self for ever from his family, and to incur all the misery
of that very homesickness which, in regular armies, drives so many
recruits to abscond at the risk of stripes and of death. When these
things are fairly considered, it will not be thought strange that the
Highland clans should have occasionally achieved great martial exploits.

But those very institutions which made a tribe of highlanders, all
bearing the same name, and all subject to the same ruler, so formidable
in battle, disqualified the nation for war on a large scale. Nothing was
easier than to turn clans into efficient regiments; but nothing was more
difficult than to combine these regiments in such a manner as to form an
efficient army. From the shepherds and herdsmen who fought in the ranks
up to the chiefs, all was harmony and order. Every man looked up to his
immediate superior, and all looked up to the common head. But with the
chief this chain of subordination ended. He knew only how to govern, and
had never learned to obey. Even to royal proclamations, even to Acts of
Parliament, he was accustomed to yield obedience only when they were in
perfect accordance with his own inclinations. It was not to be expected
that he would pay to any delegated authority a respect which he was
in the habit of refusing to the supreme authority. He thought himself
entitled to judge of the propriety of every order which he received. Of
his brother chiefs, some were his enemies and some his rivals. It was
hardly possible to keep him from affronting them, or to convince him
that they were not affronting him. All his followers sympathized with
all his animosities, considered his honour as their own, and were
ready at his whistle to array themselves round him in arms against the
commander in chief. There was therefore very little chance that by any
contrivance any five clans could be induced to cooperate heartily with
one another during a long campaign. The best chance, however, was
when they were led by a Saxon. It is remarkable that none of the great
actions performed by the Highlanders during our civil wars was performed
under the command of a Highlander. Some writers have mentioned it as
a proof of the extraordinary genius of Montrose and Dundee that those
captains, though not themselves of Gaelic race or speech, should have
been able to form and direct confederacies of Gaelic tribes. But in
truth it was precisely because Montrose and Dundee were not Highlanders,
that t