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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.
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 curé. They cannot get any Protestant instruction; so the Protestant children are reared Roman Catholics.
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.
William Nairne, Advocate, and Mr. Hamilton of Sundrum, my neighbour in the country, both of whom supped with us. I have preserved nothing of what passed, except that Dr. Johnson displayed another of his heterodox opinions, a contempt of tragick acting . He said, 'the action of all players in tragedy is bad.
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.
But the action was entirely over before the Comte de Nairne, with his command, cou'd reach nigh to the place. They therefore return'd all to Penrith, and the artilirie marched up in good order.
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.
Long afterwards, in 1798, writing to a friend, Hepburn, in Scotland, Nairne recalled his arrival at his future home. 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.
More than a hundred years ago Colonel Nairne and Colonel Fraser had parties of guests in the summer that must have made the two manor houses lively enough. The beauty of the place, its coolness when Quebec and Montreal suffered from sweltering heat in the short Canadian summer, the simplicity and charm of its life, proved alluring. There was also excellent sport. Salmon and trout abounded.
Captain Nairne, Lieutenant M'Sweeney, Lieutenant and Adjutant Harrison, Lieutenant Hume, Deputy-Assistant Commissary-General Barter, Conductor Egerton, Surgeon Ward, were all wounded, besides Colonel Anstruther himself, who was shot in two or three places. It was useless to contend against such odds, and the 'cease fire' was sounded, and handkerchiefs waved to denote submission.
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