ORIGIN-CHANNEL ISLANDS-INDIA-CEYLON-1778-1799.

THE history of the clans presents no more splendid illustration of that devotion which bound the clansman to his chief, and of the happy relationship implied therein, than is afforded in the circumstances attendant upon the origin of the Seventysecond Highlanders. The Earl of Seaforth, chief of the Mackenzie, had, as a leader in the rebellion of 1715, been

banished from his country, his title attainted, and his estates forfeited, yet, withal, 400 of his late followers and tenants remitted to him in his exile a large portion of the rents they might have been liable for had he retained the estate. This most generous testimony of respect and practical expression of sympathy to the father was gratefully remembered by the son, and, notwithstanding the changes which, passing over the face of society, had swept away the old institution of clanship, induced the grandson, who, restored by purchase to the family property, and by his acknowledged loyalty, to the honours of the Earldom of Seaforth, in return for these favours, volunteered to raise a regiment for the Government. His appeal to his clansmen was amply successful. The Mackenzies and Macraes, rallying around him as their chief, gave thereby most hearty and flattering testimony to their own loyalty to the King, and unimpaired attachment to the family of Seaforth, which had so long and worthily presided over them. Accordingly, 1130 men were assembled and enrolled in the regiment-then known as the Seventy-eighth-at Elgin, in 1778. Marched to Edinburgh, it was thence removed to the Channel Islands, where its firm attitude, remarkable in such young soldiers, so won the confidence of the islanders, and encouraged the militia, as, together with our Highlanders, enabled them successfully to resist an attempted debarkation of French troops on the island of Jersey.

A sister regiment to the Seventy-first, the Seventy-second (Seventy-eighth) was ordered to follow it to India in 1781, in fulfilment of the original purpose for which both corps had

been raised. The transport service of those times was miserably inefficient, especially when compared with the leviathan ships and floating palaces-the Scotias, Persias, and Great Easterns-which in our day are, by a patriotic public, ever at the command of our Government for any sudden emergency. A voyage in a troop-ship eighty years ago ofttimes consumed more of life than the battle-field; was more fatal than the dreaded pestilence which lurked in the swamps of the Indies; nay, in some cases was as cruel in its miseries as the horrors of the Black Hole of Calcutta. The passage of the Seventy-second Highlanders to India proved to be such. Two hundred and forty-seven men perished on the voyage, which was protracted to nearly ten months; and when the regiment did arrive at Madras, only 369 men were mustered as fit for duty. One transport having parted from the fleet in a gale, was placed in imminent peril, being destitute of charts, and her commander utterly unfit for his position, having hitherto trusted to keep his vessel in the track of the fleet. By the wise precautions of Sir Eyre Coote, although the requirements of the service were urgent and entailed an immediate advance, the Seventy-second regiment was not immediately hurried into action, but time was allowed it to recruit its strength. In consequence of these measures, the regiment was soon able to appear in the field with upwards of 600 men.

Hyder Ali, who, by usurpation, had arisen from being a mere soldier of fortune to be the dreaded tyrant of the Mysore, allied with France and Holland, threatened to expel the British from the Indian continent.

""Tis true that we are in great danger,

The greater, therefore, should our courage be.”

These words of wisdom, from the glowing pen of Shakspere, worthy his mighty soul, bespeaking in every lineament the true undaunted spirit of a son of Albion, were acted out to the letter in the bold advance of the British against this formidable coalition. Our army, under Major-General Stuart, comprised the Seventy-third (afterwards the Seventy-first), the Seventy-eighth (afterwards the Seventy-second), and the One-hundred-and-first regiments, with a considerable body of native troops and Hanoverians. The strong fortress of Cudalore was the first to challenge the assault. Defended by a veteran garrison of French, under General Bussy, it needed the utmost gallantry of our Highlanders-"the ardour and intrepidity giving presage of the renown they afterwards acquired"-to force the enemy's lines, and ultimately compel him to relinquish the external defences of the place and retire more immediately within the fortress. Amongst the prisoners was Colonel the Chevalier de Dumas, conspicuous as "the bravest of the brave," also "a wounded young serjeant of very interesting appearance and manners, who was treated with much kindness by Lieutenant-Colonel Wagenheim, commanding the detachment of Hanoverians. Many years afterwards, when the French army entered Hanover, General Wagenheim attended the levée of General Bernadotte, who referred to the circumstance at Cudalore in 1783, and added— 'I am the individual, who, when a young serjeant, received kindness from you in India."" The death of Hyder Ali, and

the withdrawal of France, occasioned the breaking up of this formidable league against the British power in India, and for a moment the sun of peace smiled upon our war-worn soldiers.

The new Sultan of the Mysore, as capricious as his father and predecessor, broke off the negotiations which had promised a continued and favourable peace. In consequence, the Seventyeighth (Seventy-second) advanced, with the army under Colonel Fullerton, against the almost impregnable fortress of Palghantcherry, which was won mainly by the daring of the Honourable Captain Maitland and a company of the regiment, who, taking advantage of a violent storm, when the enemy, seeking shelter from the pitiless rain, had left unguarded the covered way, and thereby affording an opportunity which, improved by Captain Maitland and his company, gave such a footing within the walls as terrified the defenders into a speedy surrender. This success was followed by the fall of Coimbatore, and might probably have been crowned in the capture of Seringapatam, had not peace interfered, postponing the fate of the capital for ten years.

In 1790, the unprovoked aggressions of Tippoo Saib, the ambitious Sultan of the Mysore, upon the Rajah of Travancore, an ally of the British, occasioned the renewal of the war. Still associated in a common glory with their brethren of the Seventy-third (Seventy-first) Highlanders, the Seventy-eighth (Seventy-second) advanced with the army under Major-General Medows, which, obtaining possession unopposed of Coimbatore and capturing Dindigal, proceeded against the powerful