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[nnmid iBonutt anh if all 
 
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 THE ST. PATBICK'S SOGIETT, 
 
 MONTREAL, I I 
 
 15TH JANUAUY, 1872. . 
 
 % 
 
 
 .-,.*' 
 
 ^^^^^^ k ADDRESS, 
 
 DBLIVBESD ON BTTITATION OPT THB flQGDBTT, 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN P'FARRELL, ESQUIRE, 
 
 27 Ruo Bu ade 
 
 "Ta; Cv 
 
 .^^i^ 
 
 rJl."« 
 
 Pbimted by John Lovsll, 
 
 18T2. 
 
 flOBOLAfl STBBBT. 
 
 
 '■' ';> ' 
 
 > i 
 
 v- 
 
■^^ 
 
 L«ddres8ing you thk eveniag, I shall omit all re« 
 fereace to those Irish matters with Which you 
 are as well acquainted as I am, and which can 
 add nothing to your knowledge of the facts, of 
 to your love of the old land ; but striking out 
 into regions hitherto unexplored^ I shall open 
 up to your gasse some few pages of Canadian 
 History shaped by Irish minds, illumined by Irish 
 geniusj or mad« famous by Irish valor. I shall 
 begin the History of a now forgotten Irish OoU 
 ony oii the banks of the 8t. Lawrence, leaving 
 to other hands the task of completing what I 
 shall have begun. 
 
 It is not generally known, that long before 
 Wolfe had scaled the Heights of Abraham, a 
 large Irish element had settled down in Oanad% 
 intermarried with the French^ and had become 
 absorbed in the French population of this coun* 
 try; and I almost fancy that I tee iKHne of my 
 
■TK, 
 
 hearers politely lift their eyebrows, and smile 
 incredulously at my assertion, that the closing 
 scenes of the French wars in Canada witnessed 
 more than one wild Irish hui^zah, at some 
 new triumph) on American soil, of the Irish 
 Brigade of glorious memory. When my atten* 
 lion was drawn to this subject by the venerable 
 O'Gallaghan's statement that the Beam Regi« 
 ment is supposed to have been a portion of the 
 Irish Brigade serving in Canada, I felt inclined 
 to doubt the statement, because neither Forman 
 nor O'Connor make any mention of the fact. 
 Subsequent researches made by me have, how- 
 ever, convinced me that the ''Brigade served 
 here; and I thought that I could not better 
 employ the half hour allotted to me for my ad- 
 dress this evening, than by endeavouring to do a 
 tardy act of justice to that Irish worth which 
 had helped to hew down the mighty forests of 
 this fair Province^ than by rescuing from obli-* 
 Tion that Irish valor, which if it had, at length, 
 flailed to conquer vastly superior numbers, yet 
 had several bright days, and among them one 
 that rivals in glory the never to be forgotten 
 Fontenoy. My task this evening, then, shall 
 be to show that a considerable portion of the 
 French speaking population of this Province is 
 
5 
 
 of Irish extraction, and that such Franco-Irish 
 element was still farther increased, at tbe con- 
 quest, by the absorption of the sheltered rem- 
 nants of the Irish Brigade, then serving in 
 Canada; and I shall conclude with a brief 
 sketch of the services of the Brigade on Ameri- 
 can soil. 
 
 If any gentleman, in the course of my re- 
 marks, detires to sift the accuracy of my asser- 
 tions, I shall be happy to oblige him ; for I have 
 here with me for reference most of the books, 
 and extracts from the public documents which 
 go to prove my statements. 
 
 In this work, just issued from the press, an(^ 
 compiled by the Reverend Father Tanguay from 
 the Parish Registers of Lower Canada, we have 
 a complete record of every marriage, birth and 
 death, that has taken place, among the Catholic 
 settlers, from the first settlement of the country 
 down to our own days. 
 
 Of the 2;500 families that made up tbe popu-; 
 lation of Lower Canada, at the close of the 
 seventeenth century, well nigh one hundred 
 families are shewn by this book to be natives of 
 Ireland ; and, in about thirty other cases, either 
 the husband or the wife is also shewn to be of 
 Irish origin. In most cases, as I shall presently 
 
shew by illustration, the worthy old Prencb 
 Priests, who hare made the entries in the Re- 
 gisters, have so gallicized the orthography of 
 the Irish names as to render them undistin- 
 guishable from the French settlers proper ; and 
 my statement of this evening would not be 
 susceptible of proof, were it not for the state- 
 ments in the entries themselves that the persons 
 therein mentioned were natives of Ireland. In 
 eome cases the good old Cur€ seems to hare 
 hopelessly abandoned the attempt to spell the 
 Irish name, and he merely entered the baptismal 
 name, just adding after it, the word '* Irlandais/' 
 or '^ Irlandaise," as the case might be. For in- 
 stance, who would have dreamt that ^< Thimot^ 
 Sylvain" was intended for " Timothy O'Sulli- 
 van," son of Cornelius Daniel O'SuUivan, Connty 
 of Eillarney, and of Elizabeth McCarthy, his 
 wife, both citizens of Cork, in Ireland. Yet such 
 is the case ; for, in January, 1720, Timothy 
 O'SuUivan, then practising as a Surgeon, was 
 married at Pointe aux Trembles, near Quebec, 
 to Marie Gautier, widow of Christophe Dufros 
 de la Jemmerais, and mother of Madame d' You- 
 ville, foundress of the General Hospital or 
 Grey Nuns of this city ; and to remove all 
 doubt as to his Irish birUi, O'SuIlivan has taken 
 
«ar^ to fulrhish posterity With & e^rtifieate sign- 
 ed by Fitz James, Duke of Barwick, Lord Clare, 
 Mr. Rute^ Mr. Duglas, Mr. Gouq, all Colonels 
 of Irish Regiments iu the service of J^rance, and 
 &11 attesting the nobility of O'Sallivan's descent. 
 And his parentage, as I have given them above, 
 And relating his sixteen year's seiirice as Gap- 
 tain of Dragoons in the trlsh Brigade ; the eet- 
 tifieate farther states that, having sailed fbr 
 Ireland, to recruit for his regiment, he was 
 taken prisoner by pirates, and brought to Kew 
 England, whence he escaped to Canada ; his 
 wife was the daughter of the Governor of 
 Three Rivers ; a few particulars of his life are 
 given in the Abb6 Faillon's Life of Madame 
 dTouville. 
 
