Without doubt Tom was a young man of winning character.  Malcolm Fraser, having studied him and lectured him, reconsidered his unfavourable estimate, and wrote to Ker on the 10th of October, 1811:  “I think him incapable of any immoral or mean action; ... he seems to hearken to the lectures of his old Godfather tho’ not perhaps always delivered in the most delicate Style.”  To his mother he was a tender son, and for his father’s memory he showed a filial reverence.  One of his first acts on arriving in Canada had been to arrange for the erection in Quebec of a proper monument in his memory—­something that others had long talked about and which Tom brought to completion, but which has, alas, long since disappeared.  Tom was in truth a man of action, and to action in the larger world he now turned.  Towards the end of September, 1811, at the time when, to-day, Murray Bay’s summer sojourners turn reluctantly homeward from the crisp autumn air and from the mountain sides beginning to show the season’s glowing tints, Captain Nairne set out from the Manor House to join his regiment at Quebec.  He had in mind a plan to go back to Europe and to get to Spain or Portugal for a share in the Peninsular War then raging.  Fraser, now in his 79th year, writes on October 10th, 1811, his advice that the young man “should continue on full pay till he attains the rank of Major, by brevet or otherwise, and then, if he chooses, he may exchange and retire on the half of whatever full pay he holds at the time, and as soon as such exchange can be accomplished with decency and propriety.”  War with the United States was now impending, hardly a fitting time for a young man to withdraw from the army, and Fraser points out that “in the present situation of public affairs and at his age and fitness for service” Tom’s retirement would be hardly decent.  “Next to my own nearest connections,” he continues, “my chief attention will be paid to Captain Nairne and the other connections of his late Father with whom I had the happiness to live in Friendship and intimacy from our first meeting (1757) till his Decease (1802) and I trust we shall meet again in a future state.”

The young man thus returned to his military duties with his old friend’s benediction and restored confidence.  But to the family the plan for a military career was a sore disappointment.  His sister Christine, its woman of the world, and the one most in touch with the Canadian society of the time, was keen that Tom should live at Murray Bay.  To her entreaties he answers on October 6th, 1811, that there is no earthly use for him at Murray Bay where everything is so well looked after that his presence would do more harm than good.  Time would hang heavy on his hands if he were always employed in fishing, shooting and navigating the river.  It is better, he says, that he should continue in his present position and he intends to withdraw his application for half pay.  When Christine returns to the charge and urges that Murray Bay is not to be despised the young man retorts that he never said it was and answers her with some dignity: