seigneur disporting himself at Murray Bay in the
spring of 1811. Old Malcolm Fraser, at the manor of Mount Murray just
across the bay, kept a watchful eye on the godson who, he had begun to
fear, was not proving wholly satisfactory. The cause of Fraser's
misgiving is not clear but he lectured Tom with tactful insight. Of his
own career the young officer was now beginning to take a new view.
During the long holiday at Murray Bay he had time to taste its pleasures
and to learn its chief interests. He went out fishing and shooting; he
sailed and rowed on the river; he occupied himself in the daily business
of the seigniory, for which his competent mother had so long cared; she
was now building a mill which would probably add to Tom's revenues. He
made friends with the cure Mr. Le Courtois. This gentleman, a French
emigre, who found a refuge in Canada, had thrown himself with great
devotion into the rough life of a missionary among the scattered
peoples, Canadians and Indians alike, of his remote parish. He was a man
of culture and remained always a valued counsellor of the Protestant
family in the Manor House.[22] But, in spite of all the interests and
friendships at Murray Bay, Tom soon found that the little community
hardly needed him. Every thing was well looked after, prosperous and
promising. He would be only a fifth wheel to the coach and, before long,
he had made up his mind that he had better stick to his military career.

Without doubt Tom was a young man of winning character. Malcolm Fraser,
having studied him and lectured him, reconsidered his unfavourable
estimate, and wrote to Ker on the 10th of October, 1811: "I think him
incapable of any immoral or mean action; ... he seems to hearken to the
lectures of his old Godfather tho' not perhaps always delivered in the
most delicate Style." To his mother he was a tender son, and for his
father's memory he showed a filial reverence. One of his first acts on
arriving in Canada had been to arrange for the erection in Quebec of a
proper monument in his memory--something that others had long talked
about and which Tom brought to completion, but which has, alas, long
since disappeared. Tom was in truth a man of action, and to action in
the larger world he now turned. Towards the end of September, 1811, at
the time when, to-day, Murray Bay's summer sojourners turn reluctantly
homeward from the crisp autumn air and from the mountain sides beginning
to show the season's glow