George M. Wrong - A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs

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[Illustration: COLONEL JOHN NAIRNE]

A CANADIAN MANOR
AND ITS SEIGNEURS

THE STORY OF A HUNDRED YEARS
1761-1861

BY

GEORGE M. WRONG, M.A.
PROFESSOR OF HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS

TORONTO
THE BRYANT PRESS, LIMITED
1908

COPYRIGHT, CANADA, 1908
BY GEORGE M. WRONG

PREFACE

In spite of many pleasant summers spent at Murray Bay one had never
thought of it as having a history. The place and its people seemed
simple, untutored, new. Some of the other summer residents talked
complacently even of having discovered it. They had heard of Murray Bay
as beautiful and had gone to explore this unknown country. When this
bold feat was performed there was abundant recompense. Valley, mountain,
river and stream united to make Murray Bay delightful. The little summer
community grew. At first visitors lived in the few primitive hotels or
in cottages at Pointe au Pic, vacated for the time being by their
owners, who found temporary lodgings somewhere,--not infrequently in
their own out-buildings. The cottages left something to be desired, and,
gradually, the visitors bought land and built houses for themselves:
to-day dozens of them dot the western shore of Murray Bay. In due time
appeared tennis courts; then a golf links. Murray Bay had become, alas,
almost fashionable.

It still seemed to have no past. True, near the village church, a
fair-sized house stood, embowered in trees, with a fine view out over
the bay and the wide St. Lawrence. A high fence shut in a beautiful old
garden, with a few great trees: as one drove past one got a glimpse of
shady walks and old-fashioned flowers. The extensive out-buildings near
this manor house, stables, carriage-house, dairy, showed that the
establishment was fairly large. There were sleek cattle in the farm
yard. On one of the out-buildings was a small belfry, with a bell to
summon the work-people from afar to meals, and this seemed like the
olden times when the seigneur fed his labourers under his own roof. On
making a formal call at the manor house one noted that some of the rooms
were of fine proportions and that a good many old portraits and
miniatures hung on the walls. This all spoke of a past; and yet of it
one asked little and knew nothing.

Just across the bay stood another manor house; of stone, too, in this
case not concealed by a covering of wood. Thick walls crowned by a
mansard roof spoke of a respectable age. This manor house, also looked
out on the bay and across the St. Lawrence. One knew that it was named
Mount Murray Manor, while that on the right bank of the river Murray was
called Murray Bay Manor. It was said vaguely that a Colonel Fraser had
dwelt at Mount Murray and a Colonel Nairne at Murray Bay; but all that
one heard was loose tradition and there were no Nairnes or Frasers of
whom one might ask questions. One could see that, in both places,
something like an old world dignity of life had in the past been kept
up.

Making a call at the Murray Bay Manor House, I was told one day of a
manuscript volume in which the first seigneur had copied some of his
letters. I begged to be allowed to spend an afternoon or two in looking
through it. I went and went again. To me the book was absorbing. It told
the story of the first people of British origin who went to settle at
Malbaie, which they named Murray Bay, just after the British conquest;
of the career of a soldier brother of Colonel Nairne who died in India
not long after Plassey; of campaigns fought by Colonel Nairne during the
period of the American Revolution; of his plans and hopes as the ruler
of the little community where he settled. When I had read the book
through, I asked if there was not something more. Yes, there were some
old letters, preserved in a lumber room at the top of the house. These
I was allowed to see. This task, too, was of great interest and I spent
the better part of a summer holiday reading, analyzing, and copying
letters. Some of them told of the schoolboy days, in Edinburgh, of the
old Colonel's son and heir, the second seigneur, of this son's life at
Gibraltar at the time when Trafalgar was fought, of his return to
Canada, of campaigns in the war of 1812. Then there were touching
letters from others to tell how he fell at the battle of Crysler's Farm.
So intimate were the letters that one experienced again the hopes and
fears of more than a century ago. In time, out of the dimness in which
all had been shrouded, Murray Bay's history became clear. Of course one
had to seek some information elsewhere, especially in attempting an
analysis of French Canadian village life. But the story told in this
volume is based chiefly on the papers read during that holiday. Not only
did they enable one to reconstruct the story of a spot made almost
sacred by the joys of many a delightful summer; they furnished, besides,
an outline of the tragic history of a Canadian family. Here at Murray
Bay, a century and a half ago, a brave and distinguished British officer
secured a great estate and made his home. In his letters we read almost
from day to day of his plans. He had a strong heart and a deep faith. He
reared a large family and built not merely for himself but for his
posterity. And yet, just one hundred years after he began his work at
Murray Bay, the last of his descendants was laid in the grave and the
family became extinct. It is the fashion of our modern fiction to end
the tale in sorrow not in joy. Perhaps the fashion has a more real basis
in fact than we like to think. At any rate this true story of the
seigneur of Murray Bay ends with the closed record of his family history
on a granite monument in Quebec. There is no one living for whom the
tale has the special interest that attaches to one's ancestors.

