“ We pass through Waterloo, and leave behind the bright fields of Wellington’s fame,—our army’s future glory and England’s pride. Quatre Bras appears in view; the frightened peasantry come running breathless and panting along the way. We move off to the left of the road, behind a gently rising eminence; form column of companies, regardless of the growing crop, and ascend the rising ground: a beautiful plain appears in view, surrounded with belts of wood, and the main road from Brussels runs through it. ”

“ Even Highlanders will allow that it is not the quietest of instruments, but when far from their mountain homes, what sounds, however melodious, could thrill round their heart like one burst of their own wild native pipe? The feelings which other instruments awaken are general and undefined, because they talk alike to Frenchmen, Spaniards, Germans, and Highlanders, for they are common to all; but the bagpipe is sacred to Scotland, and speaks a language which Scotsmen only feel. ”

“ Scotchmen are proud of you! I, too, am a Scotchman, and proud of the honour of commanding so distinguished a Brigade; and still prouder, that through all the trying severities of the winter, its incessant labours, and decimating disease, you have still maintained the same unflinching courage and energy with which your discipline, obedience, and steadiness, in whatever circumstances you have been placed, make you so unrivalled (and none more so than the oldest regiment of the brigade) , and your commander confident of success, however numerous and determined your foe. ”

“ Next morning the French, seeing us thus, thought we had retired, and left Portuguese to guard the heights. With dreadful shouts they leaped over that wall before which they had stood, when guarded by British. We were scarce able to withstand their fury. To retreat was impossible; all behind being ploughed land, rendered deep by the rain. There was not a moment to hesitate. To it we fell, pell-mell, French and British mixed together. It was a trial of strength in single combat: every man had his opponent, many had two. ”

“ Troops acting in the open field expect not the stimulus of praise; the soldier sees his foe, and his British courage rises at each step; but he who, after perhaps a night-march of great length, has to ascend mountains, or penetrate dense bush and ravines, filled probably with a daring and intrepid enemy, as resolute as athletic, ready to murder any one who may fall into his hands, and when warfare is of the most stealthy and enterprising kind, appreciates the praise of his commander, because, when his acts are conspicuously daring, he is conscious he deserves it. ”

“ Scotch Highlanders have a courage devoted to honour; but they have an impetuosity which, if not well understood, and skilfully directed, is liable to error. The Scotch fight individually as if the cause were their own, not as if it were the cause of a commander only,—and they fight impassioned. Whether training and discipline may bring them in time to the apathy of German soldiers, further experience will determine; but the Highlanders are even now impetuous; and, if they fail to accomplish their object, they cannot be withdrawn from it like those who fight a battle by the job. ”

“ The glimmering light was at first insufficient for making out aught more than the dark body of men that moved silently along the above gloomy locality in column of march four deep; but as the sun approached nearer the horizon, and the eye became accustomed to the glimmer, it was seen that one man was suffering under pain of no ordinary nature, and was far from being fit to go on duty that morning. ”

“ Moreover, the Highlanders had to learn an inevitable and a salutary lesson, that in this or in any country under one government, where prosperity and harmony are desired, no particular section of the people is to consider itself as having a right to one particular part of the country. The Highlands for the Highlanders is a barbarous, selfish, obstructive cry in a united and progressive nation. It seems to be the law of nature, as it is the law of progress, that those who can make the best use of any district ought to have it. ”

“ If proprietors find it most profitable to let their lands in large lots, either for agriculture, for cattle, for sheep, or for deer, there is no reason why they should not do so, and there is no doubt that in the end what is most advantageous to the proprietor is so to the tenant, and vice versa, as also to the country at large. If, on the other hand, it be found that letting land in small lots is more profitable than the other practice, few proprietors, we daresay, would hesitate to cut up their land into suitable lots. ”

“ It is a pity, they say, that the Highlander, possessing so many noble qualities, and so strongly attached to his native soil, should be compelled to seek a home in a foreign land, and bestow upon it the services which might be profitably employed by his mother country. By permitting, they say, these loyal and brave Highlanders to leave the country, Britain is throwing away some of the finest recruiting material in the world, for—and it is quite true—the Highland soldier has not his match for bravery, moral character, and patriotism. ”

“ It is well known that you defended your conquest with the utmost courage, good conduct, and discipline to the last extremity. When diminished to a handful, hopeless of succour, and destitute of provisions, you were overwhelmed by multitudes, and reduced by the fortune of war to lose your liberty, and your well-defended colours, but not your honour. Your honour, Seventy-first regiment, remains unsullied. ”

“ Your steadiness and gallantry at the battle of Alma were most conspicuous and most gratifying to me, whilst your intrepidity, when before the enemy, has been equalled by the discipline which you have invariably preserved.
“Remember never to lose sight of the circumstance, that you are natives of Scotland; that your country admires you for your bravery; that it still expects much from you; and, as Scotchmen, strive to maintain the name and fame of our countrymen, who are everywhere, and who have nobly fought and bled in all quarters of the globe. ”

“ The dingiest hovel in the dirtiest narrowest “close” of Edinburgh may be taken as a fair representative of the house inhabited formerly in the Highlands by the great mass of the farmers and cottars. And yet they do not by any means appear to have regarded themselves as the most miserable of beings, but on the contrary to have been light-hearted and well content if they could manage to get the year over without absolute starvation. No doubt this was because they knew no better state of things, and because love for the chief would make them endure any thing with patience. ”

