On the outbreak of war with France on 1st February 1793, six of the British Army's seventy-seven regiments of line infantry bore the designation `Highland', and within two years this number had risen to a temporary high of fifteen, besides a considerable number of regiments of Highland Fencibles.

1: Private, 97th Inverness-shire Regiment, 1794 2: Field officer, 109th Aberdeenshire Regiment, 1794 3: Battalion Company, 100th (Gordon) Highlanders, 1794 by Bryan Fosten, from 'Wellington's Highlanders' by Stuart Reid (Osprey)

As a first step to raising a regiment a prospective Colonel had to obtain `Letters of Service', authorising him to nominate officers and beat up for recruits. The Letters also set out the establishment for the proposed battalion; normally ten companies, each of 95 privates plus officers and NCOs. The grenadier company, as a mark of its status the latter was also allowed two fifers, or more commonly in the case of highland regiments; two pipers. Fencible regiments were similarly organised, but enjoyed the vital distinction that while a regiment of the line was raised for general service anywhere the Government cared to send it, a Fencible unit was raised only for service at home. The restriction was at first tightly defined as being service in Scotland, but gradually the terms upon which subsequent groups of regiments were recruited were widened to include the whole of the British Isles, and eventually anywhere in Europe. Consequently some Fencible units actually saw more active service during the Irish rebellion of 1798, than did some of the short-lived regular battalions.

Having thus secured his Letters of Service a Colonel had next to find the officers to whom he would sub-contract the "horrible drudgery" of recruiting. The Captains and Field officers were almost invariably experienced men promoted from other regiments, or appointed from the Half Pay list, though in highland regiments efforts were always made to attract men with local roots. Otherwise it was a matter of calling upon an extensive network of neighbours and tenants, who could assist in recruiting and might occasionally even take up commissions themselves. They could also recommend deserving young members of their own or their acquaintances' families to fill the junior vacancies. All of the original officers commissioned into the 100th [Gordon] Highlanders were Scots and most of them came from the areas north and west of Aberdeen, where the regiment was primarily recruited.

Only five officers of the Gordons, including the colonel, bore that surname and this seems to have been the usual proportion; both battalions of the 78th, raised in 1793 and 1794 had five McKenzies apiece and only four of the 79th, raised in 1793 were named Cameron.

In order to qualify for the commissions for which they were recommended the officers had in turn to enlist the required number of men. Naturally they sought to do so close to home, where they were "weel kenn'd" and where they could command some influence. While an officer might reasonably expect to find a few recruits amongst the sons of his tenants [if he possessed any], most recruits were to be found at local markets, or were encouraged to enlist by the officers' friends and relations. 

The 93rd Highlanders were substantially raised on the Sutherland estates by a crude form of conscription, but this was evidently exceptional and in the long term unsustainable. More typical was the sort of assistance given to officers beating up for the Gordons. On the 28th April 1794 the Aberdeen journal reported that the Duke's tenants in Kirkmichael and Strathdon had met and agreed to find an additional bounty of three guineas for any man from the area enlisting in the regiment. Similarly the Earl of Aberdeen and Mr. Skene of Skene were reported in the following month to be encouraging men from their estates to enlist with the rival 109th [Aberdeenshire] Highlanders, and the former also provided large quantities of the whiskey punch which seems to have been so essential for successful recruiting. Captain Finlason, the Gordons' agent in Aberdeen, complained, not for the first time, on the 24th of June that his house was like an alehouse or gin shop, and the 79th's accounts include;

"7 Nov 1793 to 66 gallons of whisky £ 12.8.3".

In the north of Scotland in the 18th century going for a soldier had none of the stigma which attached to it in England. The highlands were badly over-populated and enlistment in the army was widely regarded as an entirely respectable alternative to emigration, particularly since the unusually high bounties on offer meant that some measure of provision could be made for those relatives left behind.

The bounties were high, not because it was difficult to persuade men to enlist, but rather because a hefty sum of money was needed to induce a man to enlist in say the 100th [Gordons] rather than the 109th [Aberdeenshire]. Consequently recruiters were frequently frustrated by the fact that the men they sought were apparently inclined to hang back, not through any deep-seated unwillingness to enlist in the army in the first place, or because they were turning against a vestigial clan system, but quite simply because they naturally looked around for the best offer available before committing themselves.

Notwithstanding the high bounties which were usually on offer it was always necessary to enlist at least some men from further afield to make up the required numbers, though the exact proportions varied from regiment to regiment according to circumstances. Generally speaking this almost invariably involved the recruiting of lowland Scots rather than the Irishmen who were the usual standby in English regiments. Irishmen in fact only accounted for about 6% of the strength of highland units during the Napoleonic Wars, in marked contrast to the 30% or more frequently found in English ones.