 In like manner, who could guess that '< Tec 
 Corneille Aubry," married at Quebec, on the 
 1 0th September, 1670, was an Irishman? Yet 
 the Register leaves no room for doubt upon the 
 subject ; he was the son, says the Register, of 
 '^ Connor O'Brennan," and of Honorah Jane- 
 hour, of St. Patrick's (Diasonyoen) Ireland, his 
 real name being " Teague Cornelius O'Brennali.^' 
 In this connection, I may mention that, When I 
 was pursuing my studies in the College at 
 Quebec, our Rector was the ReV. Dr. Aubry, a 
 
8 
 
 worthy and pious Divine, and one of three 
 brothers in the Priesthood in Lower Canada, and 
 the uncles of two other young Canadian clergy- 
 men. Dr. Aubry, until quite recently, 
 lived in the firm belief that he was of purely 
 French extraction ; in fact, if my memory 
 serves me right, h6 used playfully, at times, to 
 pull my little ears for being, as he used playful- 
 ly to say, such a wicked little Irlandaia, Now 
 the researches of Father Tanguay in the musty 
 old Church Registers of Lower Canada have 
 revealed the astounding fact that Dr. Aubry is, 
 after all, a countryman of our own, an Irland* 
 aiSy a lineal descendant of that Teague Corne- 
 lius O'Brennan ; another of his descendants is 
 Parish Priest m the Town of St. Johns, neap 
 this city, Montreal. 
 
 Who, again, I ask, but one able to answer 
 the sphinx, could fancy that John Houssye dit 
 Bellerose was an Irishman. He was so never- 
 theless ; was married here on the 11th October, 
 1571 ; and as the Register attests, he was born in 
 the Parish of St. Lawrence O'Toole, Dublin, 
 and he was the son of Matthew Hussey and 
 of Elizabeth Hogan, his wife, both Dubliners 
 and both under the protection of that very 
 Irish saint, O'Toole. If I mistake not, Mr. 
 
ry 
 
 fiellerose, the member for Laval, can traco 
 back his pedigree to our friend. Jack Hussey, 
 from Dublin. 
 
 Thus also we find Jean Baptiste Riel, married 
 at Isle du Pads, on the 2l3t January, 1704 ; he 
 is surnamed *' iJansouciy^ which we may trans- 
 late either " careless^^ or " De'il may care,'' as we 
 please; this ^*Riel" is described in the Regis- 
 ter as having been a native of St. Peter's 
 Parish, in the city of Limerick in Ireland; 
 from the closeness of the dates, 1698 and 1704, 
 from the singular n2cA;-name (sansouci) he bore 
 with his comrades, and from the consonance, 
 '^ Riel" and Reilly, I should be inclined to think 
 that our Isle du Pads friend was Jack Reilly, 
 the de'il-may-care, all the way from Limerick, 
 and that he must have given and taken some 
 hard knocks under Sarsfield. This "Riel" or 
 Reilly, as he should be called, is the direct an- 
 cestor of " Louis Riel" of Red River fame ; and 
 this fact may serve to account for the close 
 friendship subsisting between Riel and O'Dono- 
 hoe. 
 
 Again, Louis de Buade, Count de Frontenac, 
 while Governor here had a trusty servant 
 nimed *^ Pierre Lehait," as chamberlain; and 
 at the same time, there lived in Quebec, a man, 
 
10 
 
 who was married at Quebec dn tbe 9th Bep* 
 tember, 1699, as " Jean Lehays" ; and yet the 
 Registers shew that these two men were 
 brothers, named John and Peter Leahey, re- 
 flpectively, kind that they were the Irifth sons of 
 Thomas Leahey and Catherine Williams, of iht 
 Gounty ot Wieklow, in Ireland. 
 
 Thus it is with John, Daniel and Joseph 
 Thomas, sons of Sdward Tnomae and Cather- 
 ine Casey ; and t^^jis, also, it is with John Ed- 
 munds and his wife, Mary Kelly, and thus it id 
 with the 130 couples I ha^e mentioned; the 
 Church Registers unmistakably show, and 
 state in so many words, that those parties 
 were natives of Ireland. In some cases besides 
 these, there are a few persons described as being 
 Scotch, who were undoubtedly Irish; for in- 
 stance^ I find the burial of a nun of the Hotel- 
 Dieu of Quebec, SSoeur Marie de la Concep- 
 tion, by tbe nair.e of Marie Hirouin / and by 
 other entries I find her real name to have been 
 Mary Kirwan, She came to Canada in '643, and 
 was buried in 1687; she is stated to have been 
 the daughter of a Scotch noble ; but this is evi- 
 dently a mistake, for who ever heard of a Scotch 
 Kirwan f 
 ■ I could thus go through the list of unmistak- 
 
 1 
 
11 
 
 ably Irish Bettlers in Lower Canada during the 
 first century of its history ; but I have mention- 
 ed enough of them for the purpose in yiew, and 
 what I have shown in connection with the fact 
 that the disbanded soldiers of the Carignan 
 Regiment settled in the neighborhood of Que- 
 bec, makes it highly probable that, in tne ori- 
 ginal owners of the lands fronting the St. Law- 
 rence near Quebec, are to be found the de- 
 scendants of the " Wild Geese" ; indeed, if an 
 extreme resemblance, nay ia many cases a per- 
 fect agreement of the names in sound in both 
 languages, be a safe criterion, one may readily 
 trace in the French Canadian Martins, Nolans, 
 Nolins, Halles, Barrettes, MorinS; Gu6rins, and 
 Bourkes on the south shore opposite Quebec, the 
 old Celtic Martins, Nolans, Healeys, Barretts, 
 Morans, Qearans and Burkes ; indeed, the bat* 
 .le-field of Wolfe and Montcalm derives its 
 name, the Plains of Abraham, from the former 
 owner of the field, an old Irish sailor and pilot, 
 named Abraham Martin, wrongly surnamed 
 I'Ecossais by his neighbors, precisely as the 
 Irish nun, Mary Kirwan, is stated to have been 
 of Scotch descent. 
 
