new grants under the great seal.  As it was, Murray wrote on a sheet of ordinary foolscap, still preserved at Murray Bay, a brief deed of the land[6] and, behold, the two young officers have become landed proprietors!  To their request for permission to use Murray’s name, in grateful remembrance of his kindness, he also assented.  Nairne’s seigniory was to be called Murray’s Bay and Fraser’s Mount Murray.  The grants were made because “it is a national advantage and tends to promote the cultivation of lands within the province to encourage His Majesty’s natural-born subjects settling within the same”; and the consideration was “the faithful services” rendered by the two officers.

A good deal of stock and farm implements remained at Malbaie and this the new proprietors arranged to buy, giving in payment their promissory notes, Nairne’s for L85, 6s. 8d., currency and Fraser, who got only one-third, his for L42, 13s. 4d.  They seem to have had a good deal for their money.  There were a score and a half or so of cattle, four or five horses, (one of them twenty-two years old), twenty sheep, fourteen pigs, besides chickens and other living creatures.  In addition there were waggons and other farm appliances, most of them probably old and of little use, though they must have helped to tide over the first difficult days when everything would have to be provided.

On getting his grant Nairne retired from the army on half pay, but Fraser remained on active service for many years still.  Thus Nairne was the more continuously resident at Murray Bay and in its development he played the greater part.  Fraser’s interests were divided, not only between Murray Bay and the army, but also between Murray Bay and another seigniory which he secured on the south side of the river at Riviere du Loup and known as Fraserville.  For us therefore the interest at Murray Bay now centres chiefly in Nairne and his family.

[Footnote 3:  The name Simon Fraser appears with credit more than once in Canadian history.  It was a Simon Fraser who crossed the Rocky Mountains and first followed for its whole course the Fraser River named after him.]

[Footnote 4:  Waverley, Chapter II.]

[Footnote 5:  See Appendix A., p. 249.  “Journal of Malcolm Fraser, First Seigneur of Mount Murray, Malbaie.”]

[Footnote 6:  See copy of the grant in Appendix B., p. 271.]

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