Alexander Macdonell

“ Lieutenant-Colonel MacDonell came up to Toronto (then York) and studied law, and was appointed Attorney-General of the Province when a very young man, and afterwards accompanied, as aide-de-camp, General Brock at Detroit and Queenston," where he gloriously fell in the gallant charge that followed the fall of Brock.—Extract of private letter. (See also Appendix.)
"I have heard that he (Lieut.-Col. MacDonell) was brought up by the late Hon. Alexander MacDonell, who gave him a valuable piece of property in the then Town of York to start him in the legal profession. ”

“ The ballad is narrated by ‘John Hielan’man’ to Sir James the Rose (derived from the ballad of that name given earlier in the present volume) and Sir 195 John the Gryme (Graeme) . ‘Macdonell’ is Donald of the Isles, who, as claimant to the Earldom of Ross, advanced on Aberdeen, and was met at Harlaw by the Earl of Mar and Alexander Ogilvy, sheriff of Angus. It was a stubborn fight, though it did not last from Monday to Saturday (23) , and Donald lost nine hundred men and the other party five hundred. ”

“ Macdonell, Alexander. MS Sent by North West Company, with Duncan Cameron, to Red River, to break up the Red River Settlement, 172-173; leads attack on the colonists, 175. Bib.: Bryce, The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists.
Macdonell, Alexander (1769-1840) . Born at Glen Urquhart, Scotland. Raised a Roman Catholic regiment of which he was appointed chaplain and saw service in Ireland; after the regiment had been disbanded, succeeded in bringing the men to Canada in 1803-1804, and obtained for them an extensive tract of land on the St. Lawrence, in what is now Glengarry County. ”

“ Macdonell served in the Coldstream guards, of which he became regimental lieutenant-colonel and colonel in 1825, until he was promoted to major-general in 1830. He commanded the Armagh district from 1831 to 1838, and on leaving was presented by the inhabitants with a piece of plate. He commanded the brigade of guards sent out to Canada when Lord Durham [see Lambton, John George] was appointed governor-general there during the troubles of 1838. Macdonell succeeded to the command of the troops in Canada, which he held until promoted to lieutenant-general's rank in 1841. ”

“ The man who introduced me to the club was my old friend James Macdonell. We had become intimate at Newcastle, in the days when he was editing the Northern Daily Express. His brilliant writing had attracted the attention of the proprietors of the Daily Telegraph, and they had brought him to London to act as assistant editor of that paper.
Macdonell was a typical journalist, of very fine character. He was an enthusiast, more than commonly perfervid, even for a Scot. Whatever he believed, he believed with all his heart and soul. ”

“ MACDONALD, SIR JOHN ALEXANDER (1815–1891) , first premier of the dominion of Canada, was born in Glasgow on the 11th of January 1815, the third child of Hugh Macdonald (d. 1841) , a native of Sutherlandshire. The family emigrated to Canada in 1820, settling first at Kingston, Ontario. At the age of fifteen Macdonald entered a law office; he was called to the bar in 1836, and began practice in Kingston, with immediate success. Macdonald entered upon his active career at a critical period in the history of Canada, and the circumstances of the time were calculated to stimulate political thought. ”

“ Macdonald, wife of John Macdonald of Kirkebost, in North Uist, who had come from the Long island, of the probability of his appearing speedily in Skye. Lady Margaret, on being informed of the prince’s arrival in her neighbourhood, was greatly alarmed for his safety. Her active benevolence was ever seconded by superior talents; and, on the present occasion, she displayed a presence of mind and readiness of invention, which corresponded with these high qualifications. Mr. Macdonald of Kingsburgh, Sir Alexander’s factor, being then in the house, she resolved to consult him in this emergency. ”

“ We regret to announce that Lady Macdonell, widow of Sir John Macdonell, the eminent jurist and for many years a valued member of The Times staff, died last evening at her residence in Kensington Park-gardens at the age of 85.
The daughter of Daniel Harrison of Shirley House, Beckenham, she married to Sir John Macdonell in 1873; he died in 1821. Lady Macdonell's gracious and beautiful personality was well known to a wide circle of friends, both here and in the United States. Seven years of her youth were spent in America, and during the Civil War she had talked with President Lincoln. ”

