General Burgoyne’s surgeons were reported to have said had not General Fraser’s stomach been distended by a hearty break-. fast he had eaten just before going into action he would doubtless have recovered from his wound.

Upon the fall of General Fraser, dismay seized the British. A retreat took place exactly fifty-two minutes after the first shot was fired. General Burgoyne left the cannon on the field, except two howitzers, besides sustaining a loss of more than four hundred men, and among them the flower of his officers. Contemporary military writers affirmed that had General Fraser lived the British would have made good their retreat into Canada. It is claimed that he would have given such advice as would have caused General Burgoyne to have avoided the blunders which finally resulted in his surrender.

The closing scene of General Fraser’s life has been graphically described by Madame Riedesel, wife of the German general. It has been oft quoted, and need not be here repeated. General Burgoyne has described the burial scene with his usual felicity of expression and eloquence.

Burgoyne was not unmindful of the wounded general. He was directing the progress of the battle, and it was not until late in the evening that he came to visit the dying man. A tender scene took place between him and General Fraser. The latter was the idol of the army and upon him General Burgoyne placed most reliance. The spot where General Fraser lies buried is on an elevated piece of ground commanding an extensive view of the Hudson, and a great length of the interval on either side. The grave is marked by a tablet placed there by an American lady.

The American reader has a very pleasant regard for the character of General Fraser. His kindly disposition attracted men towards him. As an illustration of the humane disposition the following incident, taken from a rare work, may be cited: "Two American officers taken at Hubbardstown, relate the following anecdote of him. He saw that they were in distress, as their continental paper would not pass with the English; and offered to loan them as much as they wished for their present convenience. They took three guineas each. He remarked to them - 'Gentlemen take what you wish—give me your due bills and when we reach Albany, I trust to your honor to take them up; for we shall doubtless over-run the country, and I shall, probably, have an opportunity of seeing you again.’ " As General Fraser fell in battle, "the notes were consequently never paid: but the signers of them could not refrain from shedding tears at the fate of this gallant and generous enemy."  [Memoir General Stark, 1831, p. 252.]

GENERAL SIMON FRASER OF LOVAT.

General Simon Fraser, thirteenth of Lovat, born October 19, 1726, was the son of the notorious Simon, twelfth lord Lovat, who was executed in 1747. With six hundred of his father’s vassals he joined prince Charles before the battle of Falkirk, January 17. 1746, and was one of the forty-three persons included in the act of attainder of June 4. 1746. Having surrendered to the government he was confined in Edinburgh Castle from November, 1746, to August 15, 1747, when he was allowed to reside in Glasgow during the king’s pleasure. He received a full pardon in 1750, and two years later entered as an advocate. At the commencement of the seven years’ war, by his influence with his clan, without the aid of land or money he raised eight hundred recruits in a few weeks, in which as many more were shortly added. His commission as colonel was dated January 5, 1757. Under his command Fraser’s Highlanders went to America, where he was at the seige of Louisburg in 1758, and in the expedition under General Wolfe against Quebec, where he was wounded at Montmorenci. He was again wounded at Sillery, April 28, 1760. In 1762 he was a brigadier-general in the British force sent to Portugal; in the Portuguese army he held the temporary rank of Major-general, and in 1768 a lieutenant-general. In 1771 he was a major-general in the British army. By an act of parliament, on the payment of £20,983, all his forfeited lands, lordships, &c., were restored to him, on account of the military services he had rendered the country. On the outbreak of the American Revolution General Fraser raised another regiment of two battalions, known as Fraser’s Highlanders or 71st, but did not accompany the regiment. When, in Canada, in 1761, he was returned to parliament, and thrice re-elected, representing the constituency of the county of Inverness until his death, which occurred in Downing Street, London, February 8, 1782.

GENERAL SIMON FRASER.

Lieutenant-General Simon Fraser, son of a tacksman, born in 1738, was senior of the Simon Frasers serving as subalterns in Fraser’s Highlanders in the campaign in Canada in 1759-1761. He was wounded at the battle of Sillery, April 28, 1760, and three years later was placed on half-pay as a lieutenant. In 1775 he raised a company for the 71st or Fraser’s Highlanders; became senior captain and afterwards major of the regiment, with which he served in America in the campaigns of 1778-1781. In 1793 he raised a Highland regiment which was numbered 133rd foot or Fraser’s Highlanders, which after a brief existence, was broken up and drafted into other corps. He became a major-general in 1795, commanded a British force in Portugal in 1797-1800. In 1802 he became lieutenant-general, and for several years second in command in Scotland, in which country he died March 21, 1813.

