To Secure to Themselves and Their Countrymen an Agreeable and Happy Retreat: the Continuity of Scottish Highland Mercenary Traditions and North American Outmigration

Scottish Highland soldiers have a long history of mercenary service with the armies of Europe and the British diaspora to the New World. This study analyzes the motivations for Scottish outmigration to British North America during the 18th century from both an economic as well as cultural perspective. This book proposes that Scots utilized the mercenary profession that had long been a part of their way of life in order to achieve economic security and a degree of cultural preservation. It also demonstrate that Scottish Highland Loyalism during the War of American Independence was not an abnormality, as some have suggested, but rather a continuation of certain Highland clans and families adherence to a martial code of mercenary service for land. In order to arrive at this conclusion Cameron D. Flint examines the history of Scottish mercenary service and Highland clan political loyalties beginning in the late medieval era through the formation of Highland regiments within the British army during the eighteenth century and culminates with these regiments land grant based settlement of North America in the era of the French and Indian War through the War of American Independence.