OUR HIGHLAND REGIMENTS—_continued_.
The Macraes, as we have already said, had never attained to the dignity
of a clan; they were a sort of _caterans_ or pilfering tinkers, who had
found it convenient to place themselves under the protection of the chief
of the Mackenzies. It appears that Seaforth had no particular liking
for his pilfering _protégés_, and deemed this a favourable opportunity
for getting quit of them. It is a fact not generally known that our
Highland regiments have often obtained their best recruits from the
fraternity of _cairds_ or _caterans_. About half a century ago the whole
of the North of Scotland was infested with these marauders, who, under
the guise of mendicancy, levied contributions on the inhabitants of the
rural districts, and lived a jovial, careless life. They were present
at every marriage feast and merry-making, where the broken meat became
their perquisite; sometimes they devoured the feast itself, and left the
guests to shift for themselves. There was no rural constabulary in those
days to keep them in check, and these Ishmaelites did very much whatever
they chose. They were unrivalled in wrestling, single-stick, and every
athletic sport; they were the best dancers on the village green; they
could do everything but work or settle down to any fixed employment.
They were essentially a nomadic race, ever on the move, sleeping by
night in country barns, starting with the earliest dawn, and levying
their contributions from door to door. We remember a gang of _caterans_
or _cairds_ who frequented the county of Aberdeen more years ago than
we should like to tell. They all bore the family name of Young, and
belonged to the same sept. One of them—Peter Young—was a great thief,
and made himself almost as notorious as Jack Sheppard by breaking out
of every gaol in Scotland. These _caterans_ came to a singular end, and
disappeared from the country. This is how it happened.
The 92nd or Gordon Highlanders had suffered much in the Peninsular
War, so that constant drafts had to be sent out from home to recruit
their strength. When all other resources failed, the country gentlemen
bethought themselves of an ingenious plan by which they could at once
fill up the vacant ranks in the 92nd, and get quit of some unpleasant
neighbours. They caused all the able-bodied _cairds_ to be seized and
conveyed to the neighbouring seaport, where they were shipped off to join
the 92nd. Such a thing, of course, could not be done at the present day,
but strange things were done half a century ago in Scotland as elsewhere.
Many a man who had no desire to be a sailor or a soldier was impressed or
forced to serve in the army or navy against his will. This impressment
of the Youngs proved the death-blow of the race. Not one of them ever
returned from the Peninsula, but we have heard old pensioners of the 92nd
declare that they were at once the greatest thieves and the smartest
soldiers in the regiment.
The wild Macraes seem to have been men of much the same stamp as the
Youngs, and Seaforth doubtless had his own reasons for wishing to get
quit of them. These _caterans_ were as much attached to their native
land as if they had been the possessors of countless acres; they were
their own masters, and had tasted the sweets of liberty. Seaforth knew
that he could never persuade such men to enlist for foreign service,
but he had sufficient influence to induce them to serve for a limited
period at home, or rather to join the 78th on that understanding. It was
only on reaching Leith that they discovered that they were intended for
service in the East Indies, when symptoms of disaffection appeared among
them. The report spread that Seaforth had sold them to the government.
Loud complaints were heard that they had been cheated of their pay
and bounty money. The wild Macraes were not the men tamely to submit
to such injuries, and the stinging sense of wrong was intensified
by the representations of certain parties hostile to the government
of the day. Their slumbering discontent broke forth into open mutiny
on receiving orders to embark; they absolutely refused to do so, and
marched out of Leith with pipes playing, and two plaids fixed on poles
instead of colours. On reaching Arthur’s Seat—the beautiful hill which
overlooks Edinburgh, and is familiar to every tourist who has visited
the North—they encamped on its summit, and remained there for several
days. Though in a state of open mutiny, they respected the property
of the citizens, and conducted themselves with so much propriety that
public sympathy was excited in their favour, especially among the lower
classes, who supplied them abundantly with provisions. The authorities
deemed it more prudent to inquire into their grievances than to attempt
to reduce them by force. After much negotiation they professed themselves
satisfied, and marched back to their quarters at Leith with pipes playing
and Seaforth at their head.