Of the 894 men originally recruited for the Gordons in 1794, whose origins are recorded; only 390 were highlanders, while another 407 were lowland Scots -- probably reflecting the high proportion of lowland officers in the battalion -- of the remainder, 51 were Irish, 11 were English or Welsh and there was even a solitary German musician; Carl Augustus Rochling, from Hesse Cassell. The 78th [Ross-shire Buffs], almost entirely staffed with highland officers, did rather better and when its two battalions were consolidated at the Cape of Good Hope in June 1796 they mustered 970 highlanders, 129 lowland Scots, with 14 English and Irish.

92nd (Gordon) Highlanders, 1815. 1: Grenadier, 92nd service dress 2: Officer, undress by Bryan Foster, from 'Wellington's Highlanders' by Stuart Reid (Osprey) 

Problems did arise on the other hand when badly understrength regiments had to be virtually rebuilt after service overseas. In 1799 the 79th [Camerons], raised afresh after service on Martinique [which had ended with their being drafted into the 42nd] had only 268 Scots in the ranks and not all of them were by any means highlanders. As for the remainder there were no fewer than 273 Englishmen, 54 Irishmen and 7 assorted foreigners in the ranks. Not surprisingly the inspecting officer found them mustered wearing "white washing trousers", but faced with the threat of losing their cherished Highland distinction the balance was rapidly redressed. It is significant, however,that most of the regiments which did lose their kilts in 1809 were in similar case, having spent upwards of twenty years in India.

Highland regiments were normally much more homogenous than comparable English ones, which were often less discriminating as to where they found their recruits. Local initiatives such as those reported in the Aberdeen journal clearly encouraged the enlistment of men of good character, from particular districts. Their behaviour was consequently rather better than usual. The Light Company of the 93rd for example was reputed in 1822 not to have had a single man punished in twenty years.

Highlanders have on the other hand been represented, quite unjustly, as being prone to mutiny; frequently protesting against alleged cynical exploitation by unscrupulous officers. Incidents, occasionally violent, certainly occurred in some of the Fencible regiments in the early 1790s, and there had earlier been some trouble during the American War, but it is important that such outbreaks should not be considered in isolation. The commonest cause of mutiny in the 18th Century British Army was drafting or some similar breach or imagined breach of a regiment's terms of service, and in such circumstances English and Irish regiments mutinied equally readily and frequently more violently. A number of the English and Irish regiments involved in the great drafting of August 1795, mutinied, but contrary to John Prebble's assertion in his polemical "Mutiny", none of the five highland regiments also ordered to be drafted at that time, misbehaved.

Ultimately of course, regiments are judged by their behaviour in battle, and highlanders, whether recruited in Lochaber or the lowlands of Aberdeenshire, have always had a reputation as "stormers", most notably exemplified by the impetuous charge of the Gordons at Waterloo, intermingled with the Scots Greys. When the first highland regiments were raised in the middle of the 18th century they were often regarded as a species of light infantry and frequent comparisons were drawn with Pandours and other irregular light troops; but by the 1790s they were almost invariably employed as line infantry.

This reputation probably resulted at least in part from an assumption that highlanders were natural soldiers; possessed of an impetuous spirit and temperamentally more inclined to use the bayonet. Whether justified or not this image was in large measure self perpetuating since exactness in drill seems sometimes to have been neglected as being unnecessary, as Sergeant Anton of the 42nd related;

First, the ruggedness of the mountains prevented precision of movements; secondly, the weather had become so unfavourable that every fair day was dedicated to some other necessary purpose about the camp, and instead of acquiring practical knowledge himself [Colonel Macara], even his regiment was losing part of that which it had perhaps previously possessed; thirdly, draughts of undisciplined recruits were occasionally joining and mixing in the ranks, and being unaccustomed to field movements, occasioned a sort of awkwardness in the performance of them.

Even after our return from the continent, when the regiment was quartered in Ireland, many obstacles started up unfavourable to field practice, namely old soldiers and limited service men being discharged, the second battalion joining, the principal part of which were recruits, and men who had been years in French prisons; the detatched state of the regiment, after all these had been squad drilled, left but few soldiers at headquarters to enable the commanding officer to practise with. In this manner we continued until the battle of Waterloo. We had the name of a crack corps, but certainly it was not then in that state of discipline which it could justly boast of a few years afterwards.

In short, therefore, there was an attitude which favoured "bashing on" with the bayonet, and it was still current by the 1914-18 war.