As river navigation was closed for the winter, word reached Montreal overland via New York City, when a ball being hosted by Samuel Gerrard was interrupted by a messenger.

Gerrard immediately went down to the Exchange Coffee House to publicly relay the news, while proposing that a monument be built to honour both Nelson's memory and his victory over Napoleon's fleet.

[3] A number of people subscribed on the spot and a subscription list was left open in the Old Court House, where over the following weeks further names were added.

The Chateau burned down in 1803 and the space formerly occupied by the gardens had been turned into a public square, known as New Market Place, before being renamed for Jacques Cartier in 1847.

William Gilmore, a local stonemason who had contributed £7 towards its construction, was then hired to assemble its seventeen parts and the foundation base was laid on 17 August 1809.

Another speaker, Henri Césaire Saint-Pierre, claimed that the original idea had been a French-Canadian one, as suggested by 'Girard', referring to Samuel Gerrard, who was in fact an Anglo-Irishman.

Four decades later in 1930, French-Canadian inhabitants of Montreal erected a statue of French Navy officer Jean Vauquelin in a nearby city square (which was subsequently named after him) in response to the continued presence of the monument.