History of the Scottish Regiments in the British Army

by Archibald K. Murray

Assembled and embodied at Fort George on the 10th July, 1793, the fine physical appearance of the regiment was very remarkable—a characteristic which it has been fortunate always to maintain.

Guernsey, one of the Channel Islands, was the scene of its earliest service on comparatively peaceful duty. Removed from thence, in 1794, to Holland, it ultimately joined the allied army, under the Duke of York, which vainly endeavoured to stem the tide of French aggression, then inundating the Netherlands, and bereaving these provinces of their ancient freedom. Engaged in the defence of Nimeguen, it contributed, by its excellent behaviour, to retard the progress of the enemy, whilst that fortress held out. Overwhelming might necessitated the evacuation of the place; the garrison in consequence retired with the army towards Germany. At Meteren our rearguard was overtaken by the advanced posts of the enemy, when a bloody action ensued. In the course of the fight the Seventy-eighth was charged by a regiment of French hussars, who, wearing a uniform similar to the regiment of Choiseul in the British service, and the better to deceive our troops, shouting as they advanced, “Choiseul! Choiseul!”—thus mistaken for friends—were permitted to penetrate our line, and were upon the Highlanders before their true character was discovered. Unmasked, in an instant the bold horsemen were met by a terrific volley of musketry, which, emptying many saddles, cooled the ardour of the assault, but could not arrest their progress. Piercing the intervals between the companies of the battalion, the cavalry furiously rushed upon the Highlanders, trampling them down, but, being warmly received, failed to overwhelm the gallant Seventy-eighth, whose firm, unflinching valour was very conspicuous, and altogether surprising from so young a corps in such trying circumstances. A column of infantry, which had witnessed the success of the cavalry, now advanced, big with high hopes, as they supposed, to complete the ruin of the British. Meanwhile the further career of the hussars had been stayed by the determined front of a company of the Forty-second Royal Highlanders, covering the village. Driven back in confusion upon the advancing infantry, both were finally repulsed, chiefly by the combined efforts of the Seventy-eighth and Forty-second Highlanders. The British resuming the retreat, retired to Bremen, whence they took shipping, and returned home. During this their maiden campaign, the Seventy-eighth was associated with the Seventy-ninth Cameron Highlanders and the Forty-second Royal Highlanders. The regiment was remarkable for its steadiness under fire, and its fortitude in enduring the hardships of a severe winter under canvas. On this occasion, too, a very melancholy and humbling testimony is borne by our foes to the prevailing sin of our British soldiers. The French, who had seduced the soldiers of the old monarchy by ministering to their evil appetites, sought by a like artifice to ruin our army; they accordingly bribed the infamous amongst the Dutch to sell liquors to our troops at a mere bagatelle, with a view to tempt them and intoxicate them. How truly lamentable to think that even then this national vice had acquired such a mastery, such a notoriety, as to be regarded by France as our weakness, and by the nation as our disgrace! Notwithstanding, we with pleasure record that the Seventy-eighth was faithful to its duty. Indeed, these seductions could not prevail against such a corps, whose history had ever been distinguished by sobriety; so much so, that while it was in India it was found necessary to restrict its soldiers from selling or giving away their own allowance of liquor to others.

Meanwhile a second battalion, raised in 1794, had sailed for, and participated in, an expedition against the Dutch colony of the Cape of Good Hope. After a brief struggle the colony was reduced and occupied by the British, the battalion remaining in the garrison.

The first battalion, with the army of Lord Moira, was engaged in a fruitless attempt to succour the Royalists of La Vendée, who yet withstood the ferocious assaults of the Republicans of Paris. Landing on the Isle Dieu, the expedition anxiously waited a favourable opportunity to gain a footing on the mainland. Alas! in vain. The time for action, frittered away, was not to be recalled. Returning to England, the battalion was embarked for Bengal. Calling on the way at the Cape of Good Hope, it was joined by the second battalion, and the two, consolidated into one regiment, proceeded to India. Arrived in February, 1797, nothing of importance falls to be recorded during its sojourn in the Bengal Presidency. Removed to Bombay in 1803, it joined the army of Major-General the Hon. Arthur Wellesley. With the Seventy-fourth Highlanders, the Eightieth Regiment, the Nineteenth Light Dragoons, and several native battalions, the Seventy-eighth advanced against the enemy—Scindia and the Rajah of Berar.

The strong fortress of Amednuggur was the first obstacle to be overcome in the line of march. For a while defended resolutely, the struggle was very severe, but the moment our Highlanders succeeded in scaling the high and narrow walls encircling it, to the enemy all seemed lost, defence appeared hopeless, and flight the only refuge. Thus this important conquest was achieved with comparatively little loss.