 It requires, moreover, but little elSbrt of the 
 invagination to discover in the Alaries, Alainsi 
 
12 
 
 Mainguys, Moreaus and Binettes on the north 
 shore near Quebec, the time-honored Irish Pa- 
 tronymics of O'Leary, Allan, Magee, Barry, 
 O'Brien, O'Dea, McMorrogh, and Bennett. 
 
 With the permission of the Prothonotary at 
 Quebec, I have searched through the Registers 
 of the Quebec Cathedral for the first half of the 
 last century, both before and shortly after the 
 Conquest, and I find in the following names 
 which abound there for that period, a most re- 
 markable Irish ring, namely: Caissy, Massy, 
 Harnois, Cahey, Cahel, d'Alot, Mally, Kery, 
 Lanan, Barden dit Lafontaine, Jacson, Janson 
 ditLa Palme, Obaurette, Maclure, Delan6 dit 
 Laliberte, Deniou, Deniau,0'Neil, Carel, Travers, 
 Mony. Molloye, Grefin, De Gannes, Hilli 
 Gourlee, Gourdon, Duffy dit C barest, Graton, 
 Couc dit Montour, Couc dit Lafleur, Griffon, 
 Guer6, Belet, Boilan, Trehet, Martin, L6ret. 
 
 Apart from the remarkable agreement of the 
 names in sonnd, three striking circumstances 
 tend to strengthen the belief that those names 
 are of Irish origin, and these circumstances 
 are: 
 
 Firstly,— That in searching through the Re- 
 gisters, I have found the persons bearing those 
 
13 
 
 lorth 
 Pa- 
 ixy, 
 
 names intermarried more frequently with each 
 ether than with persons bearing other names. 
 
 Secondly,~That they generally assist as 
 groomsmen and bridesmaids at the weddings 
 of each other ; and 
 
 Thirdly, — That, after the Conquest, when the 
 Irishmaii^ fresh from the sod, drops into Quebec, 
 the Registers show him to be best man or god 
 father, on every available occasion, among the 
 families bearing those names. 
 
 It would seem, indeed, as if the persons bear- 
 ing those names had long formed a sort of colony 
 apart, and were drawn more closely together 
 and irresistably attracted towards every fresh 
 Irish arrival by some common, and very strong, 
 bond of union. A few examples drawn from 
 the Registers of the Parish of Quebec, about the 
 time of the Conquest, will serve to make this 
 quite plain. 
 
 On the 19th February, 1759, before the Con- 
 quest, a soldier of the Regiment of Berry is 
 married, and his best man is Sergeaat Noel 
 Francois Nicholas Finegan (Finegan), of the 
 same regiment. On the same day, Pierre B61et 
 (Bailey), is married, and his best man is Nicholas 
 Martin (Martin), another soldier in Boishebert's 
 Company. On the following day, Martin in his 
 
turn mftfried) and his beet man is Antoitie «fae- 
 son (Jackson), but whether civilian or soldief^ 
 the Register does not state. On the 26th Feb.^ 
 1759, Pien^e Louis Helleine dit La Jeanesse 
 (evidently an Allan), a soldier, is married, and 
 his best man is Nicholas Devin (Devin). On 
 the 23rd April, 1759, Louis Nicholas Lachai]:c 
 dit LaGrenade, a soldier in Montresson's Com«^ 
 pany, ib married to Elizabeth Donlan, (Donnel^ 
 Ian), the best man being Pierre Boillan (Boylan)i 
 Oorporal in the same Company, and one of the 
 invited witnesses, who signs the Register, is 
 Captain Delaine, of the same Company. On 
 the 24th June, 1760, after the Conquest, Martin 
 Echenner, who may or may not have been a 
 Shanahy, is married, and the three witnesses to 
 his marriage are Duffy dit Charest, Barthelemi 
 Hill, and Guillaume DuBarry ; that entry speaks 
 for itself. 
 
 On the 7th of August, 1761, Mrs. Janson is 
 godmother to Massey's child4 On the 21st of 
 September of the same year, Thomas Caret 
 (Carey) is married to a Moran j on the 27th of 
 September, of the same year, Louis Langlois 
 and Charlotte Moran are sponsors for the 
 child of Jean Langlois. On the 7th of 
 November of the same year, the undoubtedly 
 
15 
 
 friah Smne* JIMth^to* and Miss Janson dit La 
 JPalmef are sponsors for a daughter of 
 Delzennes ; on tJtv) 23rd of NoTember of thet 
 same jear, Jean Jamn is married to Fran^oise 
 Gu4ry ; on the 25th of November of the same 
 year, Charles Martin is godfather to the 
 daughter of Michel J<mrdain (Jordan). On the 
 1st February^ 1762, Charles Orion dit Cham" 
 pagnsf (evidently an O^JRyan} is married, and 
 the witnessed are Francois Belet^ Joseph 
 DalaiSf and three '^ Maclures/' (the father and 
 two sons,) whose Irish origin I have ascertained 
 beyond all doubty as I shall presently state. 
 
 It is also a very striking fact that all the 
 families bearing the Irish names I have men^^ 
 tioned, exhibit an exuberant fondness for the 
 Christian names of Bridget and Judith^ there i» 
 a Bridget in every family of them, and a 
 Judith in everj third or fourth family ; and 
 although I have found none of the male cbiU 
 dren christened by the name of Patricki that 
 circumstance has but little weight ; because, on 
 perusing the list of officers of James' army, and 
 of the Brigade, I find but one " Patrick " 
 among them, the Barl of Lucan, Patrick 
 Sarsfield. 
 
