Sir James Craig was an officer of good family. He was one of the Craigs of Dalnair and Costarton, in Scotland, but was born in Gibraltar, where his father had the appointment of Civil and Military Judge. He had seen much service in the camp and in the field. In 1770 he was appointed Aid-de-Camp to General Sir Robert Boyd, then Governor of Gibraltar, and obtained a Company in the 47th Regiment of the line. Having gone to America, with his regiment, in 1774, he was present at the battle of Bunker's Hill, where he was severely wounded. In 1776, he accompanied his regiment to Canada, commanding his company at the action at Trois Rivieres, and he afterwards commanded the advanced guard in the expulsion of Arnold and his "rebels." He was wounded at Hubertown, in 1777, and was present at Ticonderoga in the same year. He was wounded again at Freeman's Farm, and was at Saratoga with Burgoyne, and after that disastrous affair was selected to carry home the despatches. On his arrival in England, he was promoted to a majority in the 82nd Regiment, which he accompanied to Nova Scotia, in 1778, to Penobscot, in 1779, and to North Carolina, in 1781, where he was engaged in a continued scene of active service. He was promoted to the rank of Major General, in 1794, and the following year was sent on the expedition to the Cape of Good Hope, where, in the reduction and conquest of that most important settlement, with the co-operation of Admiral Sir G. K. Elphinstone and Major General Clarke, he attained to the highest pitch of military reputation. Nor were his merits less conspicuous, it is said, in the admirable plans of civil regulation, introduced by him in that hostile quarter, when invested with the chief authority, civil and military, till succeeded in that position by the Earl of Macartney, who was deputed by the King to invest General Craig with the Red Ribbon, as a mark of his sovereign's sense of his distinguished services. Sir James served, subsequently, in India and in the Mediterranean, where he contracted a dropsy, the result of an affection of the liver. This was the officer, of an agreeable but impressive presence, stout, and rather below the middle stature, manly and dignified in deportment, positive in his opinions, and decisive in his measures, though social, polite, and affable, who was sent out to govern Canada because a rupture with the United States was considered probable. Sir James on arrival at Quebec did not, however, consider hostilities imminent. Nor did he immediately organize the militia. But he lauded the Canadians for the heroic spirit which they had manifested. One of his first acts was to release from prison a number of persons convicted of insubordination, and sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment in the gaol of Montreal. The militia of the parish of L'Assomption, in the district of Montreal, had formed a painful exception in the spirit which they exhibited on being called upon to enrol for service, to that which had been