ON CAPE BRETON. 249 



Subsequently he had been employed in surveying the coasts of Cape Breton and Nova 

 Scotia, and was, so far as acquaintance with the island w^ent, well qualified to be the first 

 to administer its local affairs. Immediately after receiving his commission Lieutenant- 

 Governor DesBarres proceeded to the island, and among his first of&cial acts was the for- 

 mation of a council.' A great seal was sent him to aliix to all acts of state. Courts of 

 justice were duly established, by ordinance of the 22nd of February, 1*785, and the laws 

 of England relating to the administration of justice declared to be in force in Cape Breton.^ 

 The appointment of DesBarres, however, was not in the end advantageous to the island 

 and its public service in many respects. He was jealous of the superior authority of the 

 governor of Nova Scotia, and also quarrelled with the military commandant at Sydney. 

 His conduct was disapproved by the authorities in England and his drafts on the treasury 

 for the payment of provisions which he had been obliged to purchase for therelief of the 

 inhabitants at a critical time w^heu the little colony was threatened with starvation were 

 not even honoured, and he was obliged eventually to return to England where he remained 

 for years endeavouring to obtain payment for his losses ; but failing at last 1o receive that 

 consideration to which he seems to have been, on the whole, fairly entitled, he returned 



that many ofîîcers claimed tlie lionour of lieing Wolfe's supporters after lie was wounded, but he states on incon- 

 testable authority that Lieutenant Brown of the Grenadiers of Louisbourjr, whom Wolfe was leadintr at the time 

 he was fatally struck, Mr. Henderson, a volunteer in the same c-mpany and a private man " were the three per- 

 sons who carried his excellency to the rear, which an artillery oflBcor seeing, immediately flew to his assistance, 

 and those were all that attended him in his dying moments. I do not recollect the artillery officer's name or 

 it should be recorded here." Both Wright (" Life of Wolfe," 586, 587, n.) and Parkman {" Montcalm and Wolfe," 

 ii. 296, 297, n.) consider Knox's report by far the best attested. Warburton, in the " Conquest of Canada," (ii. 349) 

 states that Colonel Williamson of the Royal Artillery wa^ the otiicer who went to Wolfe's aid. DesBarres himself, 

 in an account of his services given in a work of his own (see App. XV), makes the following statement: " He 

 (DesBarres) received the king's particular commands (signified by the late Earl of Chatham) to attend 

 General Wolfe as an engineer on his expedition against Quebec — . In the field of battle on the 13th of 

 September he was making his report to the general on orders he had just executed, when the regretted hero 

 received his mortal wound." This statement would certainly show he was acting at the time, under special 

 instructions from Wolfe. But it is remarkable his name does not occur in any account of this memorable 

 scene. Bouchette, in his " British Dominions in North America," (i. 265, n.) makes a similar claim for Major 

 Holland, a friend and relative of his own, well known as surveyor-general of Canada, who was "at the taking of 

 Louisbourg, and subsequently at the reduction of Quebec in 1759, and stood near General Wolfe when that great 

 hero fell on the Plains of Abraham,'' The gallant general, adds Bouchette, " as a testimony of his regard, pre- 

 sented Major, then Captain Holland, with his pistols and left him the greater part of his plate." These circum- 

 stances certainly did not happen on the battle field. As a matter of fact, Wolfe had willed his plate to Admiral 

 Saunders (Wright, " Life of Wolfe," p. 574), and the presentation of the pistols is not mentioned by a single his- 

 torian, nor does Holland's name appear in connection with the last scenes in the l^ero's life. Bouchette's assertion 

 is probably mere hearsay and romance. Wright says with truth that " various persons, either from the vanity of 

 talking or the more pardonable desire of being associated with Wolfe, have asserted that they carried him from 

 the field or were présentât his deatli" Appleton's "Cycl. of Am. Biog." repeats Bouchette's story of Holland 

 being near Wolfe and adds he was mentioned in the will. He was the same Samuel Holland who made surveys 

 of the coast of Cape Breton Island, published by DesBarres himself in 1781. (See " Nar. and Crit. Hist, of Am," 

 v. 440, )).) Both Holland and DesBarres could not have been present at the closing scene. It looks as if Major 

 Holland was mistaken for DesBarres by the writer in the " Am. Biog." It is certain that the mention of Holland 

 in Wolfe's will is an entire delusion, and so is probably the rest of Bouchette's statement. 



' For further particulars of the life of this remarkable man, see App. XV. 



' In 1805, the island was divided into districts of separate jurisdiction, by an ordinance of the 3rd of June,which 

 recited that the laws of England had been extended to that island by his Majesty, and provided that all sub- 

 sequent acts of parliament relating to the administration of justice in the courts of king's bench and quarter 

 sessions in England would extend to Cape Breton, so far as the same were in their nature applicable. 



Sec. II, 1891. 32. 