 Another strongly corioborative cireumstance 
 
16 
 
 as to the existence of the Irish Colony I' 
 speak of, is to be found in the name " Trou de^ 
 St. Patrice," St. Patrick^s Hole, borne by a 
 small, but very safe, anchorage ground at the 
 Island of Orleans, 16 miles below Quebec ; that 
 very significant name was not given to the 
 place yesterday, nor yet the day before yester- 
 day ; for a French manuscript, over a hundred 
 years old, the Hartwell Library manuscript, a 
 copy of which is to be found in the library of 
 the Quebec Historical Society, gives an account 
 of the siege of Quebec by "Wolfe, and speaks of 
 that anchorage ground by its name of '< Trou 
 de St. Patrice," as if the place, long before that 
 time, had borne that name. Again, Governor 
 de la Gallisioniere, in writing from Canada to 
 the French War Minister 'on the 28th of May, 
 1746, says, " Mr. de la Orois, a returned French 
 prisoner, had heard Generals Shirley and 
 Warren mention Tadousac Cove and St. 
 Patrick's Hole as places where the British fleet 
 might anchor on moving up against Quebec," 
 Father Ferland, the historian of Canada, more- 
 over informpus that the harbor in question bore 
 the name of " St. Patrick's Hole" fully seventy 
 years before the Conquest. 
 Such exceptional devotion in a French coun- 
 
17 
 
 1) 
 
 tfy to an Irfoh Saiikt can^ ha'Te had itsr rise in 
 ojxQ source only, and is the strongest possible 
 corroboration Of the statements I have been 
 makine. 
 
 The year after the conquest three Irishmen—^ 
 nnmistakeably Irish (for the Registers state 
 they were bom in Ireland) appear in Quebec ; 
 their names are Daniel Donne, William Our- 
 tain and Jeremiah Duggan; Duggan is the 
 barber mentioned by Smith, the historian, as 
 having joined the Irish American General, Mont* 
 gomery, at the siege of Quebec, in 1775^ at the 
 head of 500 Canadians. As soon as Donne, Cur» 
 tain and Duggan appear on the stage, scarcely 
 a christening or wedding takes place among 
 the families bearing the Irish names I haye men-^ 
 tioned without the signature of one of the 
 tiiiree in the Register, as godfather, best man or 
 witness; and Duggan eventually marries ai 
 granddaughter of old Abraham Martin, and 
 Onrtain marries a niece of on€i'//an^^ot« whose 
 name denotes him to have been of Snglish-speak- 
 ing oriijin. 
 
 Among those whose names I have mentioned 
 above, there are two families which deserve 
 especial notice at my hands, they are the Mao- 
 lures and O'Neills. Viom fisbiniiy papers in the 
 
 B 
 
18 
 
 possession of Hon. M. de L^ry of Quebec, it 
 appears that the Maclures had come from Ire- 
 land to Canada forty years before the conquest ; 
 and, on the extinction of the name here, the 
 family property amassed here, consisting of 
 Dexter's (now Mills') Hotel, Quebec, passed to 
 collateral heirs, now residing in Letterkenny, 
 Ireland, and drawing their rents through 1^. 
 Hossack, of Quebec. ^ ' n :UC, - . i^ uw 
 With regard to O'Neill, when Wolfe was 
 thundering with his cannon at the gates of 
 Quebec, ii^ 1751/, this man, O'Neill, had occasion 
 to have a cnild baptized ; and, whether he had 
 reason to f 3ar the operation of British laws as 
 to treason, or whether he had a wholesome 
 recollection of the English Statute, awarding 
 the penalty of death for treason to any one as- 
 suming the name of O'Neill, I know not, — but, 
 certain it is, that, on signing the act of baptism 
 as the father, he wrote his name Onelle in one 
 word, without the apostrophe, and with a min- 
 uscule n; and, after the Conquest, as year 
 after year rolled by, and he saw nobody hurt, 
 his Irish orthography improved, until, on the 
 24th November, 1761, when, being a witness to 
 the marriage of his niece, he signed the Register 
 in genuine Irish style, " P. O'Neill." 
 
19 
 
 lec, it 
 a Ire- 
 Luest ; 
 e, the 
 ng of 
 }ed to 
 tenny, 
 rh Mr. 
 
 i. uU 
 
 Q was 
 sites of 
 icasion 
 he had 
 Eiws as 
 lesome 
 aiding 
 )ne as- 
 t,— but, 
 )aptism 
 in one 
 amin- 
 8 year 
 y hurt, 
 on the 
 ness to 
 Register 
 
 I could multiply examples of such entries, 
 which haye brought conviction to my mind 
 that many of the 400,00Q Irishmen, who are 
 proved by the records of the war office in Paris 
 to have served in the armies of France from 
 1645, and their descendants must have been r> 
 warded with grants of farms in Lower Canada ; 
 and the number of Irish families thus settled in 
 this country, and mustering several hundreds, 
 with one century for expansion, must have 
 formed a very large proportion of che 60,000 
 souls, who passed with Canada, in 1759 under 
 the British Flag. 
 
 ' I^ay be asked how have those Irish names dis- 
 appeared, — the answer is simple ; many of them 
 have not disappeared ; others of them have dis- 
 appeared, I shall show how. The Abbe Faillon 
 tells us that, with reference to all English 
 speaking persons, the French being unable to 
 pronounce their names, used the Christian name, 
 and added BAnglois after it ; he tells us, more- 
 over, that Dr. Timothy O'SuUivan was called 
 Sylvain by the French who could not pronounce 
 the name; and that the Doctor acquiesced in 
 the change, corresponded in that name with the 
 French authorities, and received from the 
 French king a diploma as surgeon by the name 
 
20 
 
 of Syt^am. In like manner, since the Oonqnest 
 I have "^und «F6remiah>Duggan's name changed 
 to JSrSmie I)e Gannee, William Curtain^ % name 
 changed to Ouillaume Cotonne^ Edmond to 
 Rougementf Edmonds to Haimond^ Leahy to De 
 la Haye^ Daly to DalaiSy Permy to PinS^ J^itsh 
 nmmons to Simon and Shallaw to CMli; tat 
 these changes I refer to entries to be found in 
 the Quebec Parish Church Register in Februa- 
 ry, 1762. 
 
