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I then did some research on that regiment, e.g. I sat in the Scottish Room of the Central Library in Edinburgh for days on end and copied out every reference to that regiment that I could find in the pages of the Edinburgh Evening Courant from 1795 to 1799, when the regiment was disbanded at Hopetoun House, Linlithgow. By coincidence, I was then living in Linlithgow. My notes run to five pages of A4. I'll be glad to share them with anyone who is interested, but I will need your email or snail-mail addresses to send them to, as there's too much to summarise. I also have a photocopy of the picture of the 3rd Earl of Hopetoun in Kay's Edinburgh Portraits, in the uniform of the regiment.

Hi Harry

I've just been reading this thread with enormous interest and am wondering if I could ask for your help.  I'm trying to establish whether a chap called Samuel Player ever served in the Hopetoun Fencibles at the same time as one of the Hopetoun Captains, one Thomas Durham.  Samuel Player joined the Fifeshire Fencibles when it was first raised by James Durham (I believe this was Thomas's brother) in 1795, and I think Thomas went to the Fifeshires too at that time, becoming a Lt Col under his brother, the Colonel.

The Hopetoun period I'm interested in, therefore is from its inception in March 1793 to the middle of 1795 when James Durham (I think) took his brother Thomas with him to his own new regiment, and possibly a private called Samuel Player too. 

I will go to Kew armed with the reference they gave you in the letter you kindly shared with this forum regarding their Muster Book holdings for the Hopetouns in WO 13 to look for Samuel's name, but you have done such an admirable amount of work on all this already, I was just wondering if by any chance Captain Thomas Durham, or even Private Samuel Player, had in any way impinged upon your consciousness already?

I'd be so grateful for any thoughts you may have.
Many thanks
Claire