After serving for some time in the Channel Islands, they embarked in
March, 1781, for the East Indies. Seaforth died during the voyage, before
he reached St. Helena, and his death had such a depressing effect upon
the men, that no less than 230 of them died before they reached India.
They took part in all the different battles which were fought till the
conclusion of peace in 1783, when, in terms of their agreement with
government, they had a right to return home. Few of the Macraes lived to
revisit their native land; most of them had died during the voyage, or
succumbed to the fatal effects of the enervating climate. Only 300 of the
men remained in India; but these, reinforced by volunteers from other
regiments returning home, and by a detachment of 200 recruits from the
North, were formed into a new regiment, which has ever since been known
as the 72nd, or Duke of Albany’s Own Highlanders.
[Illustration: The March of the Wild Macraes to Arthur’s Seat.]
A similar mutiny, proceeding from the same causes, broke out in the 81st,
or Aberdeenshire Highland Regiment, in 1783. This regiment was raised in
1778 by the Hon. Colonel William Gordon, of Fyvie, a son of the Earl of
Aberdeen by his third wife, a daughter of the Duke of Gordon. She was a
sister of that Lord Lewis Gordon who took part in the rebellion of 1745,
and whose absence from home is lamented in a charming Jacobite song which
is still popular in the North. It is related of her that she took her
stand close to the road by which the Duke of Cumberland and his army were
marching south after the victory of Culloden, holding her infant son in
her arms. Judging by her portrait, which we have seen, she must have been
a very beautiful woman; and the duke, struck by her appearance, said,
with his usual coarse bluntness, “Who are you?” The countess drew herself
up to her full height, and looking him steadily in the face, boldly
answered, “I am the sister of Lord Lewis Gordon.” Cumberland turned
aside his head and passed on. The Earl of Aberdeen was well advanced in
years when he married her, and it was agreed that the property of Fyvie
should be settled on her or her offspring after his death. The Hon.
William Gordon, who was the eldest son by this marriage, succeeded to
the property, and rose to the rank of colonel in the service. In March,
1777, he received letters of service to raise a Highland regiment in
his native county, and it was embodied in 1778 under the name of the
81st, or Aberdeenshire Highland Regiment. Its strength when first raised
was 980 men, 650 of whom belonged to the Highlands of Aberdeenshire; a
very large proportion were members of the clan Ross, the chief of which
is James Ross Farquharson of Invercauld, a lieutenant-colonel in the
Scots Fusilier Guards. The regiment marched to Stirling, and soon after
embarked for Ireland, where it spent three years. In 1782 it was removed
to Portsmouth, and received orders to embark for the East Indies. These
orders were in direct violation of their terms of enlistment, which were
the same as those of the Athole Highlanders, and the men, having agreed
to serve till the conclusion of peace, the preliminaries of which were
now settled, refused to embark, and claimed their discharge. They were,
doubtless, encouraged to take this step by the example of the Athole
Highlanders, and the success which had attended their assertion of their
rights. The government, deeming it useless to attempt to reduce them by
force, yielded to their demands, and sent them to Edinburgh, where they
were disbanded in 1783. There is a tradition in the county that this
mutiny was owing more to the cruelty of their colonel than the injustice
of government. Few of them belonged to his own clan, and he treated them
with a harshness to which the proud spirit of the Highlanders would not
tamely submit. We have met with old veterans who could tell many stories
of “Whipping Willie Gordon,” the sobriquet he obtained in the regiment
through his fondness for the lash. He left the service with the rank of
general, and spent his latter days at Fyvie Castle, where he professed
himself a misogynist, and ended by marrying his cook.
