For the share which the battalion had in this glorious victory, the Seventy-first were permitted to bear, in common with the rest of the army engaged upon the 18th of June, the word “Waterloo” on the regimental colour and appointments. Colonel Thomas Reynell and Major L. Walker were appointed Companions of the Bath. The officers and men engaged were presented with silver medals by His Royal Highness the Prince Regent, and were allowed to reckon two years additional service.
The battalion, with the rest of the army, afterwards marched towards Paris, and entered that city on the 7th of July. The brigade encamped that day on the Champs Elysées, near the Place Louis Quinze, being the only British troops quartered within the barriers, and continued there until the beginning of November, when it proceeded to Versailles, and to Viarmes in December.
Meanwhile Louis XVIII had entered Paris and was again reinstated on the throne of his ancestors. Napoleon Bonaparte had surrendered to Captain Maitland, commanding the “Bellerophon,” British ship of war, and the island of St. Helena having been fixed for his residence, he was conveyed thither with a few of his devoted followers.
In Edinburgh, on the 26th of July, at the annual competition for prizes given by the Highland Society of London, Sir John Sinclair, President of the Judges, in the course of his address referred to several instances where the sound of the bagpipes had been productive of the most decisive results, and stated that it had been used with the same effect in the late glorious conflicts, as appeared by letters from the army. He said that before he obeyed the directions of the Committee in delivering the prizes it was necessary to state that George Clark, piper-major to the Seventy-first Regiment, having formerly received a pipe from the Highland Society of Scotland for his gallant conduct at the battle of Vimiera in continuing to play upon his pipes after he was severely wounded, it was thought proper to vote him a gold medal instead of considering him as a candidate for one of the prizes.
2nd bat.
On the 24th of December, 1815, the second battalion of the Seventy-first was disbanded at Glasgow, the effective officers and men being transferred to the first battalion.
1816.
In January, 1816, the Seventy-first marched to the Pas-de-Calais, in which part of France the regiment was quartered in several villages, having its head-quarters at Norrent Fonte, a village on the high road from Calais to Douay.
On the 21st of June, 1816, the regiment assembled on the bruyère of Rombly, between the villages of Lingham and Rombly on the one side, and Viterness and Leitre on the other, for the purpose of receiving the medals which had been granted by His Royal Highness the Prince Regent to the officers, non-commissioned officers, buglers, and privates, for their services at the battle of Waterloo.
A hollow square upon the centre was formed on this occasion; the ranks were opened, and the boxes containing the medals were placed within the square. Colonel Reynell then addressed the regiment in the following manner:—