Chapter XXXVII
Enthusiasm of Volunteers—Drill and Sham Fights—Scott’s Letters—Quartermaster—Anecdote by Cockburn—Recruiting for the Army—Indifference to Fear of Invasion—Greatness of the Danger—War Song of 1802.
Captain Coburn’s company was the left flank company of the ‘Western Battalion of Midlothian Volunteers.’ The right flank company was commanded by John Archibald Murray (afterwards Lord Murray), so that both these companies had embryo judges at their head. So ardent was their zeal that, besides the general day performance in Heriot’s Green and Bruntsfield Links, the two companies used to drill almost every night of the four winter months of 1804 and 1805, by torch-light, in the ground flat of the George Street Assembly Rooms, which was then all one earthen-floored apartment. Then there was drilling with the whole regiment, besides parades, reviews, and four to six inspections in the course of the year. Sometimes they were ordered on ‘permanent duty’ to Leith or Haddington, and billeted on the long-suffering citizens. Then there were the sham fights, the marches, and the continual serio-comedy of the officers’ mess. Such was the state of affairs for years in every corner of Great Britain. All who enrolled as volunteers were exempt from the militia ballot and from the risk of having to serve in the field as long as the war lasted. Thus the volunteer ranks were easily filled; and the sense of duty, or the contagious excitement of the time, supplied plenty of officers. The whole population, in fact, became military. Any able-bodied man, of whatever rank, who was not a volunteer, or a local militiaman, had to explain or apologise for his singularity.
Scott’s letters of this time are full of the camp scenes at Musselburgh. Writing in July, he says to Miss Seward, ‘We are assuming a very military appearance. Three regiments of militia, with a formidable park of artillery, are encamped just by us. The Edinburgh Troop, to which I have the honour to be quarter-master, consists entirely of young gentlemen of family, and is, of course, admirably well mounted and armed. For myself, I must own that to one who has, like me, la tête un peu exaltée, “the pomp and circumstance of war” gives, for a time, a very poignant and pleasing sensation. The imposing appearance of cavalry, in particular, and the rush which marks their onset, appear to me to partake highly of the sublime.’
But the sublime was occasionally varied by a touch of the ludicrous. This is brought very vividly before us in the anecdote related by Cockburn, who, like the rest, records Scott’s extraordinary zeal in the patriotic cause. ‘It was,’ he says, ‘with him an absolute passion, indulgence in which gratified his feudal taste for war, and his jovial sociableness. He drilled, and drank, and made songs, with a hearty conscientious earnestness which inspired or shamed everybody within the attraction. I do not know if it is usual, but his troop used to practise, individually, with the sabre at a turnip,1 which was stuck on the top of a staff, to represent a Frenchman, in front of the line. Every other trooper, when he set forward in his turn, was far less concerned about the success of his aim at the turnip, than about how he was to tumble. But Walter pricked forward gallantly, saying to himself, “cut them down, the villains, cut them down!” and made his blow, which from his lameness was often an awkward one, cordially muttering curses all the while at the detested enemy.’
Looking at the patriotic movement in the cold light of reason, one can see that its real use was a much humbler one than those enthusiastic and gallant fellows intended. Young artisans and ploughmen who had once joined the volunteers, falling in love with the liveliness and display of the military career, and becoming unsettled in mind for the dull routine of their daily work, drifted readily into the paid militia. Thus the volunteer system was indirectly a splendid means of recruiting for the army. But there can be no doubt that for immediate service in the field—and it was for this that they were preparing—the volunteers would not have been found qualified. Their existence, however, gave the nation confidence, and prevented all danger of panic. It is marvellous to find, on the best evidence of those who lived and acted important parts in those critical years, that the general feeling about invasion was one of complete indifference. Most people went about their own business, and trusted to the country’s luck. Although justified by events, it was an ill-founded security. Men of speculative minds, the Cockburns and the Horners, were in a great and genuine fright. Romantic and active spirits, like Scott, anticipated the turning of their sport into earnest at any moment. And how easily it might have happened so. ‘Questions are mooted’ (said Horner), ‘and possibilities supposed, that make one shudder for the fate of the world.’ Certainly there were reasons enough for constant fear and dread: the brilliant and unbroken success of Napoleon’s arms: Ireland, a ready and willing basis for his first attack: and then the fearful loss and suffering to a country so thickly peopled and utterly unprepared for internal defence, should the war actually be brought within our bounds.
‘If ever breath of British gale
Shall fan the tri-color,
Or footstep of invader rude,
With rapine foul, and red with blood,
Pollute our happy shore—
Then, farewell home, and farewell friends!
Adieu each tender tie!
Resolved we mingle in the tide,
Where charging squadrons furious ride,
To conquer or to die.’—
From ‘War-Song of Royal Edinburgh
Light Dragoons,’ 1802.
Notes
1 One thinks of Oliver Proudfute and his sternpost of a dromond, fixed up in his yard for practice. ‘That must make you familiar with the use of your weapon,’ said the Smith. ‘Ay, marry does it.’—Fair Maid of Perth, chap. viii.