GENERAL JAMES GRANT OF BALLINDALLOCH.

General James Grant was born in 1720, and after studying law obtained a commission in the army in 1741, and became captain in the Royal Scots, October 24, 1744. General Grant served with his regiment in Flanders and in Ireland, and became major in Montgomery’s Highlanders, with which he went to America in 1757. In the following year he was surprised before Fort Duquesne, and lost a third of his command in killed, wounded and missing, besides being captured himself with nineteen of his officers. He became lieutenant-colonel of the 40th foot in 1760, and governor of East Florida. In May, 1761, he led an expedition against the Cherokee Indians, and defeated them in the battle of Etchoe. On the death of his nephew he succeeded to the family estate; became brevet-colonel in 1772; in 1773 was returned to parliament for Wick burghs, and the year after for Sutherlandshire; and in 1775 was appointed colonel of the 55th foot. As a brigadier, in 1776, he went to America with the reinforcement under Sir William Howe; commanded two brigades at the battle of Long Island, Brandywine and Germantown. In May, 1778, was unsuccessful in his attempt to cut off the marquis de Lafayette on the Schuvlkill. In December, 1778, he captured St. Lucia, in the West Indies. In 1777, he became major-general, in 1782 lieutenant-general, and in 1796 general; and, in succession, became governor of Dumbarton and Stirling Castles. In 1787, 1790, 1796 and 1801, he was again returned to parliament for Sutherlandshire. He was noted for his love of good living, and in his latter years was immensely corpulent. He died at Ballindalloch April 13, 1806.

GENERAL ALLAN MACLEAN OF TORLOISK.

General Allan Maclean, son of Torloisk, Island of Mull, was born there in 1725, and began his military career in the service of Holland, in the Scots brigade. At the siege of Bergen-op-Zoom, in 1747. a portion of the brigade cut its way with great loss through the French. Lieutenants Allan and Francis Maclean, having been taken prisoners, were carried before General Lowendahl, who thus addressed them: "Gentlemen, consider yourselves on parole. If all had conducted themselves as your brave corps have done, I should not now be master of Bergen-op-Zoom." January 8, 1756, Allan became lieutenant in the 62nd regiment, and on July 8, 1758, was severely wounded at Ticonderoga. He became captain of an independent company, January 16, 1759, and was present at the surrender of Niagara, where he was again dangerously wounded. Returning to Great Britain, he raised the 114th foot or Royal Highland Volunteers, of which he was appointed major commandant October 18, 1761. The regiment being reduced in 1763, Major Maclean went on half-pay. He became lieutenant-colonel May 25, 1772, and early in 1775 devised a colonization scheme which brought him to America, landing in New York of that year. At the outbreak of the Revolution he identified himself with the British king; was arrested in New York; was released by denying he was taking a part in the dispute; thence went to the Mohawk, and on to Canada, where he began to set about organizing a corps, which became the nucleus of the Royal Highland Emigrants. Of this regiment Major Allan was appointed lieutenant-colonel of the first battalion which he had raised. On the evidence of American prisoners taken at Quebec, Colonel Maclean resorted to questionable means to recruit his regiment. All those of British birth who had been captured were given permission to join the regiment or else be carried to England and tried for treason. But these enforced enlistments proved of no value. Quebec unquestionably would have fallen into the hands of General Arnold had not Colonel Maclean suddenly precipitated himself with a part of his corps into the beleaguered city. Had Quebec fallen, Canada would have become a part of the United States. To Colonel Allan Maclean Great Britain owes the possession of Canada. During the prolonged seige Colonel Maclean suffered an injury to his leg, whereby he partially lost the use of it during the remainder of his life. On May 11, 1776, Colonel Maclean was appointed adjutant-general of the army, which he held until June 6, 1777, when he became brigadier-general, and placed in command at Montreal. As dangers thickened around General Burgoyne, General Maclean was ordered, October 20th, with the 31st and his battalion of the Royal Highland Emigrants, to Chimney Point, but the following month was ordered to Quebec. He left Quebec July 27, 1776, for England, in order to obtain rank and establishment for his regiment which had been promised. He returned to Canada, arriving in Quebec May 28, 1777. In 1778 he again went to England and made a personal appeal to the king in behalf of his regiment, which proved successful. May 1, 1779, he sailed from Spithead and arrived at Quebec on August 16th. He became colonel in the army November 17, 1780, and in the winter of 1782 had command from the ports at Oswegatchie to Michilimackinac. Soon after the peace of 1783, General Maclean retired from the service. He married Janet, daughter of Donald Maclean of Brolass, and died without issue, in London, in March, 1797. From the contents of many letters directed to John Maclean of Lochbuie, it is to be inferred that he died in comparative poverty. His correspondence during his command of the Highland Emigrants is among the Haldimand MSS. in the British Museum.