I have received help from many but my deepest obligation is to Mr. E.J.
Duggan, the present seigneur of Murray Bay, for his great kindness in
permitting me to use the letters and papers in the Manor House. I owe
much to the Right Honourable Sir Charles Fitzpatrick, who has taught me,
in many holiday outings, most of what appreciation I have learned for
French Canadian village life, and has corrected errors into which I
should otherwise have fallen. So also have Mr. W.H. Blake, K.C., of
Toronto, a good authority on all that concerns life at Murray Bay, and
M. J.-Edmond Roy, Assistant Archivist at Ottawa, whose "Histoire de la
Seigneurie de Lauzon" and many other works relating to the Province of
Quebec entitle him to the rank of its foremost historical scholar. To
another authority on the seigniorial system in Canada, Professor W.
Bennett Munro, of Harvard University, I am much indebted for information
readily given. My colleagues Professor W.J. Alexander, Ph.D., of
University College, and Professor Pelham Edgar, Ph.D., of Victoria
College, Toronto, have given me the benefit of their discriminating
criticism. Dr. A.G. Doughty, C.M.G., Dominion Archivist, and the Rev.
Abbe A.E. Gosselin of Laval University, have responded with unfailing
courtesy to my numerous calls upon them, and Mr. John Fraser Reeve, the
great-grandson of Colonel Malcolm Fraser, who figures so prominently in
the story, has given me invaluable information about the Fraser family.
Dr. J.M. Harper and M. P.-B. Casgrain, of Quebec, and Mr. A.C.
Casselman, of Toronto, have also aided me on some difficult points. To
the Honourable Edward Blake, K.C., of Toronto, I am indebted for
reproductions of some of his paintings of scenes at Murray Bay, and to
the Honourable Dudley Murray, of London, England, for a photograph of
the portrait of General Murray preserved in the General's family.

Toronto, _July, 1908_.

CONTENTS

PAGE

CHAPTER I

THE FOUNDING OF MALBAIE

The situation of Malbaie.--The physical features of
Malbaie.--Jacques Cartier at Malbaie.--Champlain at
Malbaie.--The first seigneur of Malbaie.--A new policy for
settling Canada.--The Sieur de Comporte, seigneur of
Malbaie, sentenced to death in France.--His career in
Canada.--His plans for Malbaie.--Hazeur, Seigneur of
Malbaie.--Malbaie becomes a King's Post.--A Jesuit's
description of Malbaie in 1750.--The burning of Malbaie by
the British in 1759. 1

CHAPTER II

THE TWO HIGHLAND SEIGNEURS AT MALBAIE

Pitt's use of Highlanders in the Seven Years' War.--The
origin of Fraser's Highlanders.--The career of Lord
Lovat.--Lovat's son Simon Fraser and other Frasers at
Quebec.--Malcolm Fraser and John Nairne future seigneurs of
Malbaie.--The Highlanders and Wolfe's victory.--The
Highlanders in the winter of 1759-60.--Malcolm Fraser on
Murray's defeat in April, 1760.--The return of Canadian
seigneurs to France.--General Murray buys Canadian
seigniories.--Nairne and Fraser at Malbaie.--Their grants
from Murray. 22

CHAPTER III

JOHN NAIRNE, SEIGNEUR OF MURRAY BAY

Colonel Nairne's portrait.--His letters.--The first Scottish
settlers at Malbaie.--Nairne's finance.--His tasks.--The
cure's work.--The Scottish settlers and their French
wives.--The Church and Education.--Nairne's efforts to make
Malbaie Protestant.--His war on idleness.--The character of
the habitant.--Fishing at Malbaie.--Trade at
Malbaie.--Farming at Malbaie.--Nairne's marriage,--Career
and death in India of Robert Nairne.--The Quebec Act and its
consequences for the habitant. 40

