*

August 1759. But this priority extended only to the date of the commissions. While the Sutherland men flocked round the standard of Morar Chattu, much in the same manner as a Highland clan of old assembled round their chief, it was more than three months before the ranks of the Argyle regiment were completed to 1,000 men.

It has been said, that, although the gentlemen of Argyleshire have always shown a strong predilection for a military life, the common people are more inclined to the naval service. The reason assigned is the insular nature of the country, and the number of inlets of the sea, which run far up and intersect the country; thus accustoming them, from their youth, to seafaring habits. If there be any foundation for this remark in the case of the Argyleshire-men, it does not extend to the northern isles of Ross-shire and Invernessshire, nor to the mainland districts, which are in a manner inclosed by arms of the sea. No people in the north are better or more willing soldiers than those of the Isles of Skye, Lewis, &c., † or the men of Kintail, and similar districts on the mainland, which are so much indented by deep bays and salt water lakes, as to be almost surrounded by them, and to assume a peninsular form. But, whether the common people be more inclined to the sea than the land service, there can be only one opinion as to the military disposition of the gentlemen of Argyle, and the chieftain-like and paternal support they have always received from their chief and protector. Of thirty-seven officers in the Argyle regiment, twenty-two were of the name of Campbell.

This regiment consisted of 1,000 men, and was quartered

The name of Sutherland is unknown in the Gaelic. The Highlanders call that country Chattu, and Lord Sutherland Morar Chattu.

† In the Island of Lewis, Lord Seaforth's estate alone furnished 732 men for one regiment (Seaforth Highlanders) in the first twelve years of the late war. In like manner, upwards of 1,600 men enlisted in the Isle of Skye and North Uist for the regiments of the line and fencibles; and more than 2,000 men entered for the regular militia, volunteers, and local militia, of the same Isles and Rasay.

in different parts of Scotland till the peace of 1768, when it was reduced.

SUTHERLAND.

1759.

WHILE Scotland, at this period, sent forth many able and active soldiers, to fight the battles and support the honour of their country abroad, its internal defence was not neglected. County militia regiments had been recently established in England, but this measure was not extended to Scotland. National jealousies still existed, and it was imagined that the people could not yet be safely trusted with arms. A mode of embodying troops, somewhat different from the militia, was therefore had recourse to; and thus the system of Fencible regiments commenced. The officers were to be appointed, and their commissions signed, by the King, while the men were to be raised by recruiting in the common manner, and not by ballot in the particular counties, as in the case of the militia. The influence of individuals supplied the place of compulsion. Property, rank, or personal consideration and character, recommended the leaders to their followers. In the front of Scottish Chiefs and Landlords stood the late Earl of Sutherland, who, by his personal accomplishments and amiable disposition, possessed in the hearts and affections of his adherents a great and powerful influence, in addition to that which he enjoyed from hereditary succession and great property.

The reciprocal duties of protection and obedience were then acknowledged and observed, and the common interests of chieftain and clansmen had not as yet been diminished by considerations of political expediency, or private emolument. The chief was satisfied with that species of dominion, the power of surrounding himself by a contented and attached te

nantry, and of influencing the mind and the will; whilst the clansmen were happy in acknowledging the kindness of their chiefs, not only by a complete devotion to their service, but by giving such value for the territorial possessions they held, and paying such rents for their lands, as enabled the noblemen and gentlemen of the Highlands to support with dignity and independence an honourable station in general society. In what manner the poor, but hardy and economical tenantry of the north enabled the great chiefs and lairds to support their independence, preserve their estates, and convey them from father to son for so many centuries, is evident from the remarkable circumstance, that, in no part of the kingdom, containing an equal number of inhabitants, have families and estates been so long preserved as in the Highlands, where, as I have already noticed, the heirs of eighteen chiefs who fought at Bannockburn, in 1314, are at this day in possession of their estates. The Chief of Sutherland had the honour of bearing a part in that great battle, which may be said to have fixed the independence of Scotland as a nation. Waterloo and Bannockburn were similar in the desperate valour displayed, and similar in their results. As the former sealed the destiny of Buonaparte, so Bannockburn destroyed the hopes of a proud invader, and established the independence of Scotland on a foundation which kept it firm, till the Union with a more powerful kingdom rendered the independence of the one inseparable from the other.

In the year 1759 the Earl of Sutherland received proposals from Mr Pitt to raise a Fencible regiment on his estate. The offer was readily accepted, and in nine days after his Lordship arrived in Sutherland with his letters of service, 1,100 men were assembled on the lawn before Dunrobin Castle. The martial appearance of those men, when they marched into Perth in May 1760, with the Earl of Sutherland at their head, was never forgotten by those who saw them, and who never failed to express admiration of their fine military air. Some old friends of mine, who often saw

these men in Perth, spoke of them with a kind of enthusiasm. Considering the abstemious habits, or rather the poverty of the Highlanders, the size and muscular strength of the people are remarkable. In this corps there was no light infantry company; upwards of 260 men being above five feet eleven inches in height, they were formed into two grenadier companies, one on each flank of the battalion.

On the peace of 1763, the regiment was marched back to Sutherland, and there reduced in the month of May, with this honourable distinction in the course of their short service, that, in a regiment of 1,050 men, no restrictions had been required, and no man had been punished; and, as they had assembled as a corps, with the primitive habits of a pastoral life, so they separated with these habits unchanged, and had the happiness of returning to their native glens without a single individual from the mountains having disgraced his corps, kindred, or district. These facts I have received from the best authority; from officers who served in the regiment, from soldiers, and from intelligent and respectable gentlemen, who saw the regiment in quarters, who were intimate with many of the officers, and who had great pleasure in talking of and describing the height, strength, and fine military appearance of these men, and their peaceable domiciliated habits in quarters.

ARGYLE,

OR

WESTERN FENCIBLE REGIMENT.

1778.

It was not till the third year of the American War, that Government ordered Fencible regiments to be raised for the

internal defence of the country, and to relieve the regiments of the line from this duty, and increase the number of disposable troops for service abroad. One of the

first corps of this description in the kingdom was raised, under the influence of the Duke of Argyll, in 1759; and, in 1778, the first Fencible regiment was raised by Lord Fre derick Campbell, a son of that family. Archibald Earl of Eglinton, who had been so active a partisan, and had proved himself so able and high-spirited an officer when he commanded his regiment of Highlanders in America during the Seven Years' War, applied at the same time for permission to raise a regiment of Fencible Highlanders; but it was not thought expedient that two regiments of Fencibles should be raised in the West Highlands, as it might interfere too much with the recruiting for the line. It was therefore determined that only one corps should be raised in the West; and Lord Eglinton having got the appointment of the officers of two companies, Mr Montgomery of Coilsfield, afterwards Earl of Eglinton, was appointed major, and the late Earl of Glencairn captain; the other companies being filled up from Argyleshire, in which, and in other parts of the Highlands, 700 men were recruited: the rest were from Glasgow and the south-west of Scotland. This regiment was embodied at Glasgow in April 1778. Both officers and men were animated with more than ordinary zeal and spirit, which were kept in full activity by Colonel Montgomery and Major Campbell of Melford, who commanded the regiment alternately in the absence of the colonel and lieutenant-colonel, Lord Frederick Campbell and Sir James Campbell of Ardkinglas, who were occasionally employed on other duties. Part of this spirit was exhibited in a voluntary offer of the corps to extend their services to any part of the world where their country required them; having thus had the honour of setting an example which has since been frequently followed by regiments whose service was limited to the immediate defence of their native country. Besides this patriotic offer, the corps exhibited another