 Oomparatiyely large as that Irish colony 
 must have been, it received a large accession 
 from the shattered remnants of the Irish Bri- 
 gade, who, after having sery^ed through the 
 war, settled in this country after the Conquest; 
 
 But, before noticing the brilliant achiere- 
 meats of the Brigade here, it is fitting that I 
 shot Id briefly state the evidence we have of 
 this important fact in the history of Canada^ 
 Unfortunately the records of the War ofl8ce in 
 Paris from 1736, which would have settled the 
 question beyond all doubt, are missing ; some 
 scattering papers only remain; enough, how« 
 ever, remains to convince any unprejudiced 
 person of this great and hitherto unknown 
 feature of Canadian History. The scattered 
 documents remaining have been compiled and 
 
 
21 
 
 pubUshed by the yenerable Dr. O^Gallagban 
 (once a fellow-townsman of yours,) under the 
 auspices of the State Legislature of New York. 
 From those papers, to be found in the tenth 
 volume of that work ofO'Gallaghan's, and from 
 other sources that I shall cite, as I proceed, I 
 shall draw convincing proof that the Irish 
 Brigade served 5 years in Canada, from 1765 to 
 1760. 
 
 In volume X. of that work, page 368, of the 
 published documents drawn from the Archives of 
 Paris, we find a letter to the Count d' Argenson, 
 the French Minister of War, from the French 
 Commissary General, Doreil (whom, from Uie 
 name, I more than suspect to have been an 
 O'Reilly); that letter contuns the following 
 passage ; <' I regard, then, as certain, my Lord, 
 tiiat the king will send some reinforcements 
 next year. In that case, permit me an observa- 
 tion, whereupon I have conferred with Mr. de 
 Vaudreuil, who agrees with me in opinion* 
 Among the number of Battalions, that you will 
 order over, I think it would be well to send 
 over one Irish Battauon, the rather as it would 
 possess all the necessary resources to recruit, 
 itself." 
 
 At page 925 of the same volume, we find a 
 
w 
 
 22 
 
 i I 
 
 
 SI ' 
 
 if 
 
 i:^ 
 
 J' 
 
 ■ ! 
 
 ill!'' 
 
 Memoir withoat date, but supposed to bave 
 been presented in 1754 to the Kinpf by the min- 
 ister D'Argenson, acting upon that suggestion, 
 and recommending that Irish troops b6 sent to 
 Canada. ' ^ • 
 
 In volume VII., page 270, of the same work 
 and in volume I., page 494, of another work the 
 Documentary History of New York, we find, 
 copied from the London Archives^ the sworn 
 declaration of a soldier of Shirley's Regiment, 
 made before Sir Charles Hardy, and transmitted 
 by him in 1756 to the Lords of Trade in Eng- 
 land. That affidavit states : " Claude Fr6d6ric de 
 Hutenac, of Major General Shirley's Regiment 
 declares that on Monday, the ninth of Augnst, 
 a Prowgalley went out of the Harbour of Os- 
 wego, and discovered the French Camp about 
 a mile from the Fort." After describing the 
 siege of Fort Oswego, a Council of War that was 
 held, and the hoisting of the white flag by 
 
 ^ British as a signal of surrender, this soldier, 
 was a deserter from the French, and must 
 .sequently have known the Brigade, goes on 
 to say : " upon which this Declarant said to 
 Colonel Littlehales, if you are going to give up 
 the Fort, you must suflFer me, who am a deser- 
 fer from the French, to make the best of my 
 
23 
 
 way, because they will laave no mercy upon me ; 
 the Colonel gave me and seven otber deserters 
 leave ; but, before we got quite clear, we saw 
 the French from the opposite side of the har- 
 bour getting into boats, and among them some 
 clothed with red faced with green, who belong 
 to the Irish Brigade." 
 
 In reference to that affidavit, I feel some 
 curiosity to know why Sir Charles Hardy 
 deemed the presence of the Brigade here a fact 
 of sufficient importance to establish it by affida- 
 vit for the information of his government, un- 
 less some treaty to which the neutral powers 
 were parties, prohibited the employment of the 
 Brigade against England ; the existence of such 
 a treaty would explain the sort of veil that has 
 been thrown over the presence of the Brigade 
 here, and would also explain the disappearance 
 of the Paris Archives. 
 
 Again in his Journal of the Capture of Fort 
 Oswego, to be found at page 494 of volume I 
 of O'Callaghan's Documentary History of New 
 York, de Montcalm goes out of his way to in- 
 form the King that two of the Regiments made 
 prisoners there, namely,Shirle/s and PeppereVs, 
 had been engaged (on the British side, of course) 
 in the Battle of Fontenoy. It is difficult to sup- 
 
 I 
 
84 
 
 po0e thflit this «piL ode in de MmitcftlB]^ JonmA 
 WM fragi^egted bj aoTthing else than the vecol- 
 leetton of thAt new triumph of the Brigade oTer 
 their hereditary foes. 
 
 To that diiect evidenoe of the eamet^t appeal! 
 Of the Gommissarj for Irish soidiere, that oon^ 
 corrence of the minister in the suggestion, and 
 Uiat prool df their actual pre^enee at Oswego, 
 in 1756, 1 may add the testimony of the author 
 of the Irish JBettiers in America, to the efifect 
 that Dr, Edmund Hand, who afterwards rose to 
 the post or Adjutant General under Washington, 
 had originally come out to Canada with 1^ 
 Brigade, and served liiere with them, as sufgeon, 
 until the dose of the war. 
 
