We cannot help expressing our gratification at being able to present our readers with a group of authentic steel portraits of four of the most eminent Colonels of the Black Watch. That of the first Colonel, John, Earl of Crawford, is from the original in the possession of the Earl of Crawford and Balcarres, at Haigh Hall, Wigan. The Earl is represented in a Russian or Hungarian dress. That of Sir George Murray, so long and intimately associated with the regiment, is from an original painting by H. W. Pickersgill, R.A. The portrait of Sir John Macdonald, his successor, is taken from the original in possession of Mrs Burt, Edinburgh: And that of the present brave and much respected Colonel, Sir Duncan Alexander Cameron, from a photograph taken expressly for this work; and Sir Duncan’s modest reluctance, we ought to say, to allow his portrait to be published, was not easily overcome.
Here may we fitly end the story of the brave Black Watch, which nearly a century and a half ago was originated not far from Perth by the chivalry of the North. In these later days of rapid advance in military science, when the blind enthusiasm of our forefathers is spoken lightly of, have the highest military authorities come to the conclusion, after much discussion and cogitation, that it is wise after all to give way occasionally to sentiment; and thus have they been led to assign to the old Black Watch, after a glorious but chequered career, a permanent recruiting home in the country of its birth, not many miles from the spot where it was first embodied.
SUCCESSION LISTS OF COLONELS, FIELD AND STAFF OFFICERS, &c.
COLONELS.
John, Earl of Crawford, 25th October 1739.
Hugh Lord Sempill, 14th January 1741.
Lord John Murray, 25th April 1745.
Sir Hector Munro, K.B., 1st June 1787.
George, Marquis of Huntly, 3d January 1806.