he had been content to rest on his laurels. He was the
son of Capt. James Leslie, 15th Regiment, who was Assistant-Quarter-Master
to the army of General Wolfe at the capture of Quebec, and who claimed
descent from a junior branch of the family of Rothes, and on his mother’s
side from John Stuart, of Inchbreck in the Mearns, lineally descended from
Murdock, Duke of Albany. The subject of the present notice was born at
Kair, Kincardine, on the 4th September, 1786, and was educated at the
Aberdeen Grammar School, and afterwards at Marischal College and Aberdeen
University. He married, in 1815, a daughter of Patrick Langan, Seigneur of
Bourchemin and De Ramsay, formerly an officer in the British army. Mr.
Leslie was for many years an extensive merchant in Montreal. He served in
the Volunteers in the war of 1812, and retired from the Militia many years
afterwards with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. He was a member of the
Executive Council of Canada and President of that body from March to
September, 1848; and Provincial Secretary and Registrar from 1848 to
October, 1851. He sat as a representative from Montreal, in the Lower
Canada Assembly, from 1824 until the Union of that province with Upper
Canada in 1840. He represented Verchères in the Assembly of Canada from
1841 to March, 1848, when he was summoned to the Legislative Council, of
which he remained a member until the Confederation, in 1867. He had been
an unsuccessful candidate for the county of Montreal at the general
elections of 1841. He was appointed a Senator by Royal Proclamation in
1867, and remained a member of that body until his death, which took place
at the advanced age of eighty-seven in 1873. Mr. Leslie had always acted
with the Conservatives."
D.
(See Page 31.)
The following ancedote,
taken from the "Letters of a
Volunteer," communicated by Capt.
Colin Mackenzie, appears worthy of being remembered:
On board of the STERLING
CASTLE, In the River St. Lawrence,
two miles below Quebec,
Sept. 2, 1759.
"Notwithstanding the check we
received in the action (at Beauport), of the 31st of July, it must be
admitted our people behaved with great vivacity. I cannot omit being
particular with respect to a singular instance of personal bravery and
real courage.
Captain Ochterlony and Lieutenant
Peyton (both of General Moncton’s regiment) were wounded, and fell before
the breast-work near the Falls.—The former, mortally, being shot through
the body; the latter was wounded only in the knee. Two savages pushed down
upon them with the utmost precipitation, armed with nothing but their
diabolical knives. The first seized on Captain Ochterlony, when Mr.
Peyton, who lay reclining on his fusee. discharged it; the savage dropt
immediately on the body of his intended prey. |