men, but touched not him." Though so young, he was
charged with covering the evacuation of Fort Matilda.[12]

The Duke of Kent, who was commanding at Halifax, kept a friendly eye
upon him, and gave him much personal advice, on one occasion
dissuading him from an inadvisable marriage. He now took him into his
own regiment. De Salaberry still saw rough service, was shipwrecked,
served in the West Indies again, and then fought in Europe and the
disastrous expedition to Walcheren, where he was placed in the most
advanced posts.[13] Returning to his 60th, he was made captain in
1799. "I have often heard say," narrates De Gaspe, "that his company
and that of Captain Chandler were the best drilled in the regiment."
In the West Indies he was drawn into a duel which caused him sorrow
until his dying day, for in it he was forced by the "code of honor" to
kill a German fellow-officer, and bore a scar of the affair ever after
on his forehead. It is related that by his great strength he cut the
German in two.

"The prodigious force with which he was endowed," says Sulte, "had
made of him an exceptional being in the eyes of the soldiers," and
when he returned to Canada after West Indian service of eleven
years[14] a little before the war of 1812, he was already the hero of
the French-Canadians. That the stories of his strength and vigor are
true is corroborated by every circumstance which has been perpetuated
about him. His ruddy, energetic face is preserved in portraits among
his family, and his walking-stick, said to be an enormous article, is
kept at Quebec in the collection of the Literary and Historical
Society.

De Salaberry's Voltigeurs were organized at a peculiar juncture. "The
discords between French and English in Quebec had emboldened the
United States," says Garneau, "and the English Governors harassed the
French. An opposite conduct might bring back calm to men's spirits.
The Governor of Nova Scotia, Sir George Provost, a former officer, of
Swiss origin, offered all the conditions desirable.... Arriving at
Quebec, Sir George Provost strove to introduce peace and to remove
animosity. He showed the completest confidence in the fidelity of the
French-Canadians, and studied how to prove at every opportunity that
the accusations of treason which had been brought against them had
left no trace in the soul of England nor in his own.... Soon the
liveliest sympathy arose between Sir George Prevost and the
people."[15] It wa