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'Invitus, regina, tuo de littore cessi . 'Very well hit off! said he. We dined at Kinghorn, and then got into a post-chaise . Mr. Nairne and his servant, and Joseph, rode by us. We stopped at Cupar, and drank tea. We talked of parliament; and I said, I supposed very few of the members knew much of what was going on, as indeed very few gentlemen know much of their own private affairs.
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.
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? He felt the weariness of exile, the Scot's longing for his own land.
Not until six months after his death, and then only in reply to the enquiry as to Jack's demands for money, did his commanding officer write the following letter to Colonel Nairne: Colonel Dalrymple to Colonel Nairne
With this release he might now have retired to the serenity of Murray Bay. But, even though he had not changed his mind, this would have been to turn his back on fighting when men were most needed. So when Captain Wall of the 49th Regiment broke his leg, and was thus rendered unfit for service, with him Nairne effected an exchange.
To his kin in Scotland he sent from the beginning voluminous annual epistles. They are not such as we now write, hurriedly scratched off in a few minutes. With abundant time at his disposal Nairne could write what must have occupied many days. When written, the letters were sometimes copied in a book almost as large as an office ledger.
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.
The increase of settlement, and the burning of the woods, had driven the wild animals farther back into the wilderness, but partridges and water fowl were still abundant. There was salmon fishing almost at his door and "Lake Nairne," the present Grand Lac, had famous trout fishing. The thick woods, which at his coming extended all round the bay, were now cleared away.
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.
Mr Nairne introduced us to Dr Watson, whom we found a well-informed man, of very amiable manners. Dr Johnson, after they were acquainted, said, 'I take great delight in him. His daughter, a very pleasing young lady, made breakfast. Dr Watson observed, that Glasgow University had fewer home-students, since trade increased, as learning was rather incompatible with it.
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