Chorus from the song I know with the Title Twa Recruitin Sergeants goes:

"And it's over the Mountains and over the Main
Through Gibraltar tae France and tae Spain
With a feather in your bonnet and yer kilt abin yer knee
Enlist ma bonny laddie and come awa wi me"

The Black Watch were originally raised as a militia in 1725 by General George Wade to keep "watch" for crime and to assist and protect the men, equipment and supplies required to build the network of roads that he was commissioned to build in the highlands after the 1715 Jacobite Rebellion.

The six Independent Highland Companies were recruited from local clans, with one company coming from Clan Munro, one from Clan Fraser, one from Clan Grant and three from Clan Campbell. Four more companies were added in 1739 to make a total of ten Independent Highland Companies, the required number to make up a single battalion regiment of the line.

The Black Watch, as a regiment of the line, was formed officially in 1739 as the "43rd Highland Regiment of Foot". As such it was first mustered in 1740, at Aberfeldy, Scotland. The Colonel was John Lindsay, 20th Earl of Crawford and the Lieutenant-Colonel was Sir Robert Munro, 6th Baronet. They were renumbered after the '45 Rebellion to the 42nd in 1748 on the disbanding of the existing Oglethorpe's 42nd Regiment of Foot allowing the regiment to assume that number as its own.