 Apart from all that we have, at pag&s tSO 
 and t59 of Tolume X. of the Documents relating 
 to the Histoty of New York, two lists of the 
 officers of the French army killed and wounded 
 at the 1)attle of Ticonderoga, or Carillon, as the 
 French term it, a majority of them are nnmis*^ 
 takably Insfa, for instance : *' Acffutant de Macarii 
 (MacCartiby eyidentiy), Captain de Patrice (the 
 nan Q^JPalnclj, evidently a Fitzpatriek), Duglaa 
 (most likely the officer who sigoed CSullivan's 
 certificate), Adjutant Carlnn (evidently Garth' 
 lan)f de [MiMran (evidently Mwan}^ Fwtet (a 
 
25 
 
 faKf^)f deHareimeB (crv1d«itl70'fieani),«tid 
 Deaiaa (evidently O'Donobue). Besides that 
 list of killed and woanded, we meet freqi^ently 
 with meD.tion by de Montcalm to the king, of 
 the great brayery and eminent services of such 
 officers as de la Paure (Power), d'Herte (Hart), 
 de Barotte (Barreitt), de Lac (Lake), de Coni 
 (Cooney), de Hughes (son of Hngh, eyideintly a 
 KcHugh), Belcombe, Ploid, D^alet, (Daley), all 
 names to be found in the list of officers of the 
 Brigade, as given by McG^oghegan and O^Ooi!l«* 
 nor; Vi'^i fU' *^rMmf^'^}- "--^^^it 'm^^.iM: ^.fvM^ihmmsim.: rft^'^^ 
 Thus, also, at pages 401 and 406, of the X. vol- 
 4 itee of the Documents relating to the History 
 of New York, we find Mr. de Klerec (an 
 O'Oleary) writing to the minister that he has 
 news fi!om Mr. de Maoarti (evidently another 
 McOarthy) commanding the French troops, In 
 the Illinois country'; and further on, at page 
 410 of the same volume, we have the command- 
 ant of Fort Duquesne, writing to this last 
 McOarthy, relating that the Epglish have cut 
 off his supplies from Canada, and asking Mc- 
 Carthy to send him some provisions, which 
 McCarthy immediately despatcl^s to him from 
 his own very ^canty store. ^ ' r/ * ;>f '^ ;^ 
 This McOarthy, whose aame all Uirough tho 
 

 I- 
 
 S; '3 
 
 '!: 
 
 5; i i 
 
 26 
 
 other French despatches is spelt as de MMarti^ 
 is at length styled by his genuine Iriah name of 
 MacCarthy^ in a despatch, p. 1081 of the same 
 volume, from de Vaudreuil, at Montreal, shortly 
 before the capitulation of Montreal. In that 
 despatch de Vaudreuil informs the King that 
 MacGarthy, commandant of Illinois, still holds 
 out in the fort de Chartres. And MacGarthy 
 did hold out for a year after the capitulation of 
 Montreal, and only surrendered the fortress on 
 an express order from the French King ; and, in 
 this connection, I have much pleasure in inform- 
 ing French Ganadian Historians, who, for one 
 reason or another, have ignored the services of 
 the Brigade, that the last defended of the French 
 strongholds in America was defended by Irish 
 arms, and that the last cannon discharged for 
 French honor on this continent was fired by 
 that Irishman, MacGarthy. ^ 
 
 Besides all that, there are many incidents in 
 the history or those days that are obscure by 
 themselves, and that can be explained on the 
 iupposition only of the presence of the Brigade 
 in Ganada. For instance, we find in de Mont- 
 calm Journal, p. 494 of the first volume of 
 the History of New York, that de la Paure 
 (Power) is the officer sent by Montcalm to revise 
 
 
27 
 
 the articles of capitulation of Fort Oswego. 
 What else prompted de Montcalm but de la 
 Paure's knowledge of English, and the natural 
 desire on de Montcalm's part to gratify his Irish 
 soldiers by allowing an Irish officer to receive 
 the swords' of the Commanders of Shirly's and 
 Pepperel's Regiments, twice beaten by the Bri- 
 gade ? Again, when the capitulation of Montreal 
 Tras about to take place, the 6th article sub- 
 mitted by de Vaudreuil (Smith's History, vol. 
 I., p. 363) ran thus : 
 
 *^ The subjects of His Britannic Majesty, and 
 '< of His Most Christian Majesty, soldiers, militia 
 " or seamen, who shall have deserted, or left 
 " the service of their sovereign, or carried arms 
 " in North America, shall be pardoned." 
 
 That article was refused by General Amherst. 
 
 Smith informs us that de Vaudreuil sent de 
 Bougainville, and Captain de Lac, of the 
 Queen's Regiment, to General Amherst, three 
 several times, but without success, to obtain a 
 modification of the articles on this head. A last 
 attempt, in the same direction, was made by 
 cfe LSvis who sent de la Paure^ with a letter to 
 Amherst, but all to no purpose. De Levis was 
 so enraged at this, says Garneau, that he was 
 deterred by de Yaadreuil's positive orders only 
 
28 
 
 m 
 
 from withdrawing to St. Hden'8 Island, and 
 there defending himself to tlie last extremity 
 with the remnant of the French troops. 
 
 What other portion of the French army, I 
 ask, than the Irish soldiers, thus threatened 
 with summary military rengeance for high 
 treason, <sould have been interested in that 
 article? Who but Colonel Power, Captain 
 Lake, and their Irish comrades, had reason to 
 fear the consequences ? J - 
 
 The incident, too, of de Vaudreuil and do 
 L^vis having been required by Haldimand to 
 aflSrm on their honors, that the colours of the 
 French regiments had been destroyed when the 
 troops first came here, and this as a reason for 
 not delivering them np— that incident, I say, 
 coupled with Colonel Enox'S sneer, in his 
 Hi«;torical Journal, that the colours must have 
 been destroyed since the battle of the PUuns at 
 Abraham-^for he had, he says, seen them 
 there — makes it probable that the troops who 
 did not give up their colours must have been 
 actuated by some such motive as the fear of 
 discovery. 
 
 Knox, at pages 339 and 378, says that the 
 traitors had been sent off to Louisiana, and that 
 they were commanded by Johnson, an outlawed 
 
 
•fny.m'Kf^ 
 
 29 
 
 rebel,— be' meant, of course, the Ghevailier Mon* 
 treuil. With all respect for Colonel Knox, I do 
 not think they went to Louisiana. 
 
 GarneaU) in his History, says that only 2500 
 men, women and children embarked for France ; 
 he is mistaken ; those who left the colony then 
 numbered 1740 only. Garneau adds : '^ The 
 smi^lness of this number proved at once the 
 cruel ravages of the war, the paucity of embar- 
 kations sent f):om France, and the great numer- 
 ical superiority of the victors." 
 