General Allan Maclean of Torloisk has been confused by some writers—notably by General Stewart in his "Sketches of the Highlands" and Dr. James Brown in his "History of the Highlands and Highland Clans"—with Sir Allan Maclean, twenty-second chief of his clan. Sir Allan served in different parts of the globe. The first notice of his military career is as a captain under the earl of Drumlanrig in the service of Holland. July 16, 1757, he became a captain in Montgomery’s Highlanders, and June 25, 1762, major in the 119th foot or the Prince’s Own. He obtained the rank of lieutenant-colonel May 25, 1772, and died on Inch Kenneth, December 10, 1783. He married Anna, daughter of Hector Maclean of Coil. Dr. Samuel Johnson visited him during his tour of the Hebrides, and was so delighted with the baronet and his amiable daughters that he broke out into a Latin sonnet.

GENERAL FRANCIS MACLEAN.

General Francis Maclean, of the family of Blaich, as soon as he was able to bear arms, obtained a commission in the same regiment with his father; was at the defence of Bergen-op Zoom in 1747, and was detained prisoner in France for some time was appointed captain in the 2nd battalion of the 42nd Highlanders on its being raised in October, 1758. At the capture of the island of Guadaloupe, he was severely wounded, but owing to his gallant conduct was promoted to the rank of major, and appointed governor of the island of Marie Galante. In January, 1761, he exchanged into the 97th regiment, and April 13, 1762, was appointed lieutenant-colonel in the army. In the war in Canada, he commanded a body of troops under General Wolfe, and participated in the capture of Montreal. He was sent, in 1762, to aid the Portuguese against the combined attack of France and Spain, and was made commander of Almeida, a fortified town on the Spanish frontier, which he held for several years; and on being promoted to the rank of major-general, was nominated to the government of Estremadura and the city of Lisbon. On leaving Portugal in 1778, the king presented him with a handsomely mounted sword, and the queen gave him a valuable diamond ring. On his return to England—having been gazetted colonel of the 82nd foot, December 16, 1777—he was immediately dispatched with a corps of the army for America, and appointed to the government of Halifax in Nova Scotia, where he held the rank of brigadier-general. During the month of June, 1779, with a part of his army, General Maclean repaired to the Penobscot, and there proceeded to erect defenses. The American army under General Lovell, from Boston, appeared in the bay on July 28th, and began to erect batteries for a siege. Commodore Sir George Collier, August 13th, entered the bay with a fleet and raised the siege. General Maclean returned to Halifax, where he died, May 4, 1781, in the sixty-fourth year of his age, and unmarried.

GENERAL JOHN SMALL.

General John Small was born in Strathardale in Athole, in the year 1726, and entered the army early in life, his first commission being in the Scotch Brigade. He obtained an ensigncy in 1747, and was on half-pay in 1756, when appointed lieutenant in the 42nd Highlanders on the eve of its departure for America. He accompanied the regiment in 1759 in the expedition to northern New York, and in 1760 went down from Oswego to Montreal. In 1762 he served in the expedition to the West Indies, and on August 6th of the same year was promoted to a company. On the reduction of the regiment in 1763, Captain Small went on half-pay until April, 1765, when he was appointed to a company in the 21st or Royal North British Fusileers, which soon after was sent to America. With this regiment he continued until 1775, when he received a commission to raise a corps of Highlanders in Nova Scotia. Having raised the 2nd battalion of the Royal Highland Emigrants, he was appointed major commandant, with a portion of which he joined the army with Sir Henry Clinton at New York in 1779, and in 1780, became lieutenant-colonel of the regiment. In 1782 he was quartered on Long Island. November 18, 1790, he was appointed colonel in the army, and in 1794, lieutenant-governor of the island of Guernsey; he was promoted to the rank of major-general October 3, 1794, and died at Guernsey on March 17, 1796, in the seventieth year of his age.

FLORA MACDONALD.

No name in the Scottish Highlands bears such a charm as that of Flora Macdonald. Her praise is frequently sung, sketches of her life published, and her portrait adorns thousands of homes. While her distinction mainly rests on her efforts in behalf of the luckless prince Charles, after the disastrous battle of Culloden; yet, in reality, her character was strong, and she was a noble type of womanhood in her native isle.

