282 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [ Vou. IBDE 
antiquity and nobility of the family. The ancestral home of the Coffin’s 
is Devonshire—a county which, as readers of Kingsley’s “ Westward Ho!” 
are well aware, has given England so many of her sailors and soldiers. 
In the middle of the last century, some members of this family were 
settled in Boston, Mass. On the breaking out of the Revolutionary War 
they refused to desert the old flag, and John Coffin, Col. Coffin’s grand- 
father, with nine children went to Quebec, where he distinguished himself 
during the Siege of 1775: )'On:the 31st. Dec. in that year-he keptithe 
guard at Pres de Ville under arms, and with great coolness, at the critical 
moment directed Capt. Barnsfare’s fire upon the invading forces. “To 
him,” thus writes General Sir Guy Carleton, afterwards Lord Dorchester, 
‘with the assistance of Barnsfare, I attribute the repulse of the rebels on 
that side of Quebec, where Mr. Montgomery attacked in person.” 
Col. Coffin’s grandfather had six sons and four daughters. One of the 
former, Francis, became an admiral in the British navy; another, 
Nathaniel, died Adjutant-General of Militia of Upper Canada ; another, 
the Hon. Thomas Coffin, was a member of the Legislative Councll of 
Lower Canada. The second son, William, was a captain in H. M. 15th 
Regiment of Infantry, and at the time of his death, in 1835, had Brevet 
Major rank. He married a Mrs. Austin, whose maiden name was 
Foster, and it is their son, William Foster Coffin, who wrote the letters 
that are the subject of this paper.+ 
Before I leave the Coffin family, it may be well to shew briefly who 
the relatives are to whom these letters are directed, and to whom Col. 
Coffin was so warmly attached. 
A brother of John Coffin, who also lived in Boston, Mass., but at the 
time of the Revolution made England his home, had three sons, John, 
Isaac, and Nathaniel. Isaac became an admiral in the British navy and 
for his most distinguished services was created a baronet, and given the 
Magdalen Islands. John, afterwards Gen. John Coffin, settled in New 
Brunswick. He had a family of eight, three sons and five daughters. 
Two of the sons became admirals in the navy, the other a general in 
the artillery. Of the daughters, Anne, married Major, afterwards Sir 
Thomas, Pearson, well known for the part he took in Canada in the war 
of 1812, while Mary married Charles Ogden, Solicitor-General, after- 
wards Attorney-General, of Lower Canada. The eldest daughter, 
Carolina, married the Hon. Charles William Grant, afterwards Baron de 
Longueuil, son of the Baroness de Longueuil in her own right and Captain 
+Of the daughters of John Coffin, the third, Margaret, married her cousin, Lieut.-Gen. Sir 
Roger H. Sheaffe, Bart., who fought at Queenston Heights, and on the death of Gen. Brock 
took command and completed the victory. 
