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INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF SCOTTISH STUDIES ISSN 1923-5755 E-ISSN 1923-5763 EDITOR J.E. Fraser, University of Guelph ASSOCIATE EDITOR L. Mahood, University of Guelph ASSISTANT EDITORS C. Hartlen, University of Guelph M. Hudec, University of Guelph REVIEW EDITOR L. Baer, University of Guelph EDITORIAL BOARD M. Brown, University of Aberdeen G. Carruthers, University of Glasgow L. Davis, Simon Fraser University E. L. Ewan, University of Guelph D. Fischlin, University of Guelph K. J. James, University of Guelph L. L. Mahood, University of Guelph A. McCarthy, University of Otago D. Nerbas, McGill University M. Penman, University of Stirling R. B. Sher, New Jersey Institute of Technology The Editors assume no responsibility for statements of fact or opinion made by contributors. All contents are © copyrighted by the International Review of Scottish Studies and/or their author, 2018 Book printing by Stewart Publishing & Printing Markham, Ontario • 905-294-4389 [email protected] • www.stewartbooks.com SUBMISSION OF ARTICLES FOR PUBLICATION This is a peer-reviewed, open access journal. It is listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals and is a member of the Canadian Association of Learned Journals. Directory of Open Access Journals: www.doaj.org Canadian Association of Learned Journals: www.calj-acrs.ca All manuscripts, including endnotes, captions, illustrations and supplementary information should be submitted electronically through the journal’s website: www.irss.uoguelph.ca Submission guidelines and stylistic conventions are also to be found there, along with all back issues of the journal. Manuscripts should be a maximum of 8000 words in length although shorter papers will also be considered. Contributors are requested to provide their title, institutional affiliation and current appointment. Book Reviews and Review Essays should be submitted electronically through the website above. To contact the editor: The Editor, International Review of Scottish Studies Centre for Scottish Studies Department of History University of Guelph Guelph, Ontario, Canada N1G 2W1 Email: [email protected] SUBSCRIPTION AND MEMBERSHIP INFORMATION Individuals interested in the history and culture of Scotland and the decisive influence of the Scots in North America are encouraged to join the educational charity The Scottish Studies Foundation. Membership is $30.00 per annum and includes subscription to a printed copy of the International Review of Scottish Studies. Payment may be made online at www.scottishstudies.com or please make cheques or money orders payable in Canadian funds to The Scottish Studies Foundation and send to: Membership Secretary The Scottish Studies Foundation, P.O. Box 45069, 2482 Yonge Street Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 3E3 The Scottish Studies Foundation: www.scottishstudies.com Centre for Scottish Studies at the University of Guelph: www.uoguelph.ca/scottish International Review of Scottish Studies: www.irss.uoguelph.ca ARTICLES Egypt, Empire, and the Gaelic Literary Imagination ..................................1 Matthew Dziennik and Michael Newton A Man in Constant Revolt: Hugh MacDiarmid’s Poetry of World War Two ............................................................................................................41 Richie McCaffery Esther Barbara Chalmers’s Scottish International Lives ...........................75 Kali Israel REVIEW ESSAY Step Dance in Cape Breton and Other Complicated Relationships: A Review Essay ..........................................................................................123 Michael Newton REVIEWS Alexander D. Campbell. The Life and Works of Robert Baillie (1602- 1662): Politics, Religion and Record-Keeping in the British Civil Wars ................................................................................................135 Jason White Marilyn Laura Bowman. James Legge and the Chinese Classics: A Brilliant Scot in the Turmoil of Colonial Hong Kong .............................138 Norman Smith Michael Newton, ed. Seanchaidh na Coille~Memory Keeper of the Forest: Anthology of Scottish Gaelic Literature of Canada ...................141 Tiber F. M. Falzett Lizanne Henderson. Witchcraft and Folk Belief in the Age of Enlightenment: Scotland, 1670-1740 ......................................................146 Elizabeth Ritchie John W. Arthur. Brilliant Lives: The Clerk Maxwells and the Scottish .......................................................................................149 Emily Herff Dziennik & Newton IRSS 43 (2018) 1 EGYPT, EMPIRE, AND THE GAELIC LITERARY IMAGINATION Matthew Dziennik, United States Naval Academy Michael Newton, University of North Carolina On 8 March 1801, a British expeditionary force – including the 42nd Black Watch, the 79th Cameron Highlanders, the 90th Perthshire Volunteers, and the 92nd Gordon Highlanders – stepped from their boats and onto the beaches of Abukir Bay in northern Egypt. Since Napoleon Bonaparte’s invasion of Egypt in July 1798, William Pitt’s government had been determined to remove the French threat to Britain’s trade routes in the Middle East and in the Indian Ocean.1 While fears of an Alexander the Great-inspired French decent into northern India were dismissed as implausible, the threat to British global power was sufficient to ensure the dispatch of a large expeditionary force to Egypt. 2 Horatio Nelson’s decisive victory at the battle of the Nile in August 1798 ended the threat of French hegemony in the eastern Mediterranean but left the 1 For an excellent analysis of Napoleon’s expedition, see J. Cole, Napoleon’s Egypt: Invading the Middle East (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2007). 2 Senior British figures such as Henry Dundas were more concerned that a French invasion of the Middle East would provoke Mysore and other Indian states into an attack on East India Company possessions in South Asia, see E. Ingram (ed.), Two Views of India: The Private Correspondence of Mr. Dundas and Lord Wellesley, 1798-1801 (Bath: Adams & Dart, 1970), 2-16; A. Aspinall and E. Anthony Smith (eds.), English Historical Documents, 10 vols. (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1959), viii, 78. 2 Egypt, Empire, and the Gaelic Literary Imagination French army, minus its illustrious commander (who fled to Europe after the failed siege of Acre in May 1799), in control of northern Egypt. Sir Ralph Abercrombie’s army did not land unopposed. French artillery on the sand dunes above the beach caused havoc among the lines of redcoats coming ashore. After clearing the dunes at the point of the bayonet, the British army began its fourteen-mile march to Alexandria along a narrow isthmus of sand that separated Lake Abukir from the Mediterranean Sea. A successful assault on French positions at Mandora on 13 March brought Abercrombie’s force close to Alexandria where, at dawn on 21 March, it was counter- attacked by the Armée d’Orient under Jacques-François Menou. As the advancing French columns drove in the British outposts, a confused melee ensued in the darkness around the ruins of the Nicopolis, a large Roman ruin on the British right flank. For five hours, repeated French assaults on the ruins were beaten back and, when the ammunition ran out, both sides pelted each other with rocks. Finally, having failed to break through the British lines, the French withdrew to Alexandria, which was laid under siege and surrendered in September 1801. The British victory in Egypt, while later overshadowed by subsequent victories in the Iberian Peninsula and at Waterloo, was a major turning point in the wars against revolutionary France. 3 When news broke of the victory at Alexandria, leaders in both the House of Lords and the House of Commons – including the future William IV and the Prime Minister Henry Addington – gave speeches in the army’s honour.4 William Pitt read a letter before the Commons that “paid a just tribute to the brave men who shewed themselves a 3 Piers Mackesy, British Victory in Egypt, 1801: The End of Napoleon’s Conquest (Abingdon: Routledge, 1995), 3-12. 4 Bell’s Weekly Messenger, no. 266 (24 May 1801), 163. Dziennik & Newton IRSS 43 (2018) 3 match for the flower of the French army – for the conquerors of Italy … never was there a moment when the steadiness and bravery of the British army was more fully evinced.”5 This article presents an edition, translation, and analysis of a Scottish Gaelic song by the Reverend Seumas MacLagain [James McLagan] (1728-1805) about the battle of Alexandria. This text, which has not received any previous scholarly attention, is a rare illustration of an attempt of a member of the Gaelic intelligentsia to reframe Gaelic identity and history so as to reconcile them with the agenda of British imperialism. The spectacular contribution of Highland soldiers to the victory in Egypt was a crucial moment in re-examining the relationship between the Gàidhealtachd and the British state. Gaels, particularly those from the middling and upper sections of society, had been quick to recognize the political and economic benefits of an alignment with the Hanoverian regime and had turned to soldiering as an “imperial specialization” within the post-1746 British state.6 It fell to writers such as McLagan who, as the chaplain of the Black Watch from 1764 to 1788, was himself part of this imperial specialization, to give meaning to these new alignments and to explain them as entirely consistent with Gaelic imperatives, despite the on-going effects of internal colonization within the Gàidhealtachd.7 While there are many examples of Gaelic