Re: First Arrivals & Gen Arthur St. Clair

["St.Clair" <hstclair@pacbell.net>]

Laurel,
    I would like to add my comment that I always enjoy your articles and am
always impressed by your breadth and depth of information.
    I would be very interested to know what your source is for the comment in
this article that Gen. Arthur St.Clair pronounced his name Sinclair?

Thanks,  Hal St.Clair

Spirit One Email wrote:

> I am assuming that this list is just of first Sinclair arrivals to USA but
> maybe Canada is there too?
>
> I am puzzled about 2 things concerning Gen. St. Clair (pronounced Sinclair)
>
> How was it that he became a General so quickly?  Did he have previous
> military training or mercenary experience in Scotland?
>
> In the book "A Dance Called America"  I was struck by the fact that the
> usual pattern of immigrant Scots was to join the British side many times
> because they had been offered a commission in the English army.  It seemed
> to me that these Scots almost fresh from the defeat of Culloden  would have
> stayed enemies longer.  But now as I remember, they fought first with the
> English in the French and Indian war and were rewarded with lands in USA and
> Canada.  So they would have been a bit more sympathtic, I suppose, with
> their benefactors at that point in history.
>
> It was the Scots coming through Ireland or that had been here a few
> generations that usually made up the patriots.   I know this is a generality
> and the world abounds with exceptions but it seems like there might be more
> of a story about why he chose the American side.
>
> Laurel
>
> [ This is the Sinclair family discussion list, sinclair@mids.org
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