An insurrection, attended with still more disastrous results, occurred
in the Grant or Strathspey Fencibles in 1795. This regiment was raised
by Sir James Grant of Grant in 1793, and about two months after the
declaration of war by France, and, with the exception of three Englishmen
and two Irishmen, was composed entirely of natives of the North. After
being embodied at Forres, and inspected by General Leslie, the Grant
Fencibles were stationed in most of the towns in the South of Scotland
till 1795, when we find them at Dumfries. As a general rule, the best
understanding has always subsisted between the Highlanders and their
officers, and there is no sacrifice they are not prepared to make for
those who have secured their confidence; but their proud, unbending
spirit rebels at once against treachery or injustice. Enough has been
already written to justify this assertion, and what we are about to
relate tends only to confirm it. In 1794, when the regiment was stationed
at Linlithgow, an attempt was made by the officers to persuade the men to
extend their service, which, in terms of their enlistment, was confined
to Scotland. It is probable that this attempt on the part of the officers
originated merely from a desire to secure their own position in the army
for a longer period, and it would probably have succeeded if they had won
the confidence of the men by a frank avowal of their motives. As it was,
they disclosed only enough to excite their suspicions, and the report
spread that they had been sold to government. Nothing further was done in
the matter at the time, but the officers were eyed with distrust, and a
bad spirit sprang up in the regiment. An incident occurred at Dumfries
the following year which brought matters to a crisis, and caused an
open mutiny. The greatest freedom of intercourse was permitted between
officers and men when both belonged to the same clan. This familiarity
did not interfere with the strictness of discipline any more than it
does in the French army, in which it has survived till the present
day. An amusing illustration of this familiarity occurred in the 93rd
Highlanders when they were stationed in Canada. There belonged to the
regiment a young lieutenant—who, in virtue of his being the inheritor of
an illustrious Scottish name and twenty thousand a year, deemed it the
correct thing to remain ignorant of even the simplest military duty—and
a private named Jock Muir, an excellent soldier, but an inveterate
drunkard. There was a mutual understanding between the lieutenant and
Jock that they should stand by one another in every emergency, or, in
other words, that Jock should stand by the lieutenant when on duty,
and whisper into his ear the word of command, and that the lieutenant
should screen Jock when he got drunk. This system of reciprocity answered
admirably for a time, but at length the lieutenant, from inadvertency
or some other cause, allowed Jock to be punished, and Jock determined
to have his revenge. An opportunity soon offered. The regiment was on
parade, and the lieutenant, as the officer of the day, had to give the
word of command. Turning to Jock, he said, “What is it? What must I say?”
But Jock remained stiff and erect—no answer proceeded from his lips.
“What am I to do, you fool?” said the poor lieutenant, losing his temper.
“Run hame, mon! run hame!” roared Jock, in a stentorian voice which was
heard over all the lines, and caused a general titter in the ranks. The
lieutenant, acting on Jock’s advice, sold out and returned home, where he
was much respected as a kind-hearted country gentleman.
Now it was a somewhat similar incident that rekindled the flame of
discontent and caused an open mutiny among the Strathspey Fencibles at
Dumfries in 1795. Militia officers are doubtless a highly-respectable
class of men, and deserve well of their country in every respect, but
they cannot be expected to possess the efficiency and skill of those
who have devoted themselves to the profession of arms. The officers of
the Strathspey Fencibles were men of good family, but as they had never
seen any service they knew little about the management of troops, and
sometimes exposed their ignorance in the presence of their own soldiers.
On one occasion a contradictory order given by an officer called forth
a jocular remark from one of the men, which was evidently much relished
by his comrades. The officer lost his temper, put the offending parties
in the guard-room, and threatened them with punishment—an indignity
to which the proud spirit of the Highlanders refused to submit. They
considered themselves disgraced by the threat, rushed to arms, and
released their comrades by force. Soon after this the regiment was
marched to Musselburgh, where Corporal James Macdonald and Privates
Charles and Alexander Macintosh, Alexander Fraser, and Duncan Macdougall
were tried for mutiny, found guilty, and condemned to be shot. In the
case of Macdonald the sentence was commuted to corporal punishment—one
of the first instances of a Highland soldier having been flogged. They
were marched out to Gullane Links, East Lothian, on the 16th of July, and
on reaching the ground were informed that only two would have to suffer
the penalty of death. The two Macintoshes were called upon to draw lots,
and the fatal one fell upon Charles. He and Fraser were immediately shot
in the presence of the Scotch Brigade and other regiments assembled to
witness this melancholy spectacle. The other men who had taken part
in the mutiny were drafted into regiments serving abroad, and nothing
further is known of their fate. No subsequent act of insubordination
is recorded against this regiment, which was disbanded in 1798. It is
singular to learn that less than seventy years ago in this civilised
country the life or death of a human being depended on his drawing a
lucky or unlucky number.
