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.”