of
Douglas—apparently a Scotchman. You will no doubt be surprised to hear of
another Scotch name, within the precincts of the city before the
capitulation, a high, very high, official—in fact, the French Commandant
of Quebec, Chevalier de Ramezay.
Ladies and Gentlemen, there is no
mistaking, the Scotch descent of the French commandant at Quebec, before
the city capitulated. The Lieutenant du Roy was Major de Ramezay,
one of four brothers serving the French King, three of whom had devotedly
fallen in his service. Major de Ramezay, for his services had been
decorated by Louis XV with the cross of St. Louis. His father, Claude de
Ramezay, of the French Navy (Capitaine d’une compagnie de troupes de la
Marine) had been two years Governor of Three Rivers and twenty years
Governor of Montreal, under French rule: he died Governor of that city.
More than three centuries back, the Scotch Ramsays had settled in France.
The name of Ramsay is now well represented on our Judicial Bench. It will
later on, again reappear among the Governors of Quebec. In 1820, the
ancient Capital will welcome, to the Chateau St. Louis, George
Ramsay, Earl of Dalhousie, a patron of education, a lover of history, and
a friend to progress.
Nor was there any thing
unsoldierlike in de Ramezay’s surrender on the 18th Sept., 1759—It saved
the despairing, devoted inhabitants from starvation, and the dismantled
city from bombardment—from sack and pillage. The proceedings of the French
Council of war, held before the capitulation and published under the
auspices of this Society, has done the French Commandant effectual though
tardy justice. [MEMOIRE DU SIEUR DE RAMEZAY, Commandant a Qudbec, au
sujet de la reddition de cette yule, le 18 septembre 1759,
d’après un manuscrit aux archives dela marine a Paris; publie sous
la direction de la Société Littéraire et Ristorique de Québec. Québec—Des
Presses de John Lovell, 1843.]