murder, with any troops in Europe, the Cossacks and Calmucks themselves
not excepted." "If I stay much longer with the regiment I shall be
perfectly corrupt; the officers are loose and profligate and the
soldiers are very devils." He brought the 67th, however, into such a
condition that it remained a model regiment for years after he was gone.
Nor were the duties of a commanding officer in Scotland at that period
merely military. In the Highlands especially, he was employed in
quenching the smoking embers of rebellion, and in re-organizing the
country after the anarchy of civil war. Disarming had to be done, and
suppression of the Highland costume, which now marks the Queen's
favourite regiment, but then marked a rebel. This is bad, as well as
unworthy, work for soldiers, who have not the trained self-command which
belongs to a good police, and for which the Irish Constabulary are as
remarkable as they are for courage and vigour. Even Wolfe's sentiments
contracted a tinge of cruelty from his occupation. In one of his
subsequent letters he avows a design which would have led to the
massacre of a whole clan. "Would you believe that I am so bloody?" We do
not believe that he was so bloody, and are confident that the design, if
it was ever really formed, would not have been carried into effect. But
the passage is the most painful one in his letters. The net result of
his military administration, however, was that the people at Inverness
were willing to celebrate the Duke of Cumberland's birthday, though they
were not willing to comply with the insolent demand of Colonel Lord
Bury, who had come down to take the command for a short time, that they
should celebrate it on the anniversary of Culloden. It is a highly
probable tradition that the formation of Highland regiments was
suggested by Wolfe.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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