Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 4.djvu/177

 ii s. iv. AUG. 26, mi.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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drink for their guests, the article says : "ftWe all know what jeers and ridicule the tea and turn-out system had to bear with when it was first attempted." What is the origin of the phrase ? DIEGO.

fleplus.

MAIDA : REGIMENTS DE WATTEVILLE

AND DE ROLLE.

(11 S. iv. 110.)

THE 61st Regiment, mentioned in the REV. E. L. H. TEW'S query, was represented at Maida by its two flank companies, included in the two provisional battalions, of Grena- diers and Light Companies respectively, there engaged. The whole battalion was subsequently employed in Calabria (1806).

Sir Louis de Watteville's Regiment is described by Sir Thos. Bunbury (' Military Transactions in the Mediterranean ') as " partly Swiss, partly enlisted prisoners and deserters." Probably raised about 1799, it arrived in Aboukir Bay to join the army of Lieut. -General Sir J. Hely Hutchinson before Alexandria, 3 August, 1801. It was 780 strong in the Brigade of Col. Stewart, 89th Regiment. It embarked for Naples at Malta in November, 1805, and was engaged at Maida, 4 July, 1806, four of its companies being detached " under that good Swiss officer, Major Fischer " (Bunbury). It formed part of the British Army on the Straits of Messina, August, 1806 ; was in Sicily from December, 1806, to 1809 ; and in the expedition to the Bay of Naples, June, 1809 (Bunbury).

Milne in his ' Standards and Colours of the British Army ' has an interesting reference to De Roll's Regiment and its colours. He says it was raised (1799 ?) by Baron de Roll in the Black Forest, but Bunbury says " it had been originally Swiss, but from time to time it had been renewed and augmented with foreigners of various kinds many of them prisoners or deserters." It was at Gibraltar under Sir Ralph Abercromby,

20 October, * 1800, in his 5th Brigade, com- manded by Brigadier-General Stuart. It landed at Aboukir, 8 March, 1801, and was present at the battle of Alexandria on

21 March. It was with the army in Sicily, December, 1806. The regiment landed at Alexandria with the ill-fated British ex- pedition, March, 1807, and behaved well,

particularly the detachment under the command of Major Vogelsang. It was in Sicily, 900 strong, in June, 1809 ; and was disbanded in 1816. It had first yellow, and afterwards blue facings (Bunbury, Walsh, and Milne).

Both regiments continued to appear in the ' Army List,' under ' Foreign Corps,' until after Waterloo. C. HAGGARD.

I can answer MB. TEW'S last two questions. The regiment of De Watteville was originally the Swiss regiment of Erlach (afterwards Ernest), which was raised for the French Army in 1671. There were eleven Swiss regiments of the line, of which the Regiment of Ernest stood first. The men of this regiment were recruited in Berne, and were all Protestants. Even after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, the Swiss Protestant soldiers had full liberty of worship in France, and the Regiment of Ernest once refused to march against Holland, contending that by the terms of their enlistment they could not be compelled to fight a Protestant Power a view which Louis XIV. upheld.

At the Revolution the regiment returned to Berne, where it was shortly afterwards leased to Great Britain. Mr. Wickham, our Minister at Berne, writes to Lord Grenville, 15 June, 1796 :

"As an Englishman I enjoyed with real satisfaction the idea of getting from France at the same time with her colonies her very best regi- ment to assist in defending them against her." ' Dropmore MSS.,' vol. iii. p. 213.

The regiment was then called (after its colonel) the Regiment de Watteville, and was employed first in Corsica, and then in Sicily ,and in Calabria. It was present at Maida, and distinguished itself by routing the (new) 1st Swiss Regiment of the French Army, it having once been itself the 1st Swiss Regiment in that service. Many prisoners were taken, who enlisted in the regiment.

After nearly twenty years' gallant service in the Mediterranean, it was sent in 1814 to defend Canada against the Americans. After Waterloo it was disbanded, those men who desired getting land grants in Canada, while the others returned to Switzerland.

The Regiment de Rolle had never been in the French Army as a unit, though most of the soldiers had served in either the French or Dutch armies. In 1795 Baron Louis de Rolle, of Soleure a member of an ancient Swiss family which had given many soldiers to France, and himself a former lieutenant-colonel of the famous Swiss Guards was engaged to recruit 1,800 men