" The need for recruitment, especially in the Scottish Highlands, became acute at the time of the revolt of the American colonies against British monarchical rule. And there was another huge shadow, in this case across the European, not the American, map: this was the threat of revolution in the country just across the Channel. The storming of the Bastille by a revolutionary mob on 14 July 1789 was the first unmistakable public manifestation of what would be known with hindsight as the French Revolution. "

― Antonia Fraser , The King and the Catholics: The Fight for Religious Liberty in Georgian England