CHAPTER IV

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. 62

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. 93

CHAPTER VI

THOMAS NAIRNE, SEIGNEUR OF MURRAY BAY

His education in Scotland.--His winning character.--He
enters the army.--Malcolm Fraser's counsels to a young
soldier.--Thomas Nairne's life at Gibraltar.--His desire to
retire from the army.--His return to Canada in 1810-11.--His
life at Quebec.--His summer at Murray Bay, 1811.--His
resolve to remain in the Army.--Beginning of the War of
1812.--Captain Nairne on Lake Ontario.--Quebec Society and
the proposed flight from danger to Murray Bay.--Anxiety at
Murray Bay.--The progress of the War.--An American attack on
Kingston.--Captain Nairne on the Niagara frontier.--Naval
War on Lake Ontario.--Nairne's description of a naval
engagement.--Sense of impending disaster at Murray Bay.--The
American advance on Montreal by the St. Lawrence.--Nairne's
regiment a part of the opposing British force.--The Battle
of Crysler's Farm.--Nairne's death.--His body taken to
Quebec.--The grief of the family at Murray Bay.--The
funeral. 124

CHAPTER VII

A FRENCH CANADIAN VILLAGE

Life at Murray Bay after Captain Nairne's death.--Letters
from Europe.--Death of Malcolm Fraser.--Death of Colonel
Nairne's widow and children.--His grandson John Nairne,
seigneur.--Village Life.--The Church's Influence.--The
Habitant's tenacity.--His cottage.--His labours.--His
amusements.--The Church's missionary work in the
Village.--The powers of the bishop.--His visitations.--The
organization of the Parish.--The powers of the
_fabrique_.--Lay control of Church finance.--The cures'
tithe.--The best intellects enter the Church.--A native
Canadian clergy.--The cure's social life.--The Church and
Temperance Reform.--The diligence of the cures.--The
habitant's taste for the supernatural.--The belief in
goblins.--Prayer in the family.--The habitant as voter.--The
office of Churchwarden.--The Church's influence in
elections.--The seigneur's position.--The habitant's
obligations to him.--Rent day and New Year's Day.--The
seigneur's social rank.--The growth of discontent in the
villages.--The evils of Seigniorial Tenure.--Agitation
against the system.--Its abolition in 1854.--The last of the
Nairnes.--The Nairne tomb in Quebec. 168

CHAPTER VIII

THE COMING OF THE PLEASURE SEEKERS

Pleasure seeking at Murray Bay.--A fisherman's experience in
1830.--New visitors.--Fishing in a mountain lake.--Camp
life.--The Upper Murray.--Canoeing.--Running the
rapids.--Walks and drives.--Golf.--A rainy day.--The
habitant and his visitors. 222

AUTHORITIES 243

APPENDICES

APPENDIX A (p. 31) The Journal of Malcolm Fraser,
First Seigneur of Mount Murray,
Malbaie. 249

APPENDIX B (p. 38) Title Deed of the Seigniory of
Murray Bay, granted to Captain
John Nairne. 271

APPENDIX C (p. 78) The Siege of Quebec in 1775-76.
Colonel Nairne's Narrative. 273

APPENDIX D (p. 98) Memorandum of Colonel Nairne,
5th April, 1795, for his son
John Nairne in regard to
military duty. 277

APPENDIX E (p. 104) The "Porpoise" (Beluga or
White Whale) Fishery on the
St. Lawrence. 279

APPENDIX F (p. 122) The Prayer of Colonel Nairne. 286

APPENDIX G (p. 144) The Cures of Malbaie. 287

INDEX 291

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

COLONEL JOHN NAIRNE Frontispiece
(From the Oil Painting in the Manor House at Murray Bay.)
PAGE

CAP A L'AIGLE FROM THE WEST SHORE OF MURRAY BAY 6
(From the Water Colour by the late L.R. O'Brien, in the
possession of the Hon. Edward Blake, K.C.)

VIEW ACROSS MURRAY BAY FROM THE CAP A L'AIGLE SHORE 21
(From an Oil Painting by E. Wyly Grier, in the possession of
the Hon. Edward Blake.)

GENERAL JAMES MURRAY 35
(From an Oil Painting preserved in the General's Family.)

THE MANOR HOUSE AT MURRAY BAY 74
(From amateur photographs.)

VIEW FROM POINTE AU PIC UP MURRAY BAY 102
(From a Water Colour by the late L.R. O'Brien in the
possession of the Hon. Edward Blake.)

