e 42nd were offered grants of land if they chose to remain as
settlers, a privilege which many of them accepted. Sixteen years
afterward, when a foreign invasion threatened Canada, they loyally left
the plough in the furrow and again sprang to arms, to protect their
altars and firesides.

Among the blue Laurentian hills of the lower St. Lawrence, around their
simple hearths, their descendants live the placid life of the Canadian
_habitant_. They bear the old historic names of their Gaelic
forefathers,--Fraser, Cameron, Blackburn, MacDonald, etc.--but in
nothing else could it be thought that in their veins runs the blood of
those who fought at Colloden and Bannockburn. They are as purely French
in their religion, language and customs, as those whose sires sailed
from Breton and Norman ports.

The Commandant of Quebec at the time of its fall was the son of Claude
de Ramezay, the builder of the Chateau of that name. After the
disastrous battle, Vaudreuil, Governor of Montreal, sent him urgent
charges to do his utmost to hold out until reinforcements, which were on
a forced march from Montreal and elsewhere, should arrive to his
succour; but, the besieged being in the greatest extreme of fright and
starvation, his force refused to fight. His conduct has been much
criticized, but one annalist asserts that he was "not the man to shrink
from danger or death had there been anything but foolhardiness in the
risk, as he belonged to the good old fighting stock of North
Britain,"--the race which produced a Wallace and a Bruce. He, however,
signed the articles of capitulation, as recommended by the Council of
War summoned, and the British marched in through the iron-spiked
gates,--when, had he held out only twenty-four hours longer, Canada
might have been saved for France, as the British could not for any
length of time have maintained their position on the Plains of Abraham.
Returning to France, where he was related to several families of the
Noblesse, who held that "war was the only worthy calling, and prized
honour more than life," he received so cool a reception at Court that
his proud spirit, being unable to brook the humiliation, he applied for
a passport allowing him to return to Canada, but subsequently he
abandoned the idea of returning to his native land. Had he carried out
his intention, he might have seen French, English and American flags
successively wave over the red roof of the Chateau of his boyhood.

To complete