business
strength, and his marriage connections with another race and religion,
he was held in respect and popularity by all classes, irrespective of
nationality or creed. It was therefore but natural that he should enter
political life after the granting of the Constitutional Act by the Home
Government in 1791. He was selected, with J. B. Durocher as his
colleague, to represent the West Ward of Montreal in the first
parliament of Lower Canada which met on the 17th of December, 1792.
Later he became a member of the Legislative Council, and in 1812 he was
appointed one of the commissioners for removing from the city the old
walls which had been built in 1724. He took a prominent part in the
Militia organisation; during the war of 1812 he was honorary Colonel of
the Montreal Infantry Volunteer Regiment; later and before hostilities
ended, although he was too old for active service, he was promoted to be
Brigadier General, and he seems to have had a large part in directing
the administration of the various Militia units. After a busy, active
and strenuous life of unselfish service for his community and of devoted
efforts for the promotion of tolerance and harmony between races and
creeds as the one sure foundation for a united Canadian nationality, he
died in Montreal on December 19th, 1813, at the age of sixty-nine, and
was buried on December 21st. The official record of his death reads: "On
the nineteenth day of December, one thousand eight hundred and thirteen,
the Honourable James McGill, Colonel, Commandant of the Montreal
Militia, died, and was buried on the twenty-first following." The
certificate of death was signed by his partner, Isaac Todd, and by
Thomas Blackwood, a native of Lanarkshire, Scotland, who was at one time
employed in the firm of McGill and Todd, and who later formed a business
partnership with Francis Desrivieres.

[Illustration: Thomas Pattendel--P. Canot Sculpsit
_Montreal as James McGill knew it_]

Mrs. James McGill survived her husband less than five years. She died in
Montreal on the 16th of April, 1818, aged seventy years and nine months,
and was buried on the 18th following. There were no children from the
marriage.

James McGill was born of Scotch Presbyterian parents and he grew up in
the church and religion of his fathers. When he settled in Montreal
there was no Church of Scotland in the city. The first Presbyterian
congregation in Montreal consisted of a small group of Scottish
set