St. Clair is an honored name in history. First in Normandy, and after the eleventh century for many generations in Scotland, its possessors were men of wealth and a high order of intelligence, and were among the most prominent characters of the realm. They remained loyal to the crown through its varying fortunes, and when Scotland passed under the dominion of England, continued their allegiance to royalty. They showed a rare genius for military life. This bent of mind was characteristic of the St. Clair whose career in part is here briefly outlined. Arthur St. Clair, whose father was a younger son and possessed neither lands nor title, was born in the year 1734, in the town of Thurso in Caithness, Scotland. Thurso is a place of some 3,500 inhabitants, a quiet village lying to the north of Glasgow and Edinburgh, and close to the Atlantic seaboard. Its chief claim to fame no doubt rests upon having been the birthplace of one who became so prominent in American affairs, gave such valuable aid in securing American independence, and had so large a share in the formation and administration of the government of a considerable portion of the American people. To his father he owed little, to his mother much. Educated at the University of Edinburgh, his parents intended him for a professional career. At an early age he began the study of medicine, which, upon the death of his mother in 1757, he abandoned, and through influential friends obtained a commission as ensign in the second battalion of the Sixtieth Regiment of Foot, known as the Royal American Regiment. It consisted of four battalions of 1,000 men each. In 1758 Major-general Amherst was made colonel of this regiment, and commander-in chief of all the forces in America, and on the 28th day of May of the same year, arrived in Canada with his army. Thus came to the western world in the twenty-fourth year of his age, Arthur St. Clair, with the laudable ambition of making, if possible, a fortune, but certainly a good and honored name. His first lessons in the art of war were taken under the tuition of such veterans as Lawrence, Murray and Wolfe, the story of whose heroic deeds for English supremacy in Canada is familiar to every reader. In every position in which he was placed young St. Clair acquitted himself with rare bravery. He soon received a lieutenant’s commission, serving with distinction in the battle at the mouth of the Montmorency, and in the siege of Quebec, where Gen. Wolfe lost his life, but where the French, on the 8th day of September 1759, surrendered, and Canada became an English province, though articles of capitulation were not executed until nearly a year later.