The Eighty-Seventh, or Keith’s Highlanders; and
The Eighty-Eighth, or Campbell’s Highlanders.
These so seasonably impressed the enemy with the might of Scottish valour, that it is alleged the French so magnified the numbers of our Highlanders as to imagine our army contained twelve instead of two battalions of kilted warriors. A French officer, lamenting his own little stature and wishing he had been a six-foot grenadier, is reported to have become quite reconciled with himself, “when,” as he expresses it, “he had seen the wonders performed by the little mountaineers.” One of the journals of the day has this curious account of our Highlanders:—“They are a people totally different in their dress, manners, and temper from the other inhabitants of Great Britain. They are caught in the mountains when young, and still run with a surprising degree of swiftness. As they are strangers to fear, they make very good soldiers when disciplined.” Accustomed to regard retreat as equivalent to defeat, as something cowardly, it was with great reluctance our mountaineers yielded obedience to such commands.
The Eighty-Ninth, or Duke of Gordon’s Highlanders,
was raised by His Grace, upon his extensive estates, in 1759, and was destined for service in India. Also, raised in 1760,
The Hundred-and-First, or Johnstone’s Highlanders.
These, with other Highland corps, were disbanded on the conclusion of the war in 1763, but not without having won the nation’s confidence—deserving well of the country, whose gratitude followed them.
A few years later and a new American war burst forth, intensified in its virulence by its civil character. In the attempts made to suppress the rebellion of the colonists the old Highland brigade, re-assembled, was highly distinguished.
Sir Simon Fraser of Lovat, who had already shown his forwardness in raising the clans in 1757 and ranging them in regiments in defence of the State, now restored to the patrimony which the rebellion of his predecessor had forfeited, was again the first to gather around him a regiment of clansmen, known as
The Seventy-First, or Fraser’s Highlanders.