BATTLE-HONOURS.
[To •IWIE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR."] Sin,—Your appreciative critique of Sir Herbert Maxwell's book on The Lowland Scots Regiments is interesting and suggestive, and makes one wonder why it is always the Highland regiments that are heard of when praise is going and why they are always in the forefront at martial displays, while the Lowland soldier is never heard of ! Will Englishmen believe that there are between four and five Lowland soldiers to every Highland one?
Your reviewer refers to the long and glorious service in arms which the regiment now known as the Royal Scots had previous to its coming finally on to our establishment, and says "that the regiment could hardly be given battle-honours now for Breiten- feld and for their other great deeds in France and Flanders, in Poland and Italy, and in every quarter of Germany before 1661," but he suggests it would be a graceful act to grant them some "honour" for their subsequent services under Turenne.
Is there not some precedent for awarding "honours" to them for the earlier achievements he refers to, in the special circum- stances that before coming on to the British Roster, while serving foreign Sovereigns they always did so with consent and by arrangement with their own Sovereign and Government and were always recruited and kept up to strength from their native land, also with approval of their Sovereign, further the great majority of their foreign campaigns were in support of a policy which was considered to the advantage of their home Government! Have we not a precedent in the case of the Royal Bengal Fusiliers and other Indian European regiments for long in the service of the East India Company and not on the British Roster till com- paratively recent years? These gallant regiments rightly carry on their colours the honours awarded them by the Board of Directors of the East India Company, before they became British regiments, and no one would think of suggesting that they should have only the honours they have won since they came on the Imperial Establishment and that their previous services should go
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