1814, a Mr. Lyman—­“a bad name for a true story to come from,”—­had brought word of peace negotiations at Ghent; news of General Procter’s Court Martial and of a fee of L500 paid to Andrew Stuart, one of the lawyers in the case.  The letters are few and in 1817 they cease altogether.  During the spring of the year Christine had been ailing.  On a June day she drove out for an airing and, as she alighted from the carriage, expired instantly.  The feeling of the Protestant family towards the Roman Catholic Church is shown in the fact that she left a small legacy to the cure, Mr. Le Courtois.

There now remained but two daughters.  In May, 1821, “Polly” died in Quebec at Judge Bowen’s house.  Her old mother followed in 1828.  Of Colonel Nairne’s large family but one child remained, Mrs. McNicol.  Her husband, Peter McNicol, appears to have been a quiet and retiring man and of him we hear little.  He was an officer in the local militia and, in 1830, became a Captain in the second Battalion of the County of Saguenay.  There were two sons, Thomas and John.  Thomas, the elder, was to get the estate at Murray Bay; for John India was talked of; but his mother could not let him go—­“our family has been too unlucky by going there.”  In 1826, when a youth of twenty, Thomas made a tour in Europe.  Then, or later, the young man fell into dissipated habits and he died in early manhood.  There remained only John.  When he came of age in 1829 he too travelled in Europe; in April he was at Rome and there saw the newly-elected Pope, Pius VIII.  He returned to Canada quite a man of the world and for a time lived in Quebec, engaged in business.  But in 1834 when his father Peter McNicol died[25] John’s prospects changed.  The seigniory belonged to his mother, during her lifetime, but he was the heir.  It seemed desirable that the name of the first seigneur should be continued and, in 1834, by royal warrant, John McNicol adopted the name and arms of Nairne.  Once more was there a John Nairne.  In 1837 we find him empowered to take the oath of allegiance from the habitants—­to show that they were not in sympathy with the rebel Papineau.  His mother, the old Colonel’s last surviving child, died in 1839.  She was a kindly woman, of genial temper, with a fine faculty for friendship; so intimate was she with Malcolm Fraser’s daughter that she wrote “I do believe, nay am sure, she has not a thought with which I am not made acquainted.”  She never lost her sympathy with young people and her delight in their “innocent gaiety.”

As in 1762, so now again in 1839, a John Nairne ruled at Murray Bay.  The young seigneur soon took a wife.  In 1841 he married Miss Catherine Leslie, of a well known Canadian family, a bride of only seventeen, and then settled down at Murray Bay to live the life of a country gentleman.  He became Colonel in the militia, took some part in politics on the Conservative side, and studied agriculture.  He was resolved to keep up the dignity of his position and set about