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.]

CHAPTER V

THE LAST DAYS OF JOHN NAIRNE

Nairne’s careful education of his children.—­His son John enters the army.—­Nairne’s counsels to his son.—­John Nairne goes to India.—­His death.—­Nairne’s declining years.—­His activities at Murray Bay.—­His income.—­His daughter Christine and Quebec society.—­The isolation of Murray Bay in Winter.—­Signals across the river.—­Nairne’s reading.—­His notes about current events.—­The fear of a French invasion of England.—­Thoughts of flight from Scotland to Murray Bay.—­Nairne’s last letter, April 20th, 1802.—­His death and burial at Quebec.

Colonel Nairne’s life was troubled with many sorrows.  In 1773, when he was on a visit to Scotland, Malcolm Fraser had had the painful duty of writing to tell him of the death of three of his infant children at Murray Bay from a prevailing epidemic.  His daughter, Anne, born in 1784, was sent to Scotland to be educated.  She contracted consumption and after a prolonged illness died there in 1796.  “This event gave me great affliction,” wrote Nairne, “she was always a most amiable child.”  There now remained two sons and three daughters,[13] and Nairne may well have been certain that his name would go down to an abundant