Chiefs of Grant > Correspondence

562 ADDITIONAL GRANT CORRESPONDENCE. [1794.
may be able to suggest some officer of your corps willing, with your approbation, to under-
take the raising a new corps of the nature I have described ; and if any of the privates of
the corps of fencibles commanded by you should be willing to enlist as volunteers in such a
corps, not only will no objection be made to their doing so, but a bounty of five guineas, in
addition to what they have formerly received, will be allowed as an acknowledgement for
their zeal in turning out as volunteers. They will likewise be assured of being brought
back to Scotland at the conclusion of the war and disbanded in their own country. If, in
consequence of this measure, your corps should be deprived of any part of its present strength,
His Majesty will be advised to allow you a bounty of ten guineas per man to replace those
who may offer as volunteers for the newly proposed corps. It has occurred to me that
perhaps it may prove an additional encouragement to the raising these corps if each person
undertaking to raise a corps should have it in his power, by means of it, to aid either his
own or the promotion of a friend in the army ; and, with that view, His Majesty will be
advised to give one step of promotion of permanent rank, either to the person himself who
raises the corps, or to any one other officer now in the army, recommended by him for one
of the commissions in the corps, provided the person to receive such step is not at present of
a higher rank than that of Major in His Majesty's service.
I am aware that one material obstacle to the proposition I now make is the difficulty of
finding officers to undertake the service, but I flatter myself the zeal which has so conspicu-
ously manifested itself throughout the kingdom in various other modes of service will not
be wanting for the very essential service I now propose. But, if there should be any defi-
ciency of officers for the purpose of carrying on this service, the defect may be supplied by
appropriating to it the service of officers who, having raised independent companies, are at
present unemployed in any other service. — I have the honor to be, Sir,
Your most obedient humble servant,
Henry Dundas.
Sir James Grant, Bt., etc. etc. etc.
630. The Duke of Portland to The Same — Volunteers in Skye, Inverness, etc.
Whitehall, 13th February 1795.
Sir, — ... As no arms and ammunition have been hitherto granted by Government to any
persons who have been merely enrolled, without having formed themselves into volunteer
corps, it is not thought adviseable to allow those articles to any of the islands belonging to
the county of Inverness in which a volunteer corps has not been raised to be commanded
by officers appointed by His Majesty.
It is with much satisfaction that I remark in your letter of the 30th ultimo, and its
enclosure, the zeal and loyalty which pervade the inhabitants of each district in the Isle of
Sky.