[tucker] vicissitudes OF A LOYALIST CLERGYMAN 111 



he had had a wearisome journey. At St. Jolins he wintered with the 

 King's forces under Major Rogers, sharing in their rations as did other 

 Loyalists. The ensuing Spring, 1783, he went to Quebec to place his 

 case before Gov. Haldimand, who enrolled him on the list of Loyalist 

 pensioners. Mr. Gillmore, however, received from this source only 

 one installment, amounting to £7, he being cut off from further pay- 

 ments "agreeable to his Majesty's special instructions," these in- 

 structions no doubt referring also to other more important claims. 



In the fall of 1783 he left Quebec and went to Sorel, at the same 

 time sending for his wife and children. At Sorel he preached a sermon 

 to a Lodge of Free Masons and also ministered to the artillery there all 

 winter. His sermon to the Masons, which contained a defence of 

 masonic institutions, was afterward published in London. In the ad- 

 vertisement he said that "it was composed and delivered at Sorel in 

 compliance with a request made by a number of Freemasons, whose 

 beneficence and charity were not wanting to the preacher after his 

 arrival in Canada, and is published by the desire of sundry gentlemen, 

 who have heard and read it with approbation; otherwise it would 

 have remained in parochial obscurity with its author, below the 

 critic's eye." The title page ran as follows: "A sermon preached 

 before a lodge of free and accepted Masons, at Sorel in Canada, on the 

 day of St. John the Evangelist, 1783. By the Rev. George Gilmore, 

 A.M., formerly minister of the Kirk in Voluntown in the Colony of 

 Conn., and now minister of the Kirk on Ardoise Hill in His Majesty's 

 Province of Nova Scotia." The text was taken from Gal. 6:10. It 

 was at Sorel, in November, 1783, that Mr. Gillmore heard of the Act 

 of Parliament authorizing the payment of claims, after investigation, 

 of the Loyalists who had fled from the States and who had suffered 

 financially and otherwise thereby. The succeeding January, he sent 

 in what he considered a very moderate claim, amounting in all to $700, 

 the papers for which had been drawn up in December by John Mourese, 

 a Notar}- Public at Sorel. 



Mr. Gillmore's family arrived at St. Johns in March, 1784, after 

 having suffered gTeatly from cold on the trip across Lake Champlain. They 

 were probably not met at St. Johns by Mr. Gillmore, but continued 

 on alone and joined him at Sorel, where, as we have stated, he had 

 been all winter. From here, on account of sickness, they all went to 

 Quebec, where they "met with great kindness from friends and shared 

 largely in his Majesty's royal bounty; both as to clothing and rations. " 

 Notwithstanding this support, it appears that while in Canada, they were 

 reduced to great want, for, again to quote Mr. Gillmore, ' 'hearers are few, 

 circumstances low, minds shut up and purses closed, all which consider- 

 ations render (I can truly say) our situation very much embarrassed. " 



