In the year 1779 a circumstance occurred which proves in the most striking manner the attachment which the Highlanders have ever cherished for their own regiments. In the month of April two strong detachments belonging to the 42nd and 71st regiments arrived at Leith from Stirling Castle, _en route_ to North America to join their respective regiments. On learning that they were about to be drafted into the 80th and 82nd, both Lowland regiments, the men firmly refused to obey this order, or to serve in any regiments save those for which they had been enlisted. A little friendly remonstrance might have won them over, but the authorities unfortunately adopted the idea of reducing them by force, and troops were sent to Leith for the purpose of subduing the mutineers and conveying them to Edinburgh Castle. This was no easy task, as the event proved. The Highlanders offered an obstinate resistance, and in the conflict which ensued, Captain Mansfield, of the South Fencible regiment, and nine men were killed, and thirty-one soldiers wounded. At length, overpowered by numbers, the Highlanders were compelled to surrender, and were shut up in Edinburgh Castle. In the month of May three of the prisoners, Charles Williamson and Archibald Mac Ivor, of the 42nd, and Robert Budge, of the 71st, were tried by court-martial for having been guilty of mutiny and inciting others to the same crime. The line of defence they adopted gives us considerable insight into the state of the Highlanders at this period. Mac Ivor and Williamson stated that they enlisted in the 42nd, a regiment composed exclusively of Highlanders, and wearing the Highland dress. Their native tongue was Gaelic, and they knew no other, having been born in counties where English was almost unknown. They had never worn breeches in their lives, and the only garb they could wear with comfort was the garb of old Gael. This dress had indeed been prohibited by Act of Parliament; but the government had connived at the use of it, provided that it was made of plain cloth and not of tartan. For these reasons they could neither understand the language nor use the arms, or march in the dress of any other than a Highland regiment. Budge’s defence was substantially the same. They submitted to the court that, on reaching Leith, the officer who had conducted them there informed them that they were now to consider themselves soldiers of the 82nd, a regiment wearing the Lowland dress and speaking the English tongue. No order from the commander-in-chief was shown to them, nor had they any opportunity of submitting their grievances to him. They had no intention to resist lawful authority; they only wished to remonstrate against an act of flagrant injustice. They would have gone willingly to the castle if the order had been explained to them; but the officer sent for that purpose told them that they were to join the Hamilton regiment immediately, and they considered themselves justified in repelling force by force.