tablishment,
that regiment, from the time when it first fought under the great
Gustavus, had been almost exclusively composed of Scotchmen; and
Scotchmen have never, in any region to which their adventurous and
aspiring temper has led them, failed to note and to resent every slight
offered to Scotland. Officers and men muttered that a vote of a foreign
assembly was nothing to them. If they could be absolved from their
allegiance to King James the Seventh, it must be by the Estates at
Edinburgh, and not by the Convention at Westminster. Their ill humour
increased when they heard that Schomberg had been appointed their
colonel. They ought perhaps to have thought it an honour to be called by
the name of the greatest soldier in Europe. But, brave and skilful as
he was, he was not their countryman: and their regiment, during the
fifty-six years which had elapsed since it gained its first honourable
distinctions in Germany, had never been commanded but by a Hepburn or a
Douglas. While they were in this angry and punctilious mood, they were
ordered to join the forces which were assembling at Harwich. There was
much murmuring; but there was no outbreak till the regiment arrived at
Ipswich. There the signal of revolt was given by two captains who were
zealous for the exiled King. The market place was soon filled with
pikemen and musketeers running to and fro. Gunshots were wildly fired
in all directions. Those officers who attempted to restrain the rioters
were overpowered and disarmed. At length the chiefs of the insurrection
established some order, and marched out of Ipswich at the head of their
adherents. The little army consisted of about eight hundred men. They
had seized four pieces of cannon, and had taken possession of the
military chest, which contained a considerable sum of money. At the
distance of half a mile from the town a halt was called: a general
consultation was held; and the mutineers resolved that they would hasten
back to their native country, and would live and die with their rightful
King. They instantly proceeded northward by forced marches. [43]

When the news reached London the dismay was great. It was rumoured that
alarming symptoms had appeared in other regiments, and particularly
that a body of fusileers which lay at Harwich was likely to imitate the
example set at Ipswich. "If these Scots," said Halifax to Reresby,
"are unsupported, they are lost. But if they have acted in concert with
others, the d