“ In 1844 Sir Charles Metcalfe, in his contest with the Reform party led by Baldwin and Lafontaine, appealed to the electors, and Macdonald was elected to the provincial assembly as Conservative member for Kingston. A sentence in his first address to the electors strikes the dominant note of his public career: “I therefore need scarcely state my firm belief that the prosperity of Canada depends upon its permanent connexion with the mother country, and that I shall resist to the utmost any attempt (from whatever quarter it may come) which may tend to weaken that union.” ”

“ The family were a branch of the clan Macdonald, but spelt their name Macdonnell or Macdonell. His father was John, 12th chief of Glengarry, a violent and brutal man, who is said to have starved his first wife, Alestair’s mother, to death on an island in the Hebrides. Alestair ran away to France while a mere boy in 1738, and there entered the Royal Scots, a regiment in the French service. In 1743 he commanded a company in it, and in 1744 was sent to Scotland as a Jacobite agent. In January 1745 he was sent back with messages, and was in France when Prince Charles Edward landed in Scotland. ”

“ On his retirement in 1902 he was made a privy councillor, and died in London on 25 Jan. 1904. MacDonell married in July 1870, while at Buenos Aires, Anne, daughter of Edward Lumb, of Wallington Lodge, Surrey, by whom he had four sons and one daughter. ”

“ The actual framing of the British North America Act, into which the resolutions of these two conferences were consolidated, was carried out at the Westminster Palace Hotel in London, during December 1866 and January 1867, by delegates from all the provinces working in co-operation with the law officers of the Crown, under the presidency of Lord Carnarvon, then secretary of state for the colonies. Macdonald took the leading part in all these discussions, and he thus naturally became the first premier of the Dominion. ”

“ Federal rights were to be safeguarded against the provincial governments, always jealous of their privileges. The people of Nova Scotia in particular, dissatisfied with the way in which their province had been drawn into the Union, maintained a fierce opposition to the Ottawa government, until their leader, Joseph Howe, fearing an armed rising, came to an agreement with Macdonald and accepted a seat in his cabinet. The establishment of a supreme court also occupied the attention of Sir John, who had a strong sense of the necessity of maintaining the purity and dignity of the judicial office. ”

“ The cause of union which had fired McGee's mind since his immigration to Canada was now attained. What was to be his future? Political life had never failed to attract him, for he liked its intensities of struggle. His future in Canadian politics was secure. Few public men of the time were held in such esteem throughout the British provinces, and none had so quickly jumped into prominence. His career was not closed by his absence from the first cabinet of the Dominion. Macdonald had confessed that his admission to a cabinet office could only be a matter of short delay. ”

“ Mackenzie was born on the 28th January, 1822, and is two years younger than his friend, the Hon. Oliver Mowat, and seven years younger than his rival, Sir John A. Macdonald. He was born in the parish of Logierait, Perthshire, Scotland. His parents had neither poverty nor riches, but they and their connections had what was better than either: they had brain-power, intelligence, untiring industry, sterling integrity, and an honorable ambition to rise in the world. Along with these good qualities they had a strong liking for Whig politics. Alexander was the third son in a large family. ”

“ Macdonald was naturally very much exasperated by Kenneth's defiant answer to himself and the repeated insults heaped upon his relative, and through her upon her family. He therefore dispatched his great steward, Maclean, to collect his followers in the Isles, as also to advise and request the aid of his nearest relations on the mainland - the Macdonalds of Moidart and Clan Jan of Ardnamurchan. In a short time they mustered a force between them of about fifteen hundred men - some say three thousand - and arranged with Macdonald to meet him at Contin. ”

