I forwarded this post for general interest. Also Dan, I found this obscure reference in "Fighters of Derry" from the epic poem "Londeriados" "Ewing and Wilson gave the same And forty merchants, whom I can not name." Referring of coarse to the defence of Derry in 1689. Do you have merchant connections? "The victory of William, Prince of Orange, on July 12, 1690 will soon be celebrated by many of our Ulster friends. The aid dispatched for the relief of Derry and the conspicuous display of power of the Protestant forces of Europe under the leadership of William and gathered at Carrickfergus was the culmination of long relationship between Scottish and Dutch protestants. The merchant guilds of the Royal Burghs alone had the right of foreign trade. It was necessary to prevent encroachments by unfreemen, unfree burghs and foreign merchants into the trading communities. Wherever control was exercised at a recognized place to facilitate inspections and the collection of customs was known as a "staple." The monoply of trade which belonged to the merchants of the Royal Burghs extended to all those articles from which customs revenue was collected. These were known as "staple goods." [If you've read this far, you've learned something!] The great center of Scottish trade in the Netherlands was the staple colony at Campvere. The trade between Scotland and Holland was so great that there existed for 350 years an established Scots trading station in the latter country, which during most of that time was situated at Campvere on the island of Walcheren. The connection began by the marriage in 1444 of Wolfaert von Borselen, Lord of Campvere, to Mary, fifth daughter of James I. The settlement of the Scots staple at Campvere was effected by an Order under the hand of James V., dated at Stirling, 25th June 1530. Campvere was the great haunt of the Scots merchants. So numerous were the Scots residents that they had a church of their own, and were entitled to be represented at the General Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland. There was also a Scottish Presbyterian church at Rotterdam. Besides the voyages of merchants, there was much coming and going of officers and men of the Scots regiments in the service of foreign states. There was a Scots Brigade in Holland on continuous service for over two hundred years, being first embodied in 1572 and not dissolved until 1782. {Yes, the kilt was worn after 1745 by Scottish Regiments in service overseas, including the Battle of Bushy Run, outside of Pittsburg, Pennyslvania.] These men were always in the thick of the fighting and bore the brunt of danger. At the battle of Nieuport in 1600, the Scots regiment, under the command of Coloner Edmond, a native of Stirling, and son of a Stirling baker, had 600 men killed. But the more the ranks were thinned the more eager were their countrymen to rush in and fill the vacant places in the fighting Brigade, which Prince Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange, called "the Bulwark of the Republic." Stewarts, Kirkpatricks, Balfours, Mackays, Strachans, Barclays, Murrays and nearly every family of note in Scotland sent their sons across the sea to that famous training school of arms. For James and his advocates at the Boyne water, in their attempts to assert an external control over the independence minded Scots and Scots-Irish, they paid dearly. Lose your freedom and you have nothing else to lose. July, aye jcmaclay