other became connected with the famous fur-trading
North-West Company. That he was at that time regarded as one of the
leading citizens is evident from the fact that he was selected for many
important and responsible civic duties. During the American Revolution
when Canada was invaded and General Guy Carleton withdrew all the troops
to Quebec and left Montreal to its fate, James McGill was one of those
who saw the folly and uselessness of resistance. He preferred to save
the city from unnecessary destruction and he was one of the twelve
citizens,--six French and six English,--who were selected to sign the
capitulation of the city to General Richard Montgomery on November 12th,
1775. His five associates were John Porteous, Richard Huntley, John
Blake, Edward Gray and James Finlay. On December 2nd, 1776, he married
Mrs. Marie Charlotte Guillemin, a French Roman Catholic lady, the widow
of a French Canadian gentleman, Joseph A. T. Desrivieres. The ceremony
was performed by the Rev. David Charbrand Delisle, Rector of the
Protestant Parish of Montreal and Chaplain of the Garrison. The Church
record reads:--"1776, James McGill, Esq., and Mrs. Charlotte Guillemin,
widow, were married by Licence the 2nd December, 1776." Mrs. James
McGill was born in Montreal in 1747, the daughter of William Guillemin
and Claire Genevieve Foucault. She married Joseph A. T. Desrivieres in
Montreal on the 19th of September, 1763, at the age of sixteen.

Soon after his arrival in Montreal James McGill acquired the Burnside
estate of forty-six acres, with the Burnside Manor, in which he resided
during the remainder of his life. He took into partnership, under the
name of "McGill and Todd," his friend, Isaac Todd, a man of keen
business ability and of civic prominence.

James McGill is described by his contemporaries as of "a frank and
social temperament," in figure "tall and commanding, handsome in youth
and becoming somewhat corpulent in his old age," and in his leisure time
"much given to reading." He was a prominent member of the Beaver Club,
the members of which were all fur-traders who had amassed considerable
wealth in their calling. A contemporary had a memory of him in jovial
mood at one of the festal meetings of this Club, "singing a voyageur's
folk-song with sonorous voice, and imitating, paddle in hand, in time
with the music, the action of the bowman of a canoe ascending a rapid."

Because of his pleasing personality, his prosperity and