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pose of being embalmed, many bullets
by which he had been wounded last in Germany and Canada, were extracted.
"Of the Scots connected with Canada
during the period from the conquest to the war of 1812, there are some
who seem to require special
notice. One of these was Sir William Grant, the third Attorney General of
Quebec, born in 1754, at Elchies on the Spray, in the North of Scotland.
His distinguished judical career has no connection with Canada, and he was
only temporarily a resident in this country, during a brief period from
1774. When he returned home, Lord Thurlow said of him: "Be not surprised
if that young man should one day occupy this seat,"—and it is stated that
he might have occupied the wool-sack but refused it. He filled high
judical offices in England, being successively Lord Chief Justice of the
Common Pleas and Master of the Rolls." RATTRAY’S
Scot in British North America, P. 313.)
Later on, two eminent Scotchmen
found a resting place in the vaults of the English Cathedral at Quebec.
Lieut. Governor Peter Hunter, in 1805, the brother of two celebrated
physicians, John and William Hunter; and our then Governor-in-Chief, the
Duke of Richmond, on 4th September 1819.
In that long list of Viceroys
charged with the administration of Canada from our first Scotch Governor
Murray, to our present, the Marquis of Lorne, more than one exhibited the
distinctive, the most commendable traits of the Scotch character. In the
critical times of the first Empire, in 1807, when England, in addition to
her gigantic struggle with Napoleon I, expected (and was not disappointed)
a war with the United States, the reins of office, in Canada were confided
to a Scotchman, General Sir James Craig; and if there were faults in the
tried old soldier, ‘twas not want of nerve, want of back-bone, in the hour
of danger. t
t See Appendix Letter F. |
