The Highlandmen are pretty men
For target and claymore,
But yet they are but naked men
To face the cannon's roar.
For the cannons roar on a summer night
Like thunder in the air;
Was never man in Highland garb
Would face the cannon fair.
But the Highlanders of 1745 had got far beyond the simplicity of their
forefathers, and showed throughout the whole war how little they dreaded
artillery, although the common people still attached some consequence to
the possession of the field-piece which led to this disquisition.
NOTE 26.--ANDERSON OF WHITBURGH
The faithful friend who pointed out the pass by which the Highlanders
moved from Tranent to Seaton, was Robert Anderson, Junior, of Whitburgh,
a gentleman of property in East Lothian. He had been interrogated by the
Lord George Murray concerning the possibility of crossing the uncouth
and marshy piece of ground which divided the armies, and which he
described as impracticable. When dismissed, he recollected that there
was a circuitous path leading eastward through the marsh into the
plain, by which the Highlanders might turn the flank of Sir John Cope's
position, without being exposed to the enemy's fire.
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