On the 16th of July the battalion, consisting of 3 field officers, 6 captains, 27 subalterns, 5 staff, 48 sergeants, and 974 drummers and rank and file, embarked at Portsmouth on board His Majesty’s ships Belleisle and Impérieuse, and towards the end of the month sailed for the Downs.
The battalion was brigaded, under Brigadier-General the Baron de Rottenburg, with the Sixty-eighth and Eighty-fifth Light Infantry, in the division commanded by Lieut.-General Alexander Mackenzie Fraser, and in the corps of Lieut.-General Sir Eyre Coote, K.B.
The expedition sailed from the Downs on the 28th of July, and having arrived off the Roompet Channel, preparations were made for landing; small craft to cover the landing were also sent in shore, and the light brigade, composed of the Sixty-eighth, Seventy-first, and Eighty-fifth Light Infantry, were landed under their fire. In an instant they were in contact with the enemy’s sharpshooters, who fell back, skirmishing. Being pushed hard, four guns, with their equipment and several prisoners, were taken by two companies of the Seventy-first, under Captains George Sutherland and Henry Hall, and one company of the Eighty-fifth.
A battery and flag-staff on the coast were taken possession of by the tenth company of the Seventy-first, and in lieu of a flag a soldier’s red jacket was hoisted on it.
This advance having succeeded at all points, and the enemy having fallen back on Flushing and Middleburg, the army was disembarked. The advance then dividing, proceeded by different routes. The Seventy-first moved by the sea dyke on a fort called Ter Veer, the situation and strength of which was not sufficiently known, an enemy’s deserter having given but imperfect intelligence respecting it.
After nightfall the column continued to advance in perfect silence, with orders to attack the post with the bayonet, when, on a sudden the advance-guard fell in with an enemy’s party, who came out for the purpose of firing some houses which overlooked the works. The column following the advance-guard had entered an avenue or road leading to the fort, when the advance commenced the action with the enemy, who, retiring within the place, opened a tremendous fire from his works with artillery and musketry. Some guns pointing down the road by which the battalion advanced did great execution, and the Seventy-first had Surgeon Charles Henry Quin killed, and about 18 men killed and wounded. The column, after some firing retired, and the place was the next day regularly invested by sea and land. It took three days to reduce, when it capitulated, with its stores and a garrison of 800 men.
Flushing having been invested on the 1st of August, the Seventy-first, after the surrender of Ter Veer, were ordered into the line of circumvallation, and placed on the extreme left, resting on the Scheldt. The preparations for the attack on the town having been completed, on the 13th a dreadful fire was opened from the batteries and bomb-vessels, and congreve-rockets having been thrown into the town, it was on fire in many places. The ships having joined in the attack, the enemy’s fire slackened, and at length ceased. A summons being sent in, a delay was demanded, but, being rejected, the firing recommenced.
On the 14th of August one of the outworks was carried at the point of the bayonet by a party of detachments and two companies of the Seventy-first under Lieut.-Colonel Pack.
In this affair, Ensign Donald Sinclair of the Seventy-first was killed; Captain George Spottiswoode and a few men were wounded.
Flushing, with its garrison of 6,000 men, capitulated on the 15th of August, and the right gate was occupied by a detachment of 300 men of the First or Royal Scots, and the left gate by a detachment of similar strength of the Seventy-first under Major Arthur Jones. The naval arsenal and some vessels of war which were on the stocks, fell into the hands of the British.