As in previous campaigns, so in the present, the business of the war seemed to be not so much to overcome but rather to overtake the enemy; who, sensible of his weakness in the field, strove to avoid the hazard of a battle, contenting himself with harassing our progress by a perplexing and incessant guerilla warfare. The persevering energy of the British commander was not, however, to be so duped of the prize he sought—the triumph he aspired to. By forced marches he overtook and surprised the foe by his unexpected presence on the banks of the Kaitna. Although not yet joined to the reinforcements at hand under Colonel Stevenson, from Bengal, and fearing the escape of the enemy under cover of the night, now approaching, the daring impetuosity of Wellesley at once ordered the attack. Reduced by detachments, the British army did not exceed 4,700 men, of whom the Seventy-fourth and Seventy-eighth Highlanders, and the Nineteenth Light Dragoons, were the only line regiments; whilst the Indian army, encamped in a strong position behind the almost dry channel of the Kaitna, occupied the village of Assaye, and presented a formidable array of 30,000 admirable troops, disciplined and led by European officers, the whole sustained by upwards of 100 guns. The Seventy-eighth occupied the left of the first line, whilst the Seventy-fourth, from the second line, ultimately took post on the right. But for the cowardly flight of the European officers commanding the Indian infantry, who abandoned their troops at the first onset, the resistance might have been far more formidable. The enemy’s artillery was admirably served, and galled the advance of the British line with a terrible fire, which was only silenced by the death of the gunners, bayoneted whilst faithfully and steadily fulfilling their duty. In the ultimate retreat, one brigade refused to yield, although repeatedly charged by our cavalry; maintaining its order and retiring fighting, preserved the defeat from becoming a disorderly rout. The struggle was the most severe, and the achievement the most glorious which had hitherto marked our Indian warfare; illustrating the determined valour of which the enemy was capable, whilst anew it honoured the prowess of our soldiers in the result.

Strengthened by Colonel Stevenson’s division, now arrived, including the old Ninety-fourth, or Scots Brigade, Major-General Wellesley continued to press the retiring foe, until, overtaken at Argaum, he made a brief stand. In the battle which ensued, whilst the Ninety-fourth occupied the left of the line, the Seventy-fourth and Seventy-eighth together upon the other flank, encountered the only considerable attack of the enemy; which, undertaken by a body of 800 furious fanatics, was sustained with exceeding valour, until the entire column had fallen before the veterans of Assaye. Notwithstanding the vigour of the assault, a very trifling loss was inflicted upon the British, and the enemy otherwise relinquished the field almost without a blow.

A quaint story is told by General Stewart of the piper of the Seventy-eighth, who, when the musicians were ordered at Assaye to attend to the wounded, esteeming himself included, had in consequence gone to the rear. This desertion his comrades attributed to fear, and the unfortunate piper, branded as a coward, felt the rebuke thus stingingly uttered: “Flutes and hautboys they thought could be well spared, but for the piper, who should always be in the heat of the battle, to go to the rear with the whistlers, was a thing altogether unheard of.” Bitterly sensible of the unmerited insult, he gladly availed himself of a favourable opportunity at the battle of Argaum to blot out the stigma and redeem his fame. He played with such animation amidst the hottest of the fire, that, not only restored to his comrades’ confidence, he entailed the commands of the colonel to be silent, lest the men so inspired should be urged too soon to the charge.

The war was soon after brought to a glorious termination by the fall of Gawilghur. Thereafter removed to Madras, the regiment remained in quietude till 1811, when, included in the army of Lieutenant-General Sir Samuel Auchmuty, it sailed with the expedition destined to operate against the valuable Dutch colony of Java. It required much severe fighting, especially at and around Cornelis—a very strong position, where the enemy, with concentrated might, maintained a resolute defence, only yielding when, with 1000 men killed, the post had become no longer tenable—ere the island was reduced. In this expedition the Seventy-eighth lost about 100 officers and men. Although the sword and the pestilence had each claimed its victims, still they failed to vanquish our Highlanders.

On the return voyage to India, a new enemy awaited the gallant Seventy-eighth, threatening even more fatal results—the sea, the ever-devouring sea. Six companies of the regiment which had embarked in the “Frances Charlotte,” transport, when twelve miles from the small island of Preparos, on the 5th November, 1816, struck upon a sunken rock. In this awful crisis, when the grim King of Terrors confronted our soldiers, and this living freight of brave men, women, and children, seemed about to be engulfed in a watery grave, amid the consternation and wild dismay inseparable from such a scene, the firm courage of our Highlanders sustained them equally as amid the roar and excitement of the battle-field. With heroic gallantry, the soldiers, caring for the weakness of woman and the helplessness of childhood, nobly hazarding, prepared to sacrifice their own lives that these might be saved, and so their duty fulfilled. Instances of manly courage and true heroism like these, tell us, in unequivocal language, that such are the fruit of no mere idle sentiment and flitting emotion, but the result of inborn, genuine character. Whilst the women and children were conveyed in boats to the island, the men crowded upon a small rocky islet, occasionally dry at low water, and situated about 150 yards from the wreck. The ship, full of water, soon after went to pieces, and disappeared beneath the waves. The miseries of the ship-wrecked, from hunger and thirst, were very grievous, and so cruel, that, although saved from becoming the prey of the sea, they seemed but preserved for a more terrible doom. The gaunt visage of famine appeared to torment the perishing multitude with the pangs of an unutterable woe, and every ray of hope seemed eclipsed by the lowering darkness of despair and the dismal shroud of the grave. But a merciful Providence was nearer to save. A vessel hove in sight, and, responding to the hail of the men on the rock, sent a boat to their aid, which took forty of the survivors on board, but by a strange, unaccountable want of feeling, sailed away without affording further assistance; leaving behind one of its own boats, which, gone on the mission of mercy, and whilst loading with a second instalment, had been upset by over-crowding. Fortunately, all escaped safely, scrambling back upon the rock. On the 10th of November, a large ship, the “Prince Blucher,” attracted by the vestiges of the wreck which had floated seaward across her course, was drawn towards the island, and embarking as many as possible, sailed for Calcutta; from whence, on news of the disaster, other vessels were immediately dispatched, which brought off in safety the remainder of the survivors, who had endured the severest pinchings of hunger with soldier-like stedfastness for upwards of a month upon the island. It is interesting to note how both the Seventy-fourth and Seventy-eighth Highlanders should thus have encountered the disasters of the deep, and in these vicissitudes evinced so worthily the qualities of the soldier and the hero.