The old Scottish Guard of the French kings wore hoquetons of white, "in token of their unspotted fidelity," but the other Scottish troops in the French service, the Gendarmes Écossais, who took precedence of all the household troops, and the Infanterie Écossais, which took rank after the 12th regiment of the old French line, wore blue, while scarlet was the dress of the Irish brigades of the Louis' in later years.
Our Chasseurs Brittaniques, a foreign corps, consisting in some instances, of deserters from every army in Europe, wore the national uniform, and thus, when on duty, frequently caused confusion and mistakes by their ignorance of the English language.
In 1742, the coats and breeches of the line were tightened, and the hats were looped up on three sides, and in that year, the 7th, or South British Fusiliers, and the 21st, or North British Fusiliers, figured in the high conical cap which came into vogue with the Prussian tactics. Their coats had no collars, the skirts were buttoned back and faced with blue. Numbers were first put on the coat buttons in 1767.
Red and yellow being, as we have stated, the royal livery of Scotland, the facings of Scottish regiments have generally been of the latter colour, and many that now wear blue, had yellow when first embodied.
The whole infantry of the East India Company wore the national colour, and it is greatly to be regretted that, on the commencement of our Volunteer movement, the Government did not enforce the adoption of scarlet, instead of permitting the endless varieties of silly colours and costumes now worn by many corps throughout the United Kingdom.
The statistics of European wars show us that the French, who are clad in _blue_, suffered a greater loss in proportion than the British, who wear _red_, when under fire. An old Peninsula officer, whose letter is before us, mentions, "When our Light Company, and the company of the 60th Rifles (green), attached to our brigade, were skirmishing on the same ground (against the enemy), the latter lost more than we did, although composed chiefly of Germans, who are proverbially cautious skirmishers. This is an important subject. I saw, at the Battle of Vittoria, the wonderful effect of the imposing appearance of the British line on the enemy. After they had been driven from their position and completely scattered, many glorious attempts were made by their officers to rally them on some heights behind the ridge on which our line was advancing. It became an object with the officer commanding the Light Companies, which were scattered in pursuit, to get them arrayed for the attack of a column which formed on one of those heights at some distance in our front, and thus became a rallying point to the thousands who were flying from the ridge in helpless confusion.