220 A SCOTCH CLAYMORE. 



the American hero unparalleled proofs of their courage 

 and devotion. And the legislator recompensed this corps 

 d'elite by granting them certain chartered privileges, 

 which they enjoyed from 1781. 



At the battle of York town, when General Cornwallis, 

 hemmed in on the one side by Washington and his 

 Americans, and on the other by the French fleet, under 

 the Comte de Grasse, was compelled to capitulate with 

 his army of seven thousand men, the captain of the 

 Highlanders in the third brigade, John Davidson, was 

 ordered by the conqueror to receive the sword of the 

 conquered. Cornwallis, enchanted with the courtesy of 

 his fortunate enemy, begged him to accept as a mark of 

 his esteem a Scotch claymore, long an heirloom in his 

 family, which had once belonged to the clan of Mac- 

 Fergus. The relic was presented by Davidson to his 

 company, and this identical claymore is borne by the pre- 

 sent captain of the New York Highlanders. 



As for the stag and dog, which won my admiration and 

 excited my interest in 1841, their history is quickly told. 



The former had been brought from Virginia to New 

 York by my friend, William Porter. In 1836, the fawn, 

 deprived of his mother, who had been killed in the chase, 

 fell into the hands of Porter, and he, with characteristic 

 generosity, had carried him to the rendezvous of the 

 hunters, and thence to his host's plantation, and after- 

 wards to New York. 



On the evening of his arrival in the great western city, 

 he had sent the gentle animal to the regimental mess of 

 the Highlanders with his compliments. At first the good 



