miles; but on a long
journey they could tire out any man, and any beast except a wolf. Like
most barbarians they were fickle and inconstant, not to be relied on for
pushing through a long campaign, and after a great victory apt to go off
to their homes, because each man desired to secure his own plunder and
tell his own tale of glory. They are often spoken of as undisciplined;
but in reality their discipline in the battle itself was very high. They
attacked, retreated, rallied or repelled a charge at the signal of
command; and they were able to fight in open order in thick covers
without losing touch of each other--a feat that no European regiment was
then able to perform.

On their own ground they were far more formidable than the best European
troops. The British grenadiers throughout the eighteenth century showed
themselves superior, in the actual shock of battle, to any infantry of
continental Europe; if they ever met an over-match, it was when pitted
against the Scotch highlanders. Yet both grenadier and highlander, the
heroes of Minden, the heirs to the glory of Marlborough's campaigns, as
well as the sinewy soldiers who shared in the charges of Prestonpans and
Culloden, proved helpless when led against the dark tribesmen of the
forest. On the march they could not be trusted thirty yards from the
column without getting lost in the woods[16]--the mountain training of
the highlanders apparently standing them in no stead whatever,--and were
only able to get around at all when convoyed by backwoodsmen. In fight
they fared even worse. The British regulars at Braddock's battle, and
the highlanders at Grant's defeat a few years later, suffered the same
fate. Both battles were fair fights; neither was a surprise; yet the
stubborn valor of the red-coated grenadier and the headlong courage of
the kilted Scot proved of less than no avail. Not only were they utterly
routed and destroyed in each case by an inferior force of Indians (the
French taking little part in the conflict), but they were able to make
no effective resistance whatever; it is to this day doubtful whether
these superb regulars were able, in the battles where they were
destroyed, to so much as kill one Indian for every hundred of their own
men who fell. The provincials who were with the regulars were the only
troops who caused any loss to the foe; and this was true in but a less
degree of Bouquet's fight at Bushy Run. Here Bouquet, by a clever
stratagem, gai