Grant
The year 1795 exhibited another instance of
insubordination, originating in horror of the disgrace which, according
to Highlanders' views, could not fail to attach to themselves and their
country from an infamous punishment for crimes not in themselves
infamous, in the moral sense of the word: for it is necessary to make a
distinction between this and the feeling excited among these men when
punishments are awarded for disgraceful crimes. In cases where soldiers
were guilty, or were suspected of bringing shame on themselves by
actions unbecoming good men, I have always observed that the soldiers
were anxious they should be brought to the punishment their crimes
deserved.
The mutiny of the Grant was, in every respect,
similar in its cause, object, and consequences, to that of the
Breadalbane Fencibles. Several men were put into confinement, and
threatened with punishment. The idea was insupportable to many of the
soldiers, who, in defiance of their officers, broke out and released the
prisoners. Sir James Grant, the colonel and patron of the regiment,
hurried to Dumfries, where the regiment was then quartered. But he was
too late; and the violation of order and of military discipline was too
glaring to be passed over. The regiment was removed to Musselburgh,
where Corporal Macdonald, Charles and Alexander Mackintosh, Alexander
Fraser, and Duncan Macdougall, were tried and condemned to be shot. The
corporal was pardoned, and the three soldiers were ordered to draw lots
(Alexander Fraser was not permitted to draw), when the fatal chance fell
on Charles Mackintosh, who, with Fraser, was shot on Gullane Links, on
the 16th July 1795; and thus affording another striking instance of the
necessity of paying a due regard to the feelings of soldiers, and of
treating them as men of good principles, whose culpability may proceed
more from mistaken notions than from depravity. It also affords a
striking instance of the paramount call on those under whose direction
they are placed in their native country, that their treatment be not
such as to loosen and destroy those finer feelings, and render the
people desperate, regardless of their own character, disaffected to the
government, and transplant a spirit of hatred and
revenge, instead of the fidelity, confidence, and attachment of other
times.
