is having drawn for so much money from Bombay was
unfortunately his ship parted from us and they did not join at
Columbo for some months, where I understand he had been induced to
play by some designing people. But I assure you, from the moment he
joined here, his life was exemplary for all young men. He was
beloved by every description of people. From the very sudden way he
took the field and the very expensive mode of campaigning in this
country he was in debt to the paymaster. He was not singular; they
were all in the same predicament. The first division of the prize
money which was one thousand ster. Pagodas, about your hundred
pounds, will only clear him with the Regiment.

Long before this letter arrived the news was known at Murray Bay.
Malcolm Fraser, the tried family friend, writes on September 1st, 1800,
that he has just discharged the most painful task of telling the sad
news to Jack's sister and companion, Christine, who was visiting in
Quebec. In his grief Nairne gives an exceeding bitter cry, "Lord, help
me. I shall lose all my children before I go myself." His sister
Magdalen wrote from Edinburgh on March 17th, 1800, to offer comfort and
to hope that he bears the trial "with Christian fortitude, and that God
will reward him by sparing those that remain to be a blessing to him,"
Nairne's sisters now had with them in Edinburgh the two remaining
children, Tom and Mary, called "Polly." John is gone but Tom is left,
says the fond aunt, and to console Nairne she tells of Tom's virtues:
"Never was father blessed with a more promising son than our little
Tom, and though I used to dread he was too faultless and too good to
live, I would now persuade myself he is intended by Providence to
compensate you for the losses you have sustained." On Tom now centred
the hopes of the Nairne family.

[Illustration: VIEW FROM POINTE AU PIC UP MURRAY BAY]

The sands of Nairne's own life were running out. As he looked around him
he could see much to make his heart content. He was never unmindful of
the singular beauty of the place. "I wish I could send you a landscape
of this place," he wrote to a friend, John Clark, in 1798; "Was you here
your pencil might be employed in drawing a beautiful one which this Bay
affords, as the views and different objects are remarkably various and
entertaining." This is, no doubt, a mild account of the beauties of a
very striking scene, but the