ingering all winter
in order to skulk out of danger; so he treated them with
extreme leniency in only putting them on duty as a 'company
of Invalids.' But the slur stuck fast. The only other
exceptions to the general efficiency were a very few
instances of cowardice and many more of slackness. The
militia order-books have repeated entries about men who
turned up late for even important duties as well as about
others whose authorized substitutes were no better than
themselves. But it should be remembered that, as a whole,
the garrison did exceedingly good service and that all
the malingerers and serious delinquents together did not
amount to more than a tenth of its total, which is a
small proportion for such a mixed body.

The effective strength at the beginning of the siege was
eighteen hundred of all ranks. Only one hundred of these
belonged to the regular British garrison in Canada--a
few staff-officers, twenty-two men of the Royal Artillery,
and seventy men of the 7th Royal Fusiliers, a regiment
which was to be commanded in Quebec sixteen years later
by Queen Victoria's father, the Duke of Kent. The Fusiliers
and two hundred and thirty 'Royal Emigrants' were formed
into a little battalion under Colonel Maclean, a first-rate
officer and Carleton's right-hand man in action. 'His
Majesty's Royal Highland Regiment of Emigrants,' which
subsequently became the 84th Foot, now known as the 2nd
York and Lancaster, was hastily raised in 1775 from the
Highland veterans who had settled in the American colonies
after the Peace of 1763. Maclean's two hundred and thirty
were the first men he could get together in time to reach
Quebec. The only other professional fighters were four
hundred blue-jackets and thirty-five marines of H.M.SS.
_Lizard_ and _Hunter_, who were formed into a naval
battalion under their own officers, Captains Hamilton
and McKenzie, Hamilton being made a lieutenant-colonel
and McKenzie a major while doing duty ashore. Fifty
masters and mates of trading vessels were enrolled in
the same battalion. The whole of the shipping was laid
up for the winter in the Cul de Sac, which alone made
the Lower Town a prize worth taking. The 'British Militia'
mustered three hundred and thirty, the 'Canadian Militia'
five hundred and forty-three. These two corps included
practically all the official and business classes in
Quebec and formed nearly half the total combatants. Some
of them took no pay and were not bound to