Flora Macdonald—or "Flory," as she always wrote her name, even in her marriage contract—born in 1722, was a daughter of Ranald Macdonald, tacksman of Milton, in South Uist, an island of the Hebrides. Her father died when she was about two years old, and when six years old she was deprived of the care of her mother, who was abducted and married by Hugh Macdonald of Armadale in Skye. Flora remained in Milton with her brother Angus till her thirteenth year, when she was taken into the mansion of the Clanranalds, where she became an accomplished player on the spinet. In 1739 she went to Edinburgh to complete her studies where, until 1745, she resided in the family of Sir Alexander Macdonald of the Isles. While on a visit to the Clanranalds in Benbecula, prince Charles Edward arrived there after the battle of Culloden in 1746. She enabled the prince to escape to Skye. For this she was arrested and thrown into the Tower of London. On receiving her liberty, in 1747, she stayed for a time in the house of Lady Primrose, where she was visited by many persons of distinction. Before leaving London she was presented with £1500. On her return to Scotland she was entertained at Monkstadt in Skye, at a banquet, to which the principal families were invited. November 6, 1750, she married Allan Macdonald, younger of Kingsburgh. At first they resided at Flodigarry; but on the death of her father-in-law they went in 1772 to Kingsburgh. Here she was visited, in 1773, by the celebrated Samuel Johnson. Her husband, oppressed by debts, was caught in that great wave of emigration from the Highlands to America. In the month of August, 1774, leaving her two youngest children with friends at home, Flora, her husband and older children, sailed in the ship Baliol, from Campbelton, Kintyre, for North Carolina. Flora’s fame had preceded her to that distant country, and her departure from Scotland having become known to her countrymen in Carolina, she was anxiously expected and joyfully received on her arrival. Demonstrations on a large scale were made to welcome her to America. Soon after her landing, a largely attended ball was given in her honor at Wilmington. On her arrival at Cross Creek she received a truly Highland welcome from her old neighbors and kinsfolk, who had crossed the Atlantic years before her. The strains of the Piobaireachd, and the martial airs of her native land, greeted her on her approach to the capital of the Scottish settlement. Many families of distinction pressed upon her to make their dwellings her home, but she respectfully declined, preferring a settled place of her own. As the laird of Kingsburgh intended to become a planter, he left his family in Cross Creek until he could decide upon a location. The house in which they lived during this period was built immediately on the brink of the creek, and for many years afterwards was known as "Flora Macdonald’s house." Northwest of Cross Creek, a distance of twenty miles, is a hill about six hundred feet in height, now called Cameron’s hill, but then named Mount Pleasant. Around and about this hill, in 1775, many members of the Clan Macdonald had settled, all of whom were of near kin to the laird and lady of Kingsburgh. Hard by are the sources of Barbeque Creek, and not many miles down that stream stood the old kirk, where the clansmen worshipped, and where Flora inscribed her name on the membership roll.

Mount Pleasant stands in the very midst of the pinery region, and from it in every direction stretches the great pine forest. Near this center Allan Macdonald of Kingsburgh purchased of Caleb Touchstone a plantation embracing five hundred and fifty acres on which were a dwelling house and outhouses which were more pretentious than was then customary among Highland settlers. The sum paid, as set forth in the deed, was four hundred and sixty pounds. Here Flora established herself, that with her family she might spend the rest of her days in peace and quiet. But the times were not propitious. There was commotion which soon ended in a long and bitter war. Even this need not have materially disturbed the family had not Kingsburgh precipitated himself into the conflict, needlessly and recklessly. With blind fatuity he took the wrong side in the controversy; and even then by the exercise of patience might have overcome the effects of his folly. Before Flora and her family were settled in America the storm gave its ominous rumble. When Governor Martin, who had deserted his post and fled to an armed cruiser in the mouth of the Cape Fear river, issued his proclamation, Allan Macdonald was among the first to respond. The war spirit of Flora was stirred within her, and she partook of the enthusiasm of her husband. According to tradition, when the Highlanders gathered around the standard Flora made them an address in their own Gaelic tongue that excited them to the highest pitch of warlike enthusiasm. With the due devotion of an affectionate wife, Flora followed her husband for several days, and encamped one night with him in a dangerous place, on the brow of Haymount, near the American forces. For a time she refused to listen to her husband’s entreaties to return home, for he thought his life was enough to be in jeopardy. Finally when the army took up its march with banners flying and martial music, she deemed it time to retrace her steps, and affectionately embraced her husband, her eyes dimmed with tears as she breathed an earnest prayer to heaven for his safe and speedy return to his family and home. But alas! she never saw him again in America.