“ We cannot, of course, leave the subject of young military commanders without a reference to Alexander of Macedon, in many respects the greatest young man that ever, as with the fury of the untamable forces of Nature, broke into history. But even in the "Macedonian madman," as he is called, it will be found that fury obeyed sagacity. A colossal soul, in whom barbaric passions urged gigantic powers to the accomplishment of insatiable desires, he seems, on the first view, to be given over to the wildest ecstasies of imaginative pride ”

“ Her step-father (Hugh MacDonald of Armadale in Sky) did really serve her with a passport, although at that time he was captain of militia, and had a command of Sir Alexander's men in South Uist in order to prevent the Prince's escape. He [fol. 194.] is reckoned the strongest man of all the name of MacDonald, as I have more than once heard Kingsburgh declare, and his strength of mind seems to bear proportion to the strength of his body. ”

“ Besides his novels, he wrote "Notes and Reflections during a Ramble in Germany," "Victories of the British Armies," and a "Life of Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington".
Alexander Macdonald, well known to the public as an antiquary, died early in January at Edinburgh. He was one of Mr. Thompson's earliest assistants in the publication of the "Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland," and other works, undertaken by the Record Commissioners. He was long a most active member of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland; and the library and museum of that body owe much to his industry and intelligence. ”

“ Allan Macdowell is a mistake for Macdonell or rather Macdonald, as his name is afterwards correctly spelled. He was a ‘native of the Isles’ and a clansman of Clanranald’s; he went out with the clan as chaplain when the standard was raised, and continued with the army until the end of the campaign. He also acted as confessor to the Prince. He and Æneas M‘Gillis, the chaplain of Glengarry’s men, were the only priests that accompanied the Highlanders to Prestonpans. They wore the Highland dress, with sword and pistol, and were styled captains. At the battle of Falkirk Mr. ”

“ Few political leaders have ever had such a number of antagonistic elements to reconcile as presented themselves in the first Canadian parliament after confederation. The man who could manage to rule a congeries of jealous factions, including Irish Catholics and Orangemen, French and English anti-federationists and agitators for independence, Conservatives and Reformers, careful economists and prodigal expansionists, was manifestly a man of unusual power, superior to small prejudices, and without strong bias towards any creed or section. Such a man Macdonald proved himself to be. ”

“ Macdonell received the Duke of Wellington's warm approbation for the determination with which he held that post—the key of the duke's position—during the overwhelming attacks of the French in the early part of the battle. On one occasion, when the French were forcing their way into the courtyard, Macdonell, with the help of some soldiers, closed the gates on them by sneer physical strength [see under Graham, James] . For these services he was made K.C.B., and received the war medal. ”

“ Perhaps it has been insufficiently borne in mind that Macdonell may have all along cherished resentment against the prince on account of the clan's removal to the left wing at Culloden, where it practically deserted the prince's cause by refusing to strike a blow on his behalf. True the clan gave the prince shelter during his wanderings, but Macdonell himself may on account of the treatment of the clan, or for some other reason, have cherished a personal grudge against the prince. In any case he was probably clever enough to recognise that the prince himself had become impossible ”

“ It was fortunate for the MacDonells, that about the beginning of the seventeenth century Donald MacAngus MacDonell of Glengarry, chief of the clan, had so harried the MacKenzie country in one dreadful and destructive raid, and had so swept away its wealth and thinned its people, as to have rendered them comparatively innocuous for a number of years; for, during the lapse of these, he became so old and infirm, as to be not only quite unable for any very active or stirring enterprise, but he would have been unequal to the defence of his own territories against the inroads of his neighbours. ”

“ He started when the MacDonells came upon him.
“Friend or foe?” cried the leader of the party.
“A friend!” coolly replied the other, “unless you are prepared to tell me that the days are past when a MacIntyre may claim hospitality from a MacDonell.”
“The day can never come when a MacIntyre shall not be welcome to a MacDonell,” replied the other. “Are they not but as a limb of the goodly pine stock of clan Conell? say, what wouldst thou here?”
“I am a wayfaring man,” answered the stranger, “and all I would ask is shelter and hospitality for an hour or twain, till this tempest blow by.” ”