and one hundred and thirty-one rank
and and file wounded. The disproportion in the number of the killed to
that of the wounded must be ascribed to the irregular and unsteady fire of
the enemy, which was put a stop to on the charge of the British. Of the
conduct of the Regiment on that eventful 13th September, an eye witness,
Malcolm. Fraser then a Lieutenant in this corps, has left an excel-. lent
narrative. From it we give the following extracts:- After pursuing the
French to the very gates of the town, our Regiment was ordered to form,
fronting the town on the ground whereon the French formed first; at this
time, the rest of the army came up in good order. General Murray, having
then put himself at the head of our Regiment, ordered them to fall to the
left and march through the bush of wood towards the General Hospital,
where they got a great gun or two to play upon us from the town, which,
however, did no damage, but we had a few men killed and officers wounded
by some skulking fellows, with small arms, from the bushes and behind the
houses in the suburbs of St. Louis and St. John."
We shall interrupt this quotation of
Lieutenant Fraser’s journal, to insert some details, very recently
furnished to us, by our respected townsman, John Fraser, Esq., better
known as Long John Fraser ; [Our
esteemed fellow townsman, now in years close on four score and ten, we
regret to hear, lies on a bed of anguish at Charleston, S. C., with a
fractured thigh.]
his memory is still green, despite the frost of many
winters. "In my youth," says Mr. Fraser, "I boarded with a very aged
militiaman, who had fought at the battle of the Plains; his name was
Joseph Trahan. In 1759, Trahan was aged eighteen years. Frequently has
this old gossip talked to me about the incidents of the fight. I can well
recollect, old Trahan used to say, how Montcalm looked before the
engagement. He was riding a dark or black horse in front of our lines,
bearing his sword high in the air, in the attitude