THE GOLF LINKS AT MURRAY BAY 237
(From a Photograph by W. Notman and Son, Montreal.)

MAPS

THE ST. LAWRENCE FROM QUEBEC TO MURRAY BAY 1

SKETCH MAP OF LAKE ONTARIO AND THE RIVER ST. LAWRENCE TO
ILLUSTRATE THE WAR OF 1812-14 148

[Illustration: THE ST. LAWRENCE FROM QUEBEC TO MURRAY BAY]

A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs

CHAPTER I

THE FOUNDING OF MALBAIE

The situation of Malbaie.--The physical features of
Malbaie.--Jacques Cartier at Malbaie.--Champlain at Malbaie.--The
first seigneur of Malbaie.--A new policy for settling Canada.--The
Sieur de Comporte, seigneur of Malbaie, sentenced to death in
France.--His career in Canada.--His plans for Malbaie.--Hazeur,
Seigneur of Malbaie.--Malbaie becomes a King's Post.--A Jesuit's
description of Malbaie in 1750.--The burning of Malbaie by the
British in 1759.

If one is not in too great a hurry it is wise to take the steamer--not
the train--at Quebec and travel by it the eighty miles down the St.
Lawrence to Malbaie, or Murray Bay, as the English call it, somewhat
arrogantly rejecting the old French name used since the pioneer days of
Champlain. This means an early morning start and six or seven hours--the
steamers are not swift--on that great river. Only less than a mile apart
are its rugged banks at Quebec but, even then, they seem to contract the
mighty torrent of water flowing between them. Once past Quebec the river
broadens into a great basin, across which we see the head of the
beautiful Island of Orleans. We skirt, on the south side, the twenty
miles of the island's well wooded shore, dotted with the cottages of
the habitants, stretched irregularly along the winding road. Church
spires rise at intervals; the people are Catholic to a man. Once past
this island we begin to note changes. Hardly any longer is the St.
Lawrence a river; rather is it now an inlet of the sea; the water has
become salt; the air is fresher. So wide apart are the river's shores
that the cottages far away to the south seem only white specks.

Hugging the north shore closely we draw in under towering Cap Tourmente,
fir-clad, rising nearly two thousand feet above us; a mighty obstacle it
has always been to communication by land on this side of the river. Soon
comes a great cleft in the mountains, and before us is Baie St. Paul,
opening up a wide vista to the interior. We are getting into the Malbaie
country for Isle aux Coudres, an island some six miles long, opposite
Baie St. Paul, was formerly linked with Malbaie under one missionary
priest. The north shore continues high and rugged. After passing Les
Eboulements, a picturesque village, far above us on the mountain side,
we round Cap aux Oies, in English, unromantically, Goose Cape, and, far
in front, lies a great headland, sloping down to the river in bold
curves. On this side of the headland we can see nestling in under the
cliff what, in the distance, seems only a tiny quay. It is the wharf of
Malbaie. The open water beyond it, stretching across to Cap a l'Aigle,
marks the mouth of the bay. The great river, now twelve miles broad,
with a surging tide, rising sometimes eighteen or twenty feet, has the
strength and majesty almost of Old Ocean himself.

As we land we see nothing striking. There is just a long wharf with some
cottages clustered at the foot of the cliff. But when we have ascended
the short stretch of winding road that leads over the barrier of cliff
we discover the real beauties of Malbaie. Before us lies the bay's
semi-circle--perhaps five miles in extent; stretching far inland is a
broad valley, with sides sloping up to rounded fir-clad mountain tops.
It is the break in the mountains and the views up the valley that give
the place its peculiar beauty. When the tide is out the bay itself is
only a great stretch of brown sand, with many scattered boulders, and
gleaming silver pools of water. Looking down upon it, one sees a small
river winding across the waste of sand and rocks. It has risen in the
far upland three thousand feet above this level and has made an arduous
downward way, now by narrow gorges, more rarely across open spaces,
where it crawls lazily in the summer sunlight:--_les eaux mortes_, the
French Canadians call such stretches. It bursts at length through the
last barrier of mountains, a stream forty or fifty yards wide, and flows
noisily, for some ten miles, in successive rapids, down this valley,
here at last to mingle its brown waters with the ice-cold, steel-tinted,
St. Lawrence.

