After giving this advice, Allan himself set out to show what could be done by raiding the loyal settlers on the River St.John.This expedition was not very successful, and Colonel Allan was glad to get back to Maine, and take up the duties of his new position as Superintendent of the Eastern Indians.He made Machias his headquarters, and to the end of his life, which came in the year 1805, he remained a resident of the State of Maine.
Beamish Murdoch, the historian of Nova Scotia, in a letter to a relative of Colonel John Allan, says: "If the traditions I have heard about John Allan are correct, he could not have been much over twenty-one years old in 1775.As he had no New England ancestors, his escapade must be attributed to ambition, romance, or pure zeal for what he thought was just and right.For the feelings against the Crown in Nova Scotia in 1775 were confined to the Acadian French, who resented the conquest, the Indians who were attached to them by habit and creed, and to the settlers who were emigrants from New England."Mr.Murdoch was mistaken in the age of Allan.John Allan was born in Edinburgh Castle at about "half after one" of the clock, on January 3rd, 1746 (O.S.), and was baptized on the 5th by Mr.Glasgow.He thus must have been in his 30th year when he joined the Eddy rebels.
After Colonel Eddy's interview with Colonel Allan in Machias Bay, he pushed on to Cumberland, and landed in Petitcodiac.His little army had increased considerably since he left Machias.At the mouth of the Petitcodiac River he stationed a small force to watch for any reinforcements that might be coming to Fort Cumberland.With the main body of his followers he started overland for Chignecto, after he had supplied his commissariat from the loyal settlers along the river.
They crossed the Memramcook well up to the head of that river, and took a straight course for Point Midgic.Then going through the woods above the Jolicure Lakes, they came to the home of Colonel Allan, in Upper Point de Bute.Mrs.Allan and her children were still there, and there was no disposition on the part of the inhabitants of Jolicure to interfere in any measure against the rebels.