In general,
a thousand different pretensions divided their little army, and finally
contributed in no small degree to its overthrow.
NOTE 25.--FIELD-PIECE IN THE HIGHLAND ARMY
This circumstance, which is historical, as well as the description that
precedes it, will remind the reader of the war of La Vendee, in which
the royalists, consisting chiefly of insurgent peasantry, attached a
prodigious and even superstitious interest to the possession of a piece
of brass ordnance, which they called Marie Jeanne.
The Highlanders of an early period were afraid of cannon, with the noise
and effect of which they were totally unacquainted. It was by means
of three or four small pieces of artillery that the Earl of Huntly and
Errol, in James VI's time, gained a great victory at Glenlivat, over a
numerous Highland army, commanded by the Earl of Argyle. At the battle
of the Bridge of Dee, General Middleton obtained by his artillery a
similar success, the Highlanders not being able to stand the discharge
of MUSKET'S-MOTHER, which was the name they bestowed on great guns. In
an old ballad on the battle of the Bridge of Dee, these verses occur:--
The Highlandmen are pretty men
For handling sword and shield,
But yet they are but simple men
To stand a stricken field.
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