and
sobriety of Montgomery's character.
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.
[Illustration: THE MANOR HOUSE AT MURRAY BAY
(The upper view from the West, the lower from the East)]
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
Contrecoeur--the officers chiefly at Contrecoeur. 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.
[Footnote 8: Diary of an English Officer. Proceedings of the Literary
and Historical Society of Quebec, 1871-72, p. 61.]
[Footnote 9: See Appendix C., p. 273, for the text of his letter to his
sister describing the operations of the winter at Quebec. It is an able
review of the campaign.]
[Footnote 10: Proceedings of the Literary and Historical Society of
Quebec, 7th Series, 1905, p. 75; "Blockade of Quebec," etc.]
[Footnote 11: The men's names were Peter Ferris, Squir Ferris, Claudius
Brittle (Sr.), Claudius Brittle (Jr.), Nathan Smith, Marshal Smith,
Justice Sturdevant, John Ward.]
[Footnote 12: The book in which Nairne kept the accounts, with the names
of the recipients of the king's bounty, is still at Murray Bay.]