“ Many of the Highland proprietors, in their haste to get rich, or at least to get money to spend in the fashionable world, either mercilessly, and without warning, cleared their estates of the tenants, or most unseasonably oppressed them in the matter of rent. The great fault of many of the landlords—for they were not all alike—was in bringing about too suddenly changes, in themselves, perhaps, desirable enough. Rents seem to have been too suddenly raised to such a rate as tended to inspire the tenant with despair of being able to meet it. ”

“ I have been engaged in action about seven-and-twenty times; but in the whole of my career I have never seen any regiment behave better, nay more, I have never seen any one behave so well, as the 78th Highlanders this day. I am proud of you, and if ever I have the good luck to be made a major-general, the first thing I shall do, will be to go to the Duke of Cambridge and request that when my turn arrives for the colonelcy of a regiment, I may have the 78th Highlanders. And this, gentlemen, you hear from a man who is not in the habit of saying more than he means. ”

“ I have seen men behave with courage and resolution before now, but so much determined bravery can hardly be equalled in any part of the history of ancient Rome. Even those that were mortally wounded cried aloud to their companions, not to mind or lose a thought upon them, but to follow their officers, and to mind the honour of their country. Nay, their ardour was such, that it was difficult to bring them off. They paid dearly for their intrepidity. The remains of the regiment had the honour to cover the retreat of the army, and brought off the wounded as we did at Fontenoy. ”

“ Highland pride is still proverbial, and while often very amusing and even pitiable, has often been of considerable service to those who possess it, stimulating them to keep up their self-respect and to do their best in whatever situation they may be placed. It was this pride that made the poorest and most tattered of the tacksmen tenants with whom Burt came in contact, conduct himself as if he had been lord of all he surveyed, and look with suspicion and perhaps with contempt upon the unknown English red-coat. ”

“ It was the sub-tenants and cottars, the common people or peasantry of the Highlands, whose condition called for the utmost commiseration. It was they who suffered most from the poverty of the land, the leanness of the cattle, the want of trades and manufactures, the want, in short, of any reliable and systematic means of subsistence. If the crops failed, or disease or a severe winter killed the half of the cattle, it was they who suffered, it was they who were the victims of famine, a thing of not rare occurrence in the Highlands. ”

“ No change for the better to record in agriculture, the farms still overstocked with horses, black cattle and men, the fishing still all but neglected, hovels wretched as ever, and clothes as tattered and scanty—nothing in short to be seen but want and wretchedness, with apparently no inclination in the people to better their condition. ”

“ Why then should there be any lamentation over the Highlanders leaving their country more than over any other class of respectable willing men? Anything more hopelessly wretched than their position at various times from 1745 down to the present day it would be impossible to imagine. If one, however, trusted the descriptions of some poets and sentimentalists, a happier or more comfortably situated people than the Highlanders at one time were could not be found on the face of the globe. ”

“ Of course it is seldom the case that any great changes take place in the social or political policy of a country without much individual suffering: this was the case at all events in the Highlands. Many of the poor people and tacksmen had to undergo great hardships during the process of this new adjustment of affairs; but that the lairds or chiefs were to blame for this, it would be rash to assert. Some of these were no doubt unnecessarily harsh and unfeeling, but even where they were kindest and most considerate with their tenants, there was much misery prevailing among the latter. ”

“ The Highlanders were to support them. The Dutch conducted their march and attack as if they did not know the road, halting and firing, and halting every twenty paces. The Highlanders, losing all patience with this kind of fighting, which gave the enemy such time and opportunity to fire at their leisure, dashed forward, passed the Dutch, and the first ranks giving their firelocks to the rear rank, they drew their swords, and soon drove the French from their ground. ”

“ Captain Burt and others who visited the Highlands previous to the extensive introduction of sheep, indulge in none of the raptures over Highland scenery, that the most common-place and prosy tourist thinks it his duty to get into at the present day. They speak of the country almost with horror, as a black howling wilderness, full of bogs and big boulders, and almost unfit for human habitation. They could see no beauty in the country that it should be desired ”

“ Individually we lament the departure of a father and a friend—as a regiment we would weep over the ashes of the most beloved of colonels! Although the undeviating advocate of discipline and good order, never did the star of rank impose a humiliating deference upon those whose affection and esteem he never failed to secure by his boundless benevolence and gentle manners. ”

“ Few were the moments that Campbell took to learn the ground before him, and to read the enemy’s mind; but, few though they were, they were all but enough to bring the 42d to the crest where their General stood. The ground they had to ascend was a good deal more steep and more broken than the slope close beneath the redoubt. In the land where those Scots were bred, there are shadows of sailing clouds skimming straight up the mountain’s side, and their paths are rugged, are steep, yet their course is smooth, easy, and swift. ”

“ The Highlands now contain a considerable lowland population, and the Highlanders are scattered over the length and breadth of the land, and indeed of the world, honourably fulfilling the noble part they have to play in the world’s history. Ere long there will be neither Highlander nor Lowlander; we shall all be one people, having the best qualities of the blood of the formerly two antagonistic races running in our veins. It is, we have no doubt, with men as with other animals, the best breeds are got by judicious crossings. ”

“ I cannot leave the command of the Forty-second Royal Highlanders without requesting you to express to them, in the strongest terms, how high an honour I shall always esteem it to have been for upwards of twenty years the colonel of a regiment, which, by its exemplary conduct in every situation, and by its distinguished valour in many a well-fought field, has earned for itself so large a share of esteem and of renown as that which belongs to the Forty-second regiment. ”