and by emulation kept
up a good spirit among them all. When General Carleton, leaving his army
behind him, arrived in Quebec he found that Colonel Maclean had not only
withstood the assaults of the Americans but had brought order and system
out of chaos. In the final assault on the last day of the year, when the
brave General Montgomery fell, the Highlanders were in the midst of the
fray.

Many of the Americans were captured at this storming of Quebec. One of
them narrates that "January 4th, on the next day, we were visited by
Colonel Maclean, an old man, attended by other officers, for a peculiar
purpose, that is, to ascertain who among us were born in Europe. We had
many Irishmen and some Englishmen. The question was put to each; those
who admitted a British birth, were told they must serve his majesty in
Colonel Maclean's regiment, a new corps, called the emigrants. Our poor
fellows, under the fearful penalty of being carried to Britain, there to
be tried for treason, were compelled by necessity, and many of them did
enlist."[153]

Such men could hardly prove to be reliable, and it can be no
astonishment to read what Major Henry Caldwell, one of the defenders of
Quebec says of it:

"Of the prisoners we took, about 100 of them were Europeans, chiefly
from Ireland; the greatest part of them engaged voluntarily in Col.
McLean's corps, but about a dozen of them deserting in the course of
a month, the rest were again confined, and not released till the
arrival of the Isis, when they were again taken into the corps."[154]

Colonel Arnold despairing of capturing the town by assault, established
himself on the Heights of Abraham, with the intention of cutting off
supplies and blockading the town. In this situation he reduced the
garrison to great straits, all communication with the country being cut
off. He erected batteries and made several attempts to get possession of
the lower town, but was foiled at every point by the vigilance of
Colonel Maclean. On the approach of spring, Colonel Arnold, despairing
of success, raised the siege.

The battalion remained in the province of Canada during the war, and was
principally employed in small, but harrassing enterprises. In one of
these, Captain Daniel Robertson, Lieutenant Hector Maclean, and Ensign
Archibald Grant, with the grenadier company, marched twenty days through
the woods with no other direction than the compass, and an Indian guide.
The object bein