The gallant deeds of the Highland regiments in every quarter of the globe added to the general enthusiasm for Caledonians. It was long, indeed, before the English government would believe that they could be trusted. To have armed the Highlanders about the beginning of the last century, would have been deemed as much an act of insanity as to arm at the present hour the New Zealand Maoris. Scottish men were known to be under the control of their chiefs, and their chiefs, almost to a man, were devoted to the Pretender. No wonder, then, that the government hesitated before accepting their services; it was not till 1730—only one hundred and thirty years ago—that the first experiment was made. Six companies of Highlanders were then raised, each company being independent of the other. They were known as the Il Reicudan Dhu, or Black Watch, to distinguish them from the Seideran Dearag, or Red Soldiers. They derived their names from the colour of their clothes; the regular soldiers wore scarlet, as they do now, while the Highland companies retained their sombre tartan. There was no lack of men: gentlemen of good family were proud to serve as privates under their native officers; for the whole country had been disarmed, and this indignity was deeply felt by a race who, even in times of peace, never went forth without dirk or claymore. The cadets of good families were proud to serve, if only in the ranks, because they were thus entitled to bear arms; and to carry a weapon was regarded as a proof that the bearer was a gentleman. The pay privates received was small to a degree, yet poverty was so universal that the pittance they took from government was not to be despised. They were stationed in small parties over the country, and seem to have discharged the same duties as are intrusted to the rural police at the present day. In 1739 four additional companies were raised, and the whole were formed into a regiment of the line. Such was the origin of the first Highland regiment in the service—the gallant 42nd, still known as the Black Watch.
It would be foreign to our purpose to trace the origin and history of all the Highland regiments. That task has already been ably performed by General Stewart, of Garth, who served for many years in the 78th Highlanders, and was appointed governor of the island of Tobago, in the West Indies, where he died. It is somewhat singular that Macaulay appears to have been ignorant of this work, which contains far more valuable information regarding the Highlands than is to be found in “Burt’s Letters.” General Stewart’s book is now almost forgotten; it is rarely to be met with, save in the libraries of country gentlemen in the North, whose forefathers figure in its pages. But it deserves a better fate. No writer has ever possessed a keener insight into the manners and customs of the warlike race whom he was proud to hail as his countrymen, or has described them in peace and in war with a more graphic pen. By birth a Highlander, by profession a soldier, he mingled freely with his clansmen, spoke their language, and had ample opportunities of witnessing their courage in every quarter of the globe. His “Military Annals” read like a romance; they have all the charm of novelty, because they present us with a picture of manners and feelings that have now died out.
“The simple system of primeval life—
Simple but stately—hath been broken down;
The clans are scattered, and the chieftain power
Is dead.”
It may be said with equal truth that our Highland regiments are dead; they live only in name. We have regiments composed chiefly of Scotchmen, but there are few Highland soldiers of pure Celtic origin. The Highlands must have been far more populous than they now are, or they never could have raised eighty-six regiments, including local corps, in the course of the four wars in which this country was engaged after 1740. Most of these regiments were formed between 1778 and 1809, and altogether they must have included in their ranks, from first to last, as many as 70,000 or 80,000 men. Some of them were raised before the American rebellion, and Lord Chatham takes credit to himself for having been the first to recognise their invaluable qualities in war.—“I sought for merit wherever it was to be found. It is my boast that I was the first minister who looked for it and found it in the mountains of the North. I called it forth, and drew into your service a hardy and intrepid race of men, who, when left by your jealousy, became a prey to the artifice of your enemies, and had gone nigh to have overturned the state in the war before the last. These men in the last war were brought to combat on your side; they served with fidelity, and they fought with valour, and conquered for you in every part of the world.”
There is no exaggeration in this, and the minister is entitled to all the credit he claims. He knew that a race so warlike and restless would prove a source of constant danger, unless those qualities were turned to some profitable account, and it was a wise and liberal policy to employ them in defence of that throne which they had recently almost overturned. The old feeling of clanship was retained; the chiefs and their kinsmen received commissions, and their clansmen were proud to rally around them. Every gentleman of good birth who could raise a hundred men was appointed captain; those who could bring only twenty or thirty ranked as subalterns. Sometimes a little pressure was used by the chiefs, but generally the men were ready to serve. The regiments thus raised were composed almost exclusively of Highlanders. Gaelic was spoken alike by officers and men, and chaplains familiar with the mountain tongue were appointed to every regiment. Gentlemen who could not obtain commissions at once were content to serve in the ranks till vacancies occurred. Two men of gentle birth, privates in the Black Watch, were presented to George II. in 1743. “They performed,” says the Westminster Journal, “the broadsword exercise, and that of the Lochaber axe or lance, before his Majesty, the Duke of Cumberland, Marshal Wade, and a number of general officers assembled for the purpose in the great gallery of St. James’s. They displayed so much dexterity and skill in the management of their weapons as to give perfect satisfaction to his Majesty. Each got a gratuity of one guinea, which they gave to the porter at the palace gate as they went out,” and this, not that they were dissatisfied with the gift, or that their purses were over-well plenished, but they could not have accepted money without forfeiting their own respect and their position as gentlemen.
Now it did sometimes happen that men not of the Highland race were smuggled into these Highland regiments. For example, two gentlemen, anxious to obtain commissions in the Black Watch, and unable to find the requisite number of men among their own countrymen, enlisted eighteen Irishmen at Glasgow. Some of them were O’Donnels, O’Lachlans, and O’Briens, and as such would have been at once rejected by Lord John Murray, the colonel, who would accept none but Highland recruits. The two ingenious gentlemen got over the difficulty by changing Patrick O’Donnel, O’Lachlan, and O’Brien into Donald Macdonnel, Maclachlan, and Macbriar, under which names they were enrolled in the regiment without any suspicion of their nationality. The Lowland Scotch seldom thought of entering these regiments. When the battle of Fontenoy was fought, there was not a soldier in the Black Watch born south of the Grampians, and only two of the Milesian Highlanders were alive. So high was the reputation of the regiment that it could always obtain more Highland recruits than were required. The bounty was a guinea and a crown; but not gold attracted the young mountaineers: they were led to enlist by the thirst of glory and the honour of belonging to a regiment which had already covered itself with fame on many a hard-fought field. So late as 1776, when the Black Watch embarked for service in America, it still retained its strictly national character: all the officers but two were Highlanders, while among the privates we find 931 Highlanders, 74 Lowland Scotch, 5 Englishmen (in the band), 1 Welshman, and 2 Irishmen. This distinctive formation held till 1779, when an attempt was made to destroy the exclusively Highland character of the regiment by drafting into it a body of 150 recruits, the sweepings of the gaols of London and Dublin. The 42nd had hitherto borne a high reputation; the conduct of the men had been exemplary; corporal punishment almost unknown. The commanding officer remonstrated against the admission of these recruits, of whom 16 died during the voyage to America, and 75 others found their way to hospital on landing. The government yielded to his remonstrances: the recruits were drafted into the 26th Regiment in exchange for the same number of Scotchmen. The introduction of the representatives of Richard Cameron into the Black Watch was attended with the worst consequences: flogging and like punishments became more frequent; and the men, accustomed to these degrading spectacles, lost that fine sense of honour which had hitherto distinguished them.