Scottish.
John Maclaine was the son of Murdoch Maclaine (1736-1804), the 19th laird of Lochbuie, Isle of Mull and Jane [nee Campbell] (c.1765-1824) [elder sister of Elizabeth Macquarie].

In 1808, when John Macclaine was 16 years of age, Colonel Lachlan Macquarie acquired an ensigncy for his young relative in the 73rd. As a consequence, when the Macquaries travelled to Australia in 1809 John Maclaine he accompanied his aunt and uncle on board the storeship Dromedary.

Maclaine became a constant member of the governor's inner circle of associates and accompanied the Macquaries during their visits to Van Diemen's Land and Newcastle in 1811-1811. In 1812, when Captain Henry Antill was promoted to brigade-major, Macquarie made John Maclaine his new aide-de-camp. However the young man's intemperate behaviour and impulsiveness were a constant source of embarrassment to the governor. Firstly, Macquarie was forced to pay £300 to clear Maclaine's debts; and then, in February 1813, Maclaine broke his arm when he fell from the mast of a ship during a drunken party.

However, when the 46th Regiment arrived in NSW in 1814 to replace the 73rd Regiment, John Maclaine was not one of those officers posted for duty in Ceylon. Macquarie had made arrangements for his nephew to depart for England on board the brig James Hay [on 30 May 1814] carrying official despatches to Lord Bathurst. By July 1815 Maclaine was in Paris celebrating the defeat of Napoleon's army at Waterloo on 18 June. (At this stage it is unclear why Maclaine was not with his regiment at Quatre Bras or Waterloo). Maclaine embarked for Ceylon from Gravesend on 19 September 1816 on board the Wellington with three other officers of the 73rd Regiment: Major James Vallance, Captain Loftus Owen and Ensign Mark Lidwill.

Almost all the surviving contemporary sources that refer to Maclaine draw attention to his high spirits and impulsive behaviour. Consequently, it comes as no small surprise to learn that following his posting to Uva Province in late 1817, and his prominent role and notoriety in the brutal suppression of the uprising against British authority in this region, that John Maclaine was killed while leading a detachment of men of the 73rd Regiment through heavy jungle terrain east of Badulla.

His commanding officer, Lt. Col. Maurice O'Connell, clearly believed that Maclaine was a victim of his own folly in disregarding the advice of more experienced men in the regiment that he avoid exposing himself to enemy fire. John Maclaine, by riding on horseback, made an easy target for his Kandyan opponents who were concealed in the dense foliage, and he died instantly from a single shot to the head on 13 January 1818. It would be left to Lachlan Macquarie to write to his sister-in-law Jane advising her that her son had been killed in the southern highlands of Sri Lanka.

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