 With all due respect for M. Q«rneau*s opinion, 
 it proves nothing of the sort. All who were 
 willing to go were sent in English not French, 
 vessels, and de L6vis in a despatch to the 
 French minister, gives the true reason of the 
 number being so few ; de L6vis said in that 
 despatch that the remainder of the troops, hav- 
 ing formed connections in the country, had re- 
 solved on remaining here. It proves to my 
 mind, in connection with the very large num- 
 ber of Irish sounding names to be found entered 
 in the parochial Church registers from that 
 period, that indemnity and pardon having been 
 refused the Irish soldiers then in arms against 
 England, they scattered, as so many disbanded 
 militia men, to the French Canadian hearths 
 
 m 
 
 rt'' 
 
 s.i 
 
30 
 
 I: 
 
 in the raral districts, and, from their perfect 
 knowledge of the French language, became 
 undistinguishable from the French settlers, and 
 eventually became absorbed in the French popu- 
 lation of this country. 
 
 And now, like the absent-minded Paschal, I 
 might perhaps close this address by saying : 
 " Pardon the length of this letter, for I hadn't 
 time to make it shorter f but I feel that you 
 will bear with me a few moments longer, while 
 I give a very brief sketch of the career of the 
 Irish Brigade in Canada. ? > « '^f t * 
 
 ? By de Vaudreuil's Journal, p. 297 of the X. 
 volume of the New York Documents, we find 
 that the Brigade sailed from Brest, on the 3rd 
 May, 1755, under convoy of a fleet commanded 
 by Admiral MacNamara^ and two of the Cap- 
 tains under him were two Irishmen, Cannon of 
 the frigate La Valeur, and Darragh of the 
 frigate VHeureux, It is of this Cannon that 
 Commissary Voreil says, in 1758, to the French 
 Minister, p. 756 of volume X. of the New York 
 Documents, " The King's frigate. La Valeur 
 commanded by M, Cannon, a famous cruiser, 
 will bring you this despatch." Cannon is also 
 the intrepid man who alone had courage, after 
 the death of de Montcalm, to volunteer to run 
 
;!lif,1iwi|j 
 
 31 
 
 perfect 
 >ecame 
 rs, and 
 popu- 
 
 chal| I 
 lying: 
 hadn^t 
 at you 
 , while 
 of the 
 
 theX. 
 re find 
 ^he 3rd 
 landed 
 e Oap- 
 \non of 
 of the 
 »n that 
 French 
 rYork 
 ValeuT 
 iruiser, 
 is also 
 i, after 
 :o run 
 
 the gauntlet of the British fleet, with despatches 
 for the French Minister, and the skill to pass 
 with his vessel^ unnoticed, through a swarm of 
 British cruisers. 
 
 The Brigade landed in Quebec, on the 26th 
 June, 1755 ; on the 30th June, they set out on 
 the March to Montreal, where they arrived on 
 the 9th July ; two regiments were forwarded to 
 Oataraquoi, now Kingston, and the remainder 
 were stationed on the frontier near Lake Cham- 
 plain. 
 
 The first collision that those Irish soldiers had 
 with the British was on the 8th September, 
 1755 ; Dieskau, on that day, had with him four 
 companies of Grenadiers, 220 men in all, of the 
 Queen's and another regiment, together with 
 600 Canadians, and about as many Indians ; his 
 second in command was Johnson, the Cheva- 
 lier de Montreuil, spoken of by Enox. Dies- 
 kau's force suddenly met with a British force 
 1000 strong, under Colonel Williams, sent out 
 by General Johnson, to ambuscade Dieskau. At 
 the first dash Williams' force were utterly 
 routed, and fled in confusion towards the en- 
 trenched camp where General William Johnson 
 was stationed with the main body 2,000 strong. 
 The brave but rash Dieskau, without artillery 
 
 I 
 
 ! 
 
32 
 
 I ,:}: 
 
 of atfy kind, resolved at oiice to storih the en- 
 trenched works; and^ patting himself at the 
 bead of his 220 Grenadiers, he gave the order to 
 assault the place ; the Canadians and Indians 
 did not second him. Nothing daunted, Dieskau 
 rushed up against his foes and was met by a 
 perfect hail of mu^etiy and grape. An English 
 officer of Johnson's army has described that 
 assault by saying in a letter to a friend : " The 
 attack was boldly made and bravely sustained ; 
 nothing but our breastworks saved us." Three 
 times those Grenadiers dashed at the works, 
 mowed down each time by 20 pieces of cannon 
 and by the fire of 3,000 muskets, until Dieakau, 
 stricken down beyond all hope of recovery, and 
 surrounded by the dead bodies of 160 of his Grena- 
 diers, reluctantly gave orders to the Chevalier do 
 Montreuil to retreat with the survivors^ Ao- 
 Oustomed as the English hitherto had been 
 to the cowardly system of fighting then 
 in vogue by dodging behind trees to secure 
 their precious persons, they T7ereso dazzled and 
 intimidated by the unusual bravery of those 
 soldiers with the green facings that General 
 Johnson did not dare molest that little handful 
 of Grenadiers, as they slowly retired^ bearing 
 away their wounded. 
 
33 
 
 
 And those 3000 troops of General Johnson's 
 became so demoralized, that ' the General did 
 not d ire to move forward for months, and his 
 troops were eventually disbanded and replaced 
 by another corps. ? i ... : . .. , ,.. : 
 
 That heroic little band, bearding 3000 men 
 entrenched within a fortress, jou may say, and 
 breasting for two hours a perfect hurricane of 
 fire, and disabling of the enemy three times 
 their own number^ equal, if they do not surpass, 
 Leonidas and his 300 iSpartons at Thermopylae. 
 
 That battle of Lake George, a defeat though 
 it was in military parlance, had all the conse- 
 quences ofayiotory for the French ; for it re- 
 tarded for one year the threatened invasion oC 
 Canada. .-m • »- •* i m »•-::. •...-•■rr.-f • .:. 
 
