In this biography of a certain Robert Patterson of Pictou County, Nova Scotia, it says the following:

During the American revolution Patterson, unlike most of the other settlers from America, favoured the British side. In his enthusiasm he attempted to arrest some of the disloyal inhabitants, and was warned off by threats of murder. When trying to reach Halifax for copies of the oath of allegiance which Governor Francis Legge had ordered everyone in the province to take, he was forced to return home by an armed American settler at Truro. Possibly Patterson had not spent enough time in the American colonies to be influenced by the revolutionary movement. It is more likely, however, that as a far-sighted businessman he perceived the opportunities for profitable trade if the colony remained in Britain’s good graces, and he was also well aware that the Highland Scots, the majority of Pictou’s inhabitants, were strongly pro-British. In recognition of his services he was made a captain of militia in 1783.

Why were the Highland Scots pro-British? This is suprising to me given the Jacobite Rising of 1745.