490 HISTORY OF THE OUTER HEBRIDES. 



second battalion, and in the following year, after another 

 argument with a tape-bound Government, who wished to 

 make a separate corps of the battalion, he again gained 

 his point. The second battalion was raised with no less 

 facility than the first, and the regiment was authorised 

 to adopt the distinctive title of the Ross-shire Buffs. In 

 1796, the two battalions were amalgamated, and now 

 form the second battalion of the Seaforth Highlanders. 

 The history of the Buffs from that period is one of which 

 the British nation is deservedly proud. 



No fewer than 300 men of the first battalion were 

 recruited in Lewis. General Stewart of Garth pays a high 

 tribute to their character. " Several years," he says, 

 "elapsed before any of these men were charged with 

 crime deserving severe punishment. In 1799, a man 

 tried and punished ; this so shocked his comrades thai 

 he was put out of their society as a degraded man wl 

 brought shame to their kindred. The unfortunate outc< 

 felt his own degradation so much that he became unhappy 

 and desperate, and Colonel Mackenzie (of Fairburn) to 

 save him from destruction, applied and got him sent to 

 England, where his disgrace would be unknown and un- 

 noticed, and it happened, as Colonel Mackenzie expected, 

 that he quite recovered his character." 



In 1804, while Lord Seaforth was in the East Indies, 

 second battalion of 850 men was raised for the Buffs, of 

 which number, " 240 men as good soldiers as ever left the 

 Highlands enlisted in a few days from the Island of 

 Lewis." It will thus be seen that of the total strength 

 of the 78th Regiment, a large proportion consisted of 

 Lewismen, and to this day, the islanders regard the 

 Seaforths as being, in a special sense, the Lewis regiment. 

 Seaforth did not accompany the regiment abroad, the 

 command devolving upon Alexander Mackenzie of 

 Fairburn ; the originator of the scheme had already 

 done his work, and had done it well. He was rewarded 

 for his signal services to the country. In 1797, he was 

 raised to the peerage of the United Kingdom by the 