 Well did the brigade, afterwards, and under 
 a more prudent Captain, wipe out that defeat ; 
 on the 9th August, 1756, when they were recog- 
 nized by the French deserter c^e Hutenac; they 
 numbered only 1350, and, with the assistance 
 of 1200 Canadians, and 250 Indians, they per- 
 formed the feat, deemed impossible at the time, 
 of wading through a quaking morass, half a 
 mile in length, where they sank to the waist at 
 every step, and dragging their artillery after 
 them, and finally, to the great astonishment of 
 
 • ■• •:-■. • . • . ••■.0 -• i , ;;;:■: : .. : r 
 
m 
 
 1 I 
 
 34 
 
 the English, planting their siege train on the 
 wealiest side, within 200 yards of the worlds ; and 
 on the 14th August, 1756, after a three day's 
 siege, they captured 3 English Regiments, 
 Schuyler's, Shirley's and Pepperel's Regiments, 
 the two latter Regiments having once already 
 gone down before their headlong charge at Fon- 
 tenoy ; they captured at the same time a very 
 large quantity of military stores and a very res- 
 pectable military chest. Well might de Mont- 
 calm write to the Minister, exclaiming : 
 
 "Never before did 3000 men, with a scanty 
 artillery, besiege and capture 1800, there being 
 2000 other enemies within call, the party attack- 
 ed having also a superior fleet on Lake On« 
 tario.'* 
 
 On the 14th August, 1757, the Brigade assisted 
 by a small number of French Canadians and 
 Indians, reduced Fort William Henry and cap- 
 tured 2400 prisoners, with an immense amount 
 of war material, while de Levis, at the head of 
 the Canadians, held at bay a superior force that 
 had been sent under Webb to raise the siege. 
 
 But the crowning glory of the Brigade was on 
 the memorable day of Ticonderoga or Carillon,a3 
 the French are wont to call it. On that day, 8th 
 July, 1758, three thousand men of the Brigade 
 
35 
 
 assisted by 450 French Canadians, utterly de- 
 feated 15,000 of the very best troops in the Bri- 
 tish regular army ; on that occasion they with- 
 stood for six successive hours the headlong fury 
 of five times their own number, repelling seven 
 successive charges of the entire body of the 
 enemy, and killing or wounding 4000 of the 
 enemy, with a loss to themselves of 30 oflBcers 
 and 340 men only. It was at this battle that the 
 Irish officers, whose names I mentioned to you, 
 received their wounds ; their names are taken 
 from the official returns sent after the battle by 
 de Montcalm to the French Minister and to 
 Governor deVaudreuil. The names of such brave 
 men deserve to bo embalmed in Irish hearts ; and 
 I therefore take the liberty of repeating them ; 
 they are ^IcCarthy^Fitzpatrick^DouglasSjCarolan 
 O^Moran, Forsythj (yHearn and O'Donohoe, The 
 other officers killed and wounded on the French 
 side bear French names ; but this does not weak- 
 en the evidence I have adduced of the Regi- 
 ments themselves being Irish ; for it was the 
 custom, in those days, for Irishmen to assume 
 French names, the better to hide their origin in 
 case of capture by the English, just as Johnson, 
 who had been outlawed for the part he had 
 taken in favor of the Pretender, in 1745 assumed 
 
 r.< 
 
m 
 
 ! 
 
 
 II 
 
 36 
 
 the name of the Chevalier de Montreuil ; the 
 honor, too, of commanding such brave troops 
 Was eagerly sought after by Frenchmen. De 
 Montcalm, in his despatches, frequently awards 
 the highest praise to officers bearing Irish names ; 
 and he tells the French Minister that the great vie 
 tory of Ticonderoga or Carillon, was entirely due 
 to the incredible bravery displayed by both offi- 
 cers and men ; and singularly enough it is to that 
 commissary Doreilj who had suggested their em- 
 ployment, and as if to justify the latter's foresight 
 that de Montcalm, in a touching letter written on 
 the battlefield, the night after the battle, addresses 
 this glowing testimony to the mettle of the Bri- 
 gade. " The army, the too small army of the 
 " King," wrote de Montcalm to Doreil, " has 
 "just beaten his enemies. What a day, for the 
 " honor of France I Had I had two hundred 
 << savages to serve for the van of a thousand 
 "chosen troopsledby de L6vis, nol many of the 
 " fleeing enemy would have escaped. Ah ! such 
 " troops as ours, my dear Doreil j I never saw 
 " their match T' ^ 
 
 The following year's campaign saw the most 
 gigantic preparations made to subdue this colo- 
 ny ; British armies outnumbering the whole 
 population of men, women and children in 
 
il; tbe 
 1 troops 
 jn. De 
 awards 
 names ; 
 rreatvic 
 rely due 
 )oth offi- 
 L3 to that 
 their em- 
 foresight 
 Titten on 
 addresses 
 f the Bri- 
 ly of the 
 ill, "has 
 y, for the 
 
 hundred 
 thousand 
 my of the 
 Ah I such 
 
 lever saw 
 
 the most 
 this colo- 
 le whole 
 lildren in 
 
 37 
 
 Canada at tbe time, were set in motion to assail 
 it on all sides ; the chances were all agains t 
 de Montcalm ; with a force inferior in numbers, 
 and composed of inferior colonial troops, and 
 without awaiting the arrival of de Bougain- 
 ville and de Levis, de Montcalm rashly attacked 
 the British on the Plains of Abraham, and lost 
 the battle and his life, and yet no one can ven- 
 ture the assertion that the result of that battle 
 would have been the same, if de Montcalm had 
 but awaited the arrival of de L6vis and de Bou- 
 gainville, with their trained Irish soldiers ; for 
 when again, on the 28th April, 1760, on the ' 
 heights of Sillery and Ste. Foye, the Brigade met 
 the British in the shock of battle, an expiring 
 ray of glory was shed on Irish valor, and this 
 time it was not the French who ran. 
 
 In conclusion, we all must feel some pride in 
 knowing that our race has filled so large a space 
 in the brightest pages of Canadian history ; it 
 is also time that others should be made to feel 
 that Irishmen cannot be considered aliens, or 
 ostracized as such, on a soil made famous by 
 their deeds, and hallowed by their blood. 
 
 The Lecturer sat down amid much applause. 
 
 m 
 m 
 
 i 
 
 it' I