General Preston, who commanded the same regiment in the Seven Years' War, and who died colonel of it, at Bath in 1785, was the last British officer who wore a buff coat. An officer who served with him records that at the capture of Zerenberg, Preston received more than a dozen of sword-cuts, which fell harmlessly on his "buff-jerkin." Old Colonel Charles Donellan, who commanded the 48th, and was wounded at Talavera (mortally, we believe), was the last officer who adhered to the antique three-cornered Nivernois hat; and there was a General Cameron, in the same campaign, who adhered to the Highland bonnet, and never would adopt the cocked hat. At Dettingen, George II. appeared in the same red coat which he had worn when serving under Marlborough. Thackeray says, "On public occasions he always displayed the hat and coat he wore on the famous day of Oudenarde, and the people laughed, but kindly, at the odd old garment, for bravery never goes out of fashion." At Minden, in 1759, we find the luckless Lord George Sackville leading the cavalry in the same red coat which he had worn as a youth at Fontenoy; and the same sentiment has prevailed in the humbler ranks of the service. An aged soldier, named Robert Ferguson, who died at Paisley in 1811, in his ninety-seventh year, preserved to the last, as a precious relic, the old red coat of the 22nd Foot (Handysides, wherein Sterne's father was a captain), in which he had been wounded at the battles of Dettingen and Fontenoy, just as future years may see some veteran preserving the faded and perhaps blood-stained tunic which he wore with Raglan at Sebastopol, or with Havelock at Lucknow. We have thus attempted to trace the history of that scarlet uniform, which is so inseparably connected with the past, the present, and the future glory of the British Isles. It is the garb which first fires the enthusiasm and ambition of our youth, and is ever kindly and affectionately remembered by our white-haired veterans in old age, for there is something almost filial in the emotion with which an old soldier recalls the uniform, the facings, and badges of his regiment, whatever its number might have been, from the 1st Royal Scots to the Rifle Brigade. There is not a battle-field, honourable to Britain, or a portion of the globe where our drums have beaten, but where it has formed the shroud of many a noble and gallant heart--so all honour, say we, to "the old Red Coat, that tells the tale of England's glory!" CHAPTER II. FURTHER NOTES ON ITS HISTORY AND ON REGIMENTALS. In the preceding chapter, the origin of the British uniform was plainly deduced from the fact of scarlet being the Royal livery alike of England and of Scotland, and hence its adoption as a general national colour. To these notes we purpose to add a few more on the gradual progress of badges and distinctions in the service.