Their history in previous campaigns to this of France and Belgium is a long one. At Blenheim, Malplaquet, and Ramillies the Scots Fusiliers won particular distinction--the brigadier who led the principal attack at Blenheim was a colonel of the Scots Fusiliers. At Dettingen and Fontenoy, again, the Fusiliers were well to the front, and in the last-named engagement the regiment suffered so severely that it became necessary to move it to Flanders. In 1761 the Scots Fusiliers took part in the capture of Belle Isle, and later, in the American War of Independence--bolstering up a bad cause--they underwent intense privations, and, foodless and minus ammunition, capitulated with General Burgoyne at Saratoga to a force five times the strength of that which Burgoyne commanded. 1793 saw them engaged in capturing the islands of the West Indies from the French, and in 1807 they formed part of the second expedition to Egypt. Then at Messina the Fusiliers alone were responsible for the capture of over a thousand officers and men out of a force which attempted to land there, and up to the time of the abdication of Napoleon the regiment was engaged in active service. In St. Giles' Cathedral, Edinburgh, are deposited the tattered colours carried by the regiment in the Napoleonic campaigns. In the Crimea the Fusiliers again lost their colonel; at Inkermann, where the colonel fell, the regiment was in the very front of the battle throughout the day, fighting throughout the battle without food, and calling for more ammunition. They were present throughout the great siege and at the fall of Sevastopol, and the colours borne in that campaign--presented to the regiment in 1827 by King William IV--cost the life of one officer and led to two more being severely wounded at Inkermann, while 17 N.C.O.'s and men who acted as escort were either killed or severely wounded. These colours were subsequently deposited in the parish church of Ayr, the depot headquarters of the regiment. In Africa against the Zulus and Basutos, as well as against the Boers in the first war of the Transvaal, the Fusiliers fought next after the Crimean campaign; and then they took part in the subjugation of King Theebaw in Burmah. In 1899 the 2nd battalion embarked for South Africa, and was set to form a part of the 6th Fusilier brigade. From Colenso they brought away a Victoria Cross, awarded to Private Ravenhill for conspicuous gallantry in saving guns from which the gunners had been shot away.