A nearer view, indeed,
rather diminished the effect impressed on the mind by the more distant
appearance of the army. The leading men of each clan were well armed
with broadsword, target, and fusee, to which all added the dirk, and
most the steel pistol. But these consisted of gentlemen, that is,
relations of the chief, however distant, and who had an immediate title
to his countenance and protection. Finer and hardier men could not
have been selected out of any army in Christendom; while the free and
independent habits which each possessed, and which each was yet so well
taught to subject to the command of his chief, and the peculiar mode of
discipline adopted in Highland warfare, rendered them equally formidable
by their individual courage and high spirit, and from their rational
conviction of the necessity of acting in unison, and of giving their
national mode of attack the fullest opportunity of success.
But, in a lower rank to these, there were found individuals of an
inferior description, the common peasantry of the Highland country,
who, although they did not allow themselves to be so called, and claimed
often, with apparent truth, to be of more ancient descent than the
masters whom they served, bore, nevertheless, the livery of extreme
penury, being indifferently accoutred, and worse armed, half naked,
stinted in growth, and miserable in aspect.
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