At three o’clock on the following day, the flank companies of the Sixty-fifth and Eighty-sixth, supported by the Seventy-fifth and Seventy-sixth regiments, commanded by Lieut.-Colonel Monson, stormed a large and high bastion. After passing the ditch, the forlorn hope was destroyed in attempting to ascend the breach, which was extremely steep, and knee-deep in mud and loose stones. Every effort was made, the men climbing over the dead bodies of their comrades, and struggling to gain the rampart, but in vain. Some strove to climb by the shot holes made by the British guns, and others drove their bayonets into the mud walls to ascend by, while the enemy above hurled large stones, logs of timber, packs of flaming oiled cotton, and jars filled with combustibles, upon their heads, with a terrible destruction; the killed and wounded lay by hundreds, crushed beneath the falling timbers, or burning under the flaming oiled cloth, when Lieut.-Colonel Monson, seeing the impossibility of succeeding, ordered the survivors to return to the camp.

In the two attacks, the Eighty-sixth had two serjeants and twenty-three rank and file killed; Captain Moreton, Lieutenants Travers, Baird, Lanphier, D’Aguilar, one serjeant, one drummer, and seventy-three rank and file wounded. A great number of the wounded soldiers died. Lieutenant Baird received five wounds; Lieutenant Lanphier was wounded on each day; this officer and Lieutenant D’Aguilar distinguished themselves on both occasions. Serjeant George Ibertson was commended in regimental orders for his conduct at the breach, and Corporal Crawford was rewarded with the rank of serjeant, for his behaviour on this occasion.

The capture of Bhurtpore without additional means, being found impracticable, the British withdrew from before that fortress, and proceeded to Dhoolpore; negotiations for peace having been concluded, the army was broken up in May; the Bengal troops proceeding to Muttra, and the Bombay division to Tonk, where they remained during the monsoon in huts.

After the rainy season, the Bombay force commenced its march, proceeding through the territories of the Rajah of Jