lived to a
good old age and was treated with much consideration by all, especially
those whom he had led to their new homes. It was well known that he
could spin a good story equal to the best. As years went on, the number
of Donald's party rapidly increased, as he told it to open-mouthed
listeners, constantly enlarging on the perils and hardships of the
journey. A Highland officer, who had served in Canada for some years,
was returning home, and, passing through Glengarry, spent a few days
with Alexander Macdonell, priest at St. Raphael's. Having expressed his
desire to meet some of the veterans of the war, so that he might hear
their tales and rehearse them in Scotland, that they might know how
their kinsmen in Canada had fought and suffered for the Crown, the
priest, amongst others, took him to see old Donald Grant. The
opportunity was too good to be lost, and Donald told the general in
Gaelic the whole story, omitting no details; giving an account of the
number of men, women and children he had brought with him, their perils
and their escapes, their hardships borne with heroic devotion; how, when
on the verge of starvation, they had boiled their moccasins and eaten
them; how they had encountered the enemy, the wild beasts and Indians,
beaten all off and landed the multitude safely in Glengarry. The General
listened with respectful attention, and at the termination of the
narrative, wishing to say something pleasant, observed: "Why, dear me,
Donald, your exploits seem almost to have equalled even those of Moses
himself when leading the children of Israel through the Wilderness from
Egypt to the Land of Promise." Up jumped old Donald. "Moses," exclaimed
the veteran with an unmistakable air of contempt, and adding a double
expletive that need not here be repeated, "Compare ME to Moses! Why,
Moses took forty years in his vain attempts to lead his men over a much
shorter distance, and through a mere trifling wilderness in comparison
with mine, and he never did reach his destination, and lost half his
army in the Red Sea. I brought my people here without the loss of a
single man."

It has been noted that the Highlanders who settled on the Mohawk, on the
lands of Sir William Johnson, were Roman Catholics. Sir William, nor his
son and successor, Sir John Johnson, took any steps to procure them a
religious teacher in the principles of their faith. They were not so
provided until after the Revolution, and then only when they