Note 21 — Chapter V
Reading edition
The inscription to be placed on Nairne's tomb was long a subject of debate in the family. Two drafts remain at Murray Bay, both copious in length, and neither like the inscription now to be found at Mount Hermon Cemetery. (See p. 221.) In the taste of the time inscriptions were expected to give a full account of the career of the dead man. One of these inscriptions speaks of Nairne's "enjoying as a reward of his services a gift of Land on the River St. Lawrence. He had alike the merit and the happiness of converting a wild and uninhabited desert into a flourishing colony of above 1000 inhabitants, who regarded him as their Tender Friend and Patriarch. He died honoured with the esteem of all who knew him." The other inscription mentions what, otherwise, we should not have known, that Nairne received a wound on the Plains of Abraham. It goes on in verse:
"Though 'gainst the Foe a dauntless Front he reared, Ne'er from his lips was aught assuming heard; Modest, though brave; though firm, in manners mild, Strong in resolve, though guileless as a child; To honor true, in probity correct; To falsehood [stern] and urgent to detect; To party strange, to calumny a foe; The good Samaritan to sons of woe; At a late hour he heard the fatal call, Obeyed and died, wept and deplored by all."