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Updated: June 6, 2025
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.
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.
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.
At Beaver Dam, only a dozen miles or so from Fort George, Lieutenant Fitzgibbon of Nairne's regiment, the 49th, entrapped an advancing party of Americans and, by the clever use of 200 Indian allies, filled them with such dread of being surrounded and massacred by the savages that nearly 600 Americans surrendered to little more than one-third of their number.
By this time Thomas Nairne's regiment had passed from Burlington Heights to Kingston, at the opposite end of Lake Ontario, some two hundred miles away. The St. Lawrence River had now become the chief danger point for Canada. On October 21st the American General Wilkinson, with 8,000 men, left Sackett's Harbour near the east end of Lake Ontario, opposite Kingston, in boats, to descend the St.
In 1801 the manor house must have been the scene of some gaiety for there and at Malcolm Fraser's were half a score of visitors. Christine, Nairne's second daughter, who preferred Quebec to the paternal roof, had come home for a visit and other visitors were the Hon. G. Taschereau and his son, Mr. Usburn, Mr. Masson, Mrs. Langan and Mrs.
Perhaps it was not in civil life, but in the army, in young Nairne's time, sobriety was the rule. Writing on May 20th, 1807, he says that few in the army resort to drink, as a pleasure, even at Gibraltar, where wine is cheap and plentiful; the allowance in the regiment after dinner is but one-third of a bottle, and only now and then when there are guests is it usual to depart from this allowance.
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.
A second time Nairne's body was taken from the grave where it had been laid and its bearer began his long winter journey to Quebec. The sleigh with its sad burden, a moving dark speck on a white background, made its slow way along the wintry roads and by the shores of the ice bound St. Lawrence.
Before an answer came Scottish relatives learned in 1800 of Jack's fate and wrote of it to Murray Bay. A friend of the family in India had noticed in the newspaper that some one was promoted to John Nairne's place. This led to enquiry, when it was found that he had died in August, 1799.
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