favour of your company is requested to attend the Funeral of
the late Colonel Nairne, from No. 1 Grison Street, on Cape Diamond,
to the place of interment, on Friday next at one o'clock in the
afternoon.

All that was most worthy in Quebec attended to do honour to his memory.
He was buried in the Protestant cemetery; long after his body was
removed to Mount Hermon Cemetery, to lie beside his son and
grandson--the last of his race.

Nairne played his part with high purpose and integrity. Among his papers
at Murray Bay is a prayer, intended apparently for daily use, in which
he asks that he may be vigilant in conduct and immovable in all good
purposes; that he may show courage in danger, patience in adversity,
humility in prosperity. He asks, too, to be made sensible "how little is
this world, how great [are] thy Heavens, and how long will be thy
blessed eternity." It is the prayer of a strong soul facing humbly and
reverently the tasks of life.[20] He would have wished to found a
community English speaking and Protestant. But the forces of nature were
against him. The few English speaking people who came in (and they were
but a few scattered individuals) for the most part married French
wives. The children held the faith and spoke the tongue which they
learned at their mothers' knees. It was the course of nature, and always
we are foolish to quarrel with nature. A granite monument marks the
resting place where the good old man sleeps in the cemetery at Quebec,
but some memorial might well stand at Murray Bay, that those who look
out upon the majestic river, the blue mountains, the smiling valley
should have before them a reminder of the "friendly, honest man" who, a
century and a half ago, began to win their heritage from the
wilderness.[21]

[Footnote 13: It may be convenient to state at once the dates of the
births and deaths of each of these children:

Magdalen (Madie) (Mrs. McNicol) born 1767 died 1839.
Christine Nairne " 1774 " 1817.
John Nairne " 1777 " 1799.
Mary (Polly) Nairne " 1782 " 1821.
Thomas Nairne " 1787 " 1813.
]

[Footnote 14: See Appendix D., p. 277., for a formal memorandum drawn up
by Nairne for his son's guidance.]

[Footnote 15: See Appendix E., p. 279. "The 'Porpoise' (Beluga or White
Whale) Fishery on the St. Lawrence."]

[Footnote 16: "Les Anciens Canadiens," Chapter IV.]