About the same period a mutiny broke out in the Breadalbane regiment,
which gave rise to an incident that will remind our readers of the
classical story of Damon and Pythias, and serve to illustrate the high
spirit of honour which then prevailed among the Highlanders. This
regiment was raised by the Earl of Breadalbane in 1793, and consisted of
three battalions, whose united strength amounted to 2300 men. Some idea
may be formed of the population of the Highlands at this period from the
fact that 1600 men were obtained from the Breadalbane estates alone. We
question whether one-fourth of that number could be raised there at the
present day. Soon after the regiment had embodied it removed to Glasgow,
and remained there till 1795, when a mutiny, similar in character and
results to the one mentioned above, broke out among the men, who accused
their officers of having sold them to the government for foreign service.
The mutiny was soon suppressed, but when orders were given to apprehend
the ringleaders it was found that so many of the men were equally
implicated in the affair as to render it difficult to make a distinction.
This difficulty was obviated by some of the men coming forward, taking
all the blame upon themselves, and offering to suffer in the place of
their less guilty comrades. Such an instance of generous self-sacrifice
is unparalleled in the history of the British army, if not of the whole
human race. The prisoners were sent to Edinburgh Castle to await their
trial, and a singular incident occurred soon after they left Glasgow.
The party was under command of Major Colin Campbell, one of their own
officers, and one of the prisoners expressed a wish to speak to him in
private. This man, Macmartin, belonged to the same part of the country as
Major Campbell, and had always borne an excellent character, so that he
had no difficulty in obtaining the desired interview. He stated frankly
that he had given up all hope of escape, and was prepared to meet death.
There was only one matter which weighed on his conscience and caused him
much trouble: he had had some dealings with a friend in Glasgow which
could only be settled by a personal interview; if this were denied, his
friend would suffer much loss and inconvenience. If he were permitted to
return to Glasgow he gave his solemn promise to rejoin the party before
they reached Edinburgh.
“Major Campbell,” he added, “you have known me since I was a child; you
know my country and kindred, and you believe I shall never bring you to
any blame by a breach of the promise I now make to be with you in full
time to be delivered up in the castle.”
At the present day a soldier would no more think of making such a
proposal than an officer would dream of entertaining it. But Major
Campbell was a kind-hearted man. He had known the prisoner from
childhood, and had the fullest confidence in his honesty and good faith.
Though aware that the non-appearance of the prisoner would entail the
most serious consequences to himself, he unhesitatingly complied with
his request, and Macmartin returned to Glasgow, had an interview with
his friend, transacted his business, and started before daylight for
Edinburgh to redeem his pledge. Being dressed in the uniform of his
regiment, he was afraid to travel by the main road lest he should be
apprehended as a deserter, and took a circuitous route through the woods;
the result was that, though he escaped detection, he failed to reach
Edinburgh at the appointed hour.
As Major Campbell approached the city his anxiety increased. He caused
the party to march slowly, in the hope that he might still appear; but,
finding no pretext for further delay, he was at length obliged to march
the remaining prisoners to the Castle. Just as he was in the act of
handing them over to the governor of the prison, and before the latter
had time to examine whether the number of prisoners tallied with the
report, poor Macmartin rushed up, pale with anxiety and fatigue, and
trembling with apprehension lest his generous benefactor should suffer
through his absence. A few moments later, and all would have been
discovered; as it was, he was able to join his fellow-prisoners without
attracting the notice of the governor, and to explain the cause of his
temporary absence to Major Campbell, who used often to allude to the
incident in after-life as a proof of the high spirit of honour which
prevailed among his men.
It is satisfactory to add that Macmartin’s life was spared. All the
prisoners were tried, and four of their number condemned to be shot; but
only one of them underwent this punishment. From the narrative of these
mutinies the inference is undeniable that they were caused not so much
by the insubordinate spirit of the Highlanders as by the injustice with
which they were treated by the military authorities. During the present
century our Highland regiments have served in every quarter of the globe,
and have been as distinguished for their subjection to discipline as for
their valour in the field.
[Illustration]