Andrew Mackillop - ‘More Fruitful than the Soil’: Army, Empire and the Scottish Highlands, 1715–1815

MORE FRUITFUL THAN THE SOIL

Army, Empire and the Scottish Highlands, 17151815

ANDREW MACKILLOP

This eBook was published in Great Britain in 2021 by John Donald,

an imprint of Birlinn Ltd

Birlinn Ltd

West Newington House

10 Newington Road

Edinburgh

EH9 1QS

www.birlinn.co.uk

First published in 2000 by Tuckwell Press

Copyright Andrew Mackillop, 2000

eBook ISBN 9781788853927

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library

The right of Andrew Mackillop to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patent Act 1988

Typeset by Hewer Text Ltd, Edinburgh

Tables

Military Officers, their Relations and the Scottish County Electorate, 1788

Officers and Half-Pay Officers of Highland Regiments, 17401784

Origin and Social Profile of Military Personnel, Annexed Estates, 17634

Social and Tenurial Origins of Glenorchy and Netherlorne Recruits, 1759

Percentage of Hired or Family Recruits, Perthshire Estate, 1795

Relative Cost of Rent and Hired Recruits, Breadalbane Estate, 17935

Structure of Perthshire Estate, 1793 and Social Origins of Recruits, 17935

Structure of Argyll Estate, 1788 and Social Origins of Recruits, 17935

Lewis Kelp Production, 17941799

Impact of Recruiting upon Manpower and Farm Structure, 17781799

Social Origins of Recruits from Atholl and North Uist Estates, 17781799

Half-Pay Officers on Highland Estates, 17681804

Military Officers and the Sutherland Estate, 1802

Chelsea Pensioners from Highland Counties and Battalions, 17401800

Chelsea Pensioners and Highland Estates, 1764

Military Earnings Relative to Rent, Lochbuie Estate, Mull, 17951796

Volunteer Pay Relative to Rent in the West Highlands and Islands, 17951802

Type of Land Promise to Highland Soldiers, 1790s

Half-Pay and Exchange Rates, 1766

British and Highland Half-Pay Officers Reduced in 1763

Men Raised in England, Ireland and Scotland under the Additional Act and Enlisting in the Regular Army, June 1804-December 1805

Abbreviations

Glossary

Acknowledgements

In writing this work I have become indebted to a significant number of people and institutions. As the bulk of my research was completed at these two repositories I would first like to register my sincere appreciation to the staff of the National Archives of Scotland (formerly the Scottish Record Office) and National Library of Scotland. I would also like to thank the following people or institutions for allowing me access to the collections in their possession: Atholl Estates, the Duke of Buccleuch, the Dumfries family, Mr. John Macleod and the Clan Donald Trust. I would especially like to thank Mr Donald Stewart, until recently archivist at Dunvegan, for his friendly welcome and extremely helpful approach to my requests for documents.

This work is an extended version of my thesis on Highland recruitment, which I completed at the Scottish History Department at Glasgow University. Ironically, I was first nudged towards this subject by Dr. Lionel Glassey of the Modern History Department. In helping me decide that recruiting, or, to be more precise, its socio-economic effects, was an obviously neglected area worthy of examination, Dr Glassey not only spared himself the ordeal of perhaps having to tutor me but unselfishly provided a rather unfocused student with some sense of purpose. When I first started my research I benefited from the expertise of Allan Macinnes, who not only brought home to me the worth of Highland history within a Scottish context, but also encouraged me to view the region as very much a part of the evolving British Empire. Despite his departure to Aberdeen he was good enough to review certain aspects of the last chapter and suggest some additional lines of argument, for which I am grateful. Dr. Colin Kidd was typically generous not only in offering general support and friendly criticism, but also in immediately suggesting appropriate articles for many of my queries, no matter how apparently obscure. Similarly, I would like to express my warm thanks to the external examiner of my thesis, Don Withrington, who characteristically dissected the all-too apparent weaknesses in my work. A special thank you is also required to Professor Ted Cowan, who supervised the final years of my Ph.D. As well as providing much needed criticism and review of my work, his mixture of forthright encouragement, broad contextual analysis and injections of humour helped me enormously. I do hope I have persuaded him that the issue of recruitment entails more than buttons and brass military history.