r to write and return his Excellency's thanks to me for
my Loyalty and spirited offers of Service, but that he had not power
at that time to grant Commissions or raise any troops; however the
hint was improved and A proposal was Sent home to Government to raise
five Companies and I was in the meantime ordered to ingeage as many
men as I possibly Could, Accordingly I Left my own house on Staten
Island this same day year and travelled through frost snow & Ice all
the way to the Mohawk river, where there was two hundred Men of my
own Name, who had fled from the Severity of their Landlords in the
Highlands of Scotland, the Leading men of whom most Cheerfully agreed
to be ready at a Call, but the affair was obliged to be kept a
profound Secret till it was Known whether the government approved of
the Scheme and otherwise I could have inlisted five hundred men in a
months time, from thence I proceeded straight to Boston to know for
Certain what was done in the affair when General Gage asur'd me that
he had recommended it to the Ministry and did not doubt of its
Meeting with approbation. I Left Boston and went home to my own
house and was ingeaging as Many men as I Could of those that I
thought I could intrust but it was not possible to keep the thing
Long a Secret when we had to make proposals to five hundred men; in
the Mean time Coll McLean arrived with full power from Government to
Collect all the Highlanders who had Emigrated to America Into one
place and to give Every man the hundred Acres of Land and if need
required to give Arms to as many men as were Capable of bearing them
for His Majesty's Service. Coll McLean and I Came from New York to
Boston to know how Matters would be Settled by Genl Gage: it was then
proposed and Agreed upon to raise twenty Companies or two Battalions
Consisting of one Lt Colonl Commandant two Majors and Seventeen
Captains, of which I was to be the first or oldest Captain and was
confirmed by Coll McLean under his hand Writeing."[152]

At the time of the beginning of hostilities a large number of
Highlanders were on their way from Scotland to settle in the colonies.
In some instances the vessels on which were the emigrants, were boarded
from a man-of-war before their arrival. In some families there is a
tradition that they were captured by a war vessel. Those who did arrive
were induced partly by threats and p