“Your love ne’er learnt to flee,
But he fell in Germanie,
Fighting brave for loyalty,
Mournfu’ dame, mournfu’ dame.”
GERMANY—MARINE SERVICE—WEST INDIES—EGYPT—WEST
INDIES—GIBRALTAR—1755–1862.
In 1755 the encroachments of France awakened a new war, in which our Borderers were employed in several generally successful expeditions against the fortified towns and arsenals on the coast of France, especially the Isle of Oleron, St Maloes, and Cherbourg. A few years later, with the Twelfth, the Twentieth, the Twenty-third, the Thirty-seventh, and Fifty-first Foot, the Horse Guards, the First and Third Dragoon Guards, the Second, Sixth, and Tenth Dragoons, they formed the British army, which, advancing from the north of Germany, allied with the Germans and other auxiliaries, latterly served under the command of Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick. Encountering at first severe reverses, they were at length rewarded by the victory of Minden. “This was the first occasion on which the British troops took aim by placing the butt of the firelock against the shoulder, and viewing the object along the barrel, when firing at the enemy, in which mode they had been instructed during the preceding peace. On former occasions, the firelock was brought up breast-high, and discharged towards the enemy a good deal at random; because it was considered a degradation to take aim according to the present custom. And in this year the cavalry adopted the trumpet, in place of the side-drum and hautbois.” Throughout the war, the regiment suffered very severely, its loss at the battle of Campen alone amounting to two-thirds of its number. In the Regimental Records, which afford a most interesting and ably-written account of the many “brave deeds” of the regiment, as well as a comprehensive, yet most accurate, record of the wars in which it was concerned, and to which we are largely indebted, it is recorded: “1760, December 9, died, in the 34th year of his age, of the wounds he had received in the battle of Campen, Henry Reydell Dawnay, Viscount Down, Baron Dawnay of Cowick, county York, M.P. for that county, Colonel in the army, and Lieutenant-Colonel commanding the Edinburgh Regiment, greatly regretted and lamented by every officer and soldier of the corps, and by all his companions in arms. His Lordship commanded the regiment in the battle of Minden.” Notwithstanding the great superiority of the enemy, ably commanded by the Marshal Duke de Broglio, the allies, by the most heroic efforts, not merely held their own, but frequently repulsed the enemy, especially at the battle of Kirch Deukern, or Fellinghausen, where the French were defeated with great slaughter. “Hitherto, punishments in the British army were, to a certain extent, discretionary with commanding officers of corps, and inflicted by means of switches, generally willows; but during the present year, regimental courts-martial, consisting generally of a captain and four subalterns, were instituted, and punishment with a cat-of-nine-tails introduced.”
ANCIENT BADGE OF TWENTY-FIFTH, OR KING’S OWN BORDERERS.
At length, in 1763, peace was restored. The Twenty-fifth, returning to England, whilst stationed at Newcastle, buried, with military honours, the shreds of the colours which they had so honourably fought under at the battles of Fontenoy, Culloden, Roucoux, Val, Minden, Warbourg, Campen, Fellinghausen, and Wilhelmsthal. Having replaced the losses they had suffered in the recent war, and having enjoyed for several years peaceful and pleasant quarters at home, our Borderers, in 1768, embarked in H.M.S. “Dorsetshire,” 70 guns, for Minorca, where they discharged the duties of the garrison for some time with the Third, Eleventh, Thirteenth, and Sixty-seventh regiments.