their new mode of travelling. No other service was performed by
the 76th until the siege and surrender of Yorktown. During the siege,
while the officers of this regiment were sitting at dinner, the
Americans opened a new battery, the first shot from which entered the
mess-room, killed Lieutenant Robertson on the spot, and wounded
Lieutenant Shaw and Quartermaster Barclay. It also struck Assistant
Commissary General Perkins, who happened to dine there that day.

The day following the surrender of lord Cornwallis, at Yorktown (October
20th), the British prisoners moved out in two divisions, escorted by
regiments of militia; one to the direction of Maryland, the other, to
which the 76th belonged, moved to the westward in Virginia for
Winchester. On arriving at their cantonment, the officers were lodged in
the town on parole, and the soldiers were marched several miles off to a
cleared spot in the woods, on which stood a few log huts, some of them
occupied by prisoners taken at the Cowpens. From Winchester the regiment
was removed to Lancaster in Pennsylvania. After peace was declared they
embarked for New York, sailed thence for Scotland, and were disbanded in
March 1784 at Stirling Castle.

This regiment maintained a very high standard for their behavior. Thefts
and other crimes, implying moral turpitude, were totally unknown. There
were only four instances of corporal punishment inflicted on the
Highlanders of the regiment, and these were for military offences. Moral
suasion and such coercion as a father might use towards his children
were deemed sufficient to keep them in discipline or self-restraint.

In the year 1775, George III. resolved to humble the thirteen colonies.
In the effort put forth he created a debt of L121,267,993, with an
annual charge of L5,088,336, besides sacrificing thousands of human
lives, and causing untold misery; and, at last, weary of the war, on
July 25, 1782, he issued a warrant to Richard Oswald, commissioning him
to negotiate a peace. The definite articles of peace were signed at
Paris, September 3, 1783. Then the United States of America took her
position among the nations of the earth. George III. and his ministers
had exerted themselves to the utmost to subjugate America. Besides the
troops raised in the British Isles there were of the German mercenaries
twenty-nine thousand eight hundred and sixty-seven. The mercenaries and
British troops were well armed, clothed and fed. But the task