When these things are fairly considered, it will not be thought strange that the Highland clans should have occasionally achieved great martial exploits.
But those very institutions which made a tribe of highlanders, all bearing the same name, and all subject to the same ruler, so formidable in battle, disqualified the nation for war on a large scale.

Nothing was easier than to turn clans into efficient regiments; but nothing was more difficult than to combine these regiments in such a manner as to form an efficient army.

From the shepherds and herdsmen who fought in the ranks up to the chiefs, all was harmony and order.

Every man looked up to his immediate superior, and all looked up to the common head.

But with the chief this chain of subordination ended.