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It would seem as if the disastrous end of this expedition
put an end to all desire on the part of the Scots of enlisting in
the service of Sweden; but this is not so. Besides Robert
Stuart, the Earl of Orkney, concerning whom the Danish
Government was not far wrong when it suspected him, under
the guise of a pirate,—easily enough assumed, we should say
—of having shipped troops to Sweden,1 the Scottish
regiments were always replenished as soon as their numbers
showed any diminution. This, thanks to hunger, cold, and
disease, was only too frequently the case. In Livland and
Finland especially the situation of the Scots was lamentable.
Ignorant of the language, exposed to the rigours of the
climate, frequently unpaid for months together, the
miracle is that there was any discipline left at all.
Sometimes, when driven to extremes, these raw recruits, who
were no heroes and had no heroic cause to fight for, took
justice into their own hands. An amusing case of the
kind occurred in Samuel Catron’s regiment before Narva,
towards the end of the year 1615. In their exasperation
the Scots carried the head of the commissariat out of his
lodgings, dragged him into the open country, and there—
did not kill him. But we will let the soldiers themselves
speak. In a Latin letter to the king they explain their
case.* 1 2 “ We, the soldiers of Captain Cobson,” they say,
u humbly beseech your Majesty by the love of God to have
below rest# Mr Coronel Jörgen Sinkler, who fell at Kringlene in the year
1612 with a force of 900 Scots, who were crushed like earthen pots by a
small number of 300 Bönders of Lessö, Wage, etc.”
1 On 29th October, 1612, Gustavus Adolphus writes that the Earl on his
own responsibility had brought u een trop krigsfolk ” into the kingdom ;
though we have now no opportunity for so many, he adds, yet let him be
satisfied as to the rest of his claims with 200 “ skippund ” (each, 350 lbs.
Engl.) of copper. Riks. A.
2 “ Milite8 Schoti exponunt quo animo magistrum annonæ extra civitatem
Narvensis traxerint.” Riks. A.
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