When the tide is in, the bay becomes a shallow arm of the great
river,--the sea, we call it. The French are better off than we; they
have the word "_fleuve_" for the St. Lawrence;--other streams are
"_rivieres_." Almost daily, at high water, one may watch small schooners
which carry on the St. Lawrence trade head up the bay. They work in
close to shore, drop their anchors and wait for the tide to go out. It
leaves them high and dry, and tilted sometimes at an angle which
suggests that everything within must be topsy-turvy, until the vessel is
afloat again. With a strong wind blowing from the north-east the bay is
likely to be, at high tide, an extremely lively place for the mariner; a
fact which helps perhaps to explain the sinister French name of Malbaie.
The huge waves, coming with a sweep of many miles up the broad St.
Lawrence, hurl themselves on the west shore with surprising vehemence,
and work destruction to anything not well afloat in deep water, or
beyond the highest of high water marks. At such a time how many a
hapless small craft, left incautiously too near the shore, has been
hammered to pieces between waves and rocks!

Tired wayfarers surveying this remote and lovely scene have fancied
themselves pioneers in something like a new world. In reality, here is
the oldest of old worlds, in which pigmy man is not even of yesterday,
but only of to-day. This majestic river, the mountains clothed in
perennial green, the blue and purple tints so delicate and transient as
the light changes, have occupied this scene for thousands of centuries.
No other part of our mother earth is more ancient. The Laurentian
Mountains reared their heads, it may be, long before life appeared
anywhere on this peopled earth; no fossil is found in all their huge
mass. In some mighty eruption of fire their strata have been strangely
twisted. Since then sea and river, frost and ice, have held high
carnival. Huge boulders, alien in formation to the rocks about them,
have been dropped high up on the mountain sides by mighty glaciers, and
lie to-day, a source of unfailing wonder to the unlearned as to how they
came to be there.

Man appeared at last upon the scene; the Indian, and then, long after,
the European. In 1535, Jacques Cartier, the first European, as far as we
know, to ascend the St. Lawrence, creeping slowly from the Saguenay up
towards the Indian village of Stadacona, on the spot where now is
Quebec, must have noted the wide gap in the mountains which makes the
Malbaie valley. Not far from Malbaie, he saw the so-called "porpoises,"
or white whales, (beluga, French, _marsouin_) that still disport
themselves in great numbers in these waters, come puffing to the surface
and writhe their whole length into view like miniature sea-serpents.
They have heads, Cartier says, with no very great accuracy, "of the
style of a greyhound," they are of spotless white and are found, he was
told (incorrectly) only here in all the world. He anchored at Isle aux
Coudres where he saw "an incalculable number of huge turtles." He
admired its great and fair trees, now gone, alas, and gave the island
its name--"the Isle of Hazel Nuts"--which we still use. For long years
after Cartier, Malbaie remained a resort of its native savages only.
Perhaps an occasional trader came to give these primitive people, in
exchange for their valuable furs, European commodities, generally of
little worth. In time the Europeans learned the great value of this
trade and of the land which offered it. So France determined to colonize
Canada and in 1608, when Champlain founded a tiny colony at Quebec, the
most Christian King had announced a resolution to hold the country. Ere
long Malbaie was to have a European owner.

[Illustration: CAP A L'AIGLE FROM THE WEST SHORE OF MURRAY BAY

"A great headland sloping down to the river in bold curves."]

As Champlain went up from Tadousac to make his settlement of Quebec he
noted Malbaie as sufficiently spacious. But its many rocks, he thought,
made it unnavigable, except for the canoes of the Indians, whose light
craft of bark can surmount all kinds of difficulties. Perhaps Champlain
is a little severe on Malbaie which, when one knows how, is navigable
enough for coasting schooners, but his observations are natural for a
passing traveller. In the years after Quebec was founded no more can be
said of Malbaie than that it was on the route from Tadousac to Quebec
and must have been visited by many a vessel passing up to New France's
small capital on the edge of the wilderness. In the summer of 1629 the
occasional savages who haunted Malbaie might have seen an unwonted
spectacle. Three English ships, under Lewis Kirke, had passed up the
river and to him, Champlain, with a half-starved force of only sixteen
men, had been obliged to surrender Quebec. Kirke was taking his captives
down to Tadousac when, opposite Malbaie, he met a French ship coming to
the rescue. A tremendous cannonade followed, the first those ancient
hills had heard. It ended in disaster to France, and Kirke sailed on to
Tadousac with the French ship as a prize.

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