For what it is worth, a little earlier than our period, my forbear was the orphan son of a nurseryman who doubled as an exciseman (or vice versa) and ran away to join the 15th King's Light Dragoons aged 16 but seems to have been sent back to Edinburgh almost immediately. The next we hear of him is in New York 1776 , a 'Volunteer' with the 71st Highlanders, having just been appointed Quartermaster of their 2nd Battalion; an unusual advance for a young man aged 23 without any real military experience, .

A little over a year later he was commissioned Ensign by purchase into the 45th and, a year after that, Lieutenant in the 16th Regt. He did not serve with either regiment but served the rest of the AWI on the staff as an Assistant Deputy QMG. He ended his career as Captain in the 46th and took half pay the same day, retiring to marry and live the life of a gentleman tenant farmer in Fife.(In 1793 however he joined the Fife Fencible Cavalry as an aging Cornet and, having risen to Captain again, died on sick leave in 1799)

The link between these steps appears to be Sir William Erskine of Torrey who was successively, Lieut. Colonel of the 15th KLD, Lieut. Colonel of the 2nd Bn, 71st Hldrs, and QMG at New York 1776-1779, and whose mother owned the farm my forbear occupied for a rent of '6 cain fowls.' This was supposedly in gratitude for saving Erskine's life but othersie the connection remains unexplained, providing endless inspiration for romantic novelists.

If he did not start life as a gentleman he ended life as one