When the 42d regiment was
first raised, and particularly when the heirs of
Arckinglass and Strachur
were appointed officers in lord Loudoun’s regiment in
1745, though it was not then the mode to make
officers' commissions depend
upon raising a certain quota of men, yet the two
young gentlemen got most of their company, who followed them as volunteers
from their paternal estates. How different the sentiments of the
people in 1778! When it was proposed to raise a West Fencible regiment,
the gentlemen of Argyleshire engaged to furnish a
certain number of men but though they had an express promise
from government that they should not be called out of the kingdom, not
even into England, except in case of invasion, the
heritors were obliged to bribe them high. |