NATIONAL Lending Services 33 Salisbury Place Edinburgh EH9 isl Telephone 031-226 ^31 WU' 72538 K \ Fax: 031-668 3894 t returned to the soortns the reader has and, ik any case, not Ue last marked on the \ required for a longer il application to this eceived not less than before it is due. it be securely wrapped ;d pre-addressed label being used on the parcel. National Library of Scotland ■lump SCS'.W.SS NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND LENDING SERVICES Mu PUBLICATIONS OF THE SCOTTISH HISTORY SOCIETY VOLUME XXXV THE SCOTS BRIGADE IN HOLLAND VOL. II November 1899 PAPERS ILLUSTRATING THE HISTORY OF THE SCOTS BRIGADE IN THE SERVICE OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS 1572-1782 Extracted by permission from the Government Archives at The Hague, and edited by JAMES FERGUSON VOL. II EDINBURGH Printed at the University Press by T. and A. Constable for the Scottish History Society 1899 4 fc UKiTEB TKurr CONTENTS OF VOL. II. PAGE General Introduction, .... ix List showing the Colonels of the Scots Brigade and the Succession of the Regiments from 1698, . xxxiv DIVISION I The War of the Spanish Succession, 1698-1712. Introductory Narrative, ....... 8 (1.) States of War. 1699-1712, ...... 17 (2.) Papers relating to the Six Regiments in Service from 1697 to 1699, * 54 (3.) Extracts relating to the Six Regiments in service in the Campaigns of Marlborough. 1701-1712, . 67 DIVISION II The Period of Peace, 1713-1742. Introductory Narrative, 109 (1.) States of War. 1713-1738, 114 (2.) Extracts relating to the Brigade from the Peace of Utrecht to its reduction again to Three Regiments. 1713-1717, 131 vi THE SCOTS BRIGADE IN HOLLAND (3.) Papers relating to the Service and Claims of the three disbanded Regiments of Wood (Lord Strathnaver’s), Douglas (Lord Portmore’s),and Hamilton. 1716-21, 148 (4.) Resolutions, Requests, and Reports. 1726-1741, . 197 DIVISION III The War of the Austrian Succession, 1742-1749. Introductory Narrative, . .219 (1.) States of War. 1742-1749, ...... 229 (2.) Papers relating to the increase of the Brigade, 1742-5, and to the difficulties connected with recruiting at the time of the Jacobite Rising. 1745-6, . 236 (3.) Resolutions, Reports, Requests, etc. 1743-1749, . 286 (4.) Documents relating to the additional Regiment of the Earl of Drumlanrig. 1747-1749, .... 370 DIVISION IV The Last Days of the Brigade, 1750-1782. Introductory Narrative, 389 (1.) States of War, Name Registers, etc. 1750-1783,. 403 (2.) Resolutions, Reports, Requests, etc. 1749-1765, . 444 (3.) Papers relating to proposed Reorganisation of the Brigade, and suggested Partial Recall to British Service during Seven Years’ War. 1758-1759, . 458 (4.) Documents relating to the proposed recall of the Brigade to be employed in America. 1775-1776, . 468 CONTENTS vii (5.) Requests, Resolutions, and Abstracts of Notices relating to the Brigade. 1766-1782, 482 (6.) The End. 1782, 496 Note of Appointments of Adjutants, Quartermasters, Surgeons, etc. 1705-1782, 511 APPENDIX I. Supplementary Papers relating to the Returned Officers and Restoration of the Brigade in the British Service, . 517 APPENDIX II. Notes as to the Officers remaining in the Dutch Service and the Regiments,formerly the Scots Brigade. 1788-95, 541 GENERAL INTRODUCTION The history of the Scots Brigade during the second century of its service in the Netherlands is not so picturesque and varied as during the period that opened under William the Silent, and closed under a later but scarce lesser William of the House of Orange. In the earlier century war had been the rule, and the periods of peace had been but breathing- spaces in a state of conflict; in the later there were to be long spells of peace, broken only by the stirring ten years which witnessed the victories of Marlborough, and the seven years of fighting over the Austrian succession, which brought little but dishonour to the United Netherlands, though the dark story of incompetence and disaster was relieved by the bright and steady valour of their Scottish soldiery. The three old regiments which sailed with the Prince of Orange to England in 1688, under Mackay, Balfour, and Ramsay, returned to the Dutch service in 1697, commanded respectively by Murray, Lauder, and Walter Philip Colyear. Along with them came three other Scottish regiments, to replace the three English regiments which had taken a recog- nised place in, or been absorbed by, the British army.1 Although these three regiments were soon withdrawn—one 1 In the ‘ List of the Succession of the Colonels to all His Majesty’s Land forces from their Rise to 1742,’ there are the following allusions to the Dutch origin of three English regiments: ‘ in. Formerly called the Holland Regiment. ‘ v. Formed in Holland by the States (Irish). ‘vi. This and the 5th refused to come from Holland in 1685, for which King James 11. broke them, and their rank was disputed. Formed as the last (British).’ THE SCOTS BRIGADE IN HOLLAND of them, Ferguson’s' Cameronians, to take its place as the 26th of the British line—the other two, Lord Strathnaver’s and Hamilton’s, soon returned along with Lord Portmore’s (Sir David Colyear’s), and remained in the Dutch service until they were finally disbanded after the Peace of Utrecht. From that time the three old regiments, subsequently organised in two battalions each, constituted the whole of the Scottish infantry, except for a period of four years, from 1747 to 1751, when the Earl of Drumlanrig commanded a fourth regiment consisting first of two battalions, and latterly of one, which had been taken into service under the pressure of the French successes. During the seventy years that elapsed between the Peace of Utrecht and the final ‘annihilation’ of the Scots Brigade as a separate organisation in the Dutch army, its chief duty was to garrison the cordon of fortresses in Flanders and the Walloon provinces owning the rule of the House of Austria, which constituted the famous ‘ Barrier of the Dutch.’ Peaceful as was the century compared with the preceding, the Brigade saw desperate fighting, and honourably dis- tinguished itself at Ramillies and Malplaquet under Marl- borough, losing a colonel in each battle; while in the later war another Mackay fell in command of his regiment in the works of Tournay, the Scots battalions ‘in full view of the French ’ faced for long with stern composure the artillery fire at Roucoux, and the Grenadiers of the Brigade nearly saved Bergen-op-Zoom and cut their own triumphant retreat, with their colours, through the masses of the enemy. In the tamer times of the eighteenth century there is less to be expected in the way of picturesque incident or of quaint occurrence than in the earlier years of the long service in the Low Countries. But the conditions of the life that the Scots- men led are brought vividly before us in representations such as were made by General Lauder as to his own and his family’s services,1 in the State of Service of W. P. Colyear,2 and the 1 P. 77. P. 129. GENERAL INTRODUCTION xi advice which an experience of seventy years under the colours and of fifty of a colonelcy enabled him to give with authority,1 and no less in incidents, such as the drowning of Captain Pringle’s newly clothed grenadiers off Rammekens,2 the duty imposed upon Hamilton’s regiment of watching the French captives,3 and the repeated requests for a ship of war to convey the officers who went over to recruit in safety to Scot- land.4 Difficulties connected with the question of recruiting bulk very largely, and seem to have been increased both by the drain on the national resources to supply the British regiments in Queen Anne’s time,5 and by the determination of King George n. that none of those engaged in the Jacobite rising of 1745 should be allowed to serve in the Scots Brigade.6 Indeed, after the rising, not only was inspection of all recruits by an officer deputed by the general command- ing in Scotland required, but a certificate, both from a magistrate of the place of enlistment and from the minister of the recruit’s parish, that he had not been engaged in the rising, was insisted upon, until the reluctance of the parish ministers to give a certificate in a purely civil matter, and the practical difficulty of carrying out the provision, induced the Government to abandon it, and rest satisfied with the declara- tion of a magistrate.7 The precise terms of the engagements made with the Scottish officers are illustrated by the capitulations of 17428 and 1745 9 entered into with those who raised the additional com- panies, and by the agreement of 174610 with Lord Drumlanrig for a complete regiment of two battalions. A curious feature of the recruiting question is the prohibition against recruiting Irishmen,11 an unfortunate officer’s explanation that his Irish- 1 2 4 Pp. 199-201, 210, 241, 309, 313. 5 P. 71. 6 Pp. 90, 102, etc. 7 p. 92. Pp. 274, 279-281. See also p. 212. P. 286. 8 P. 238. 9 P. 260. 10 P. 373. xii THE SCOTS BRIGADE IN HOLLAND men were not Roman Catholics and were got in Scotland,1 and the solemn decision of the States that they did not intend to exclude Irishmen born in Scotland, or whom a residence of a year and a day in Scotland had converted into passable Scotsmen.2 The tenure of the Barrier Towns presented its own peculiarities and points of difficulty. Thus the keys of the Gate of Namur were in courtesy handed over every night to the chief magistrate, and it was only when French attack was imminent that General Colyear is found requesting the Dutch Government that the custom should cease.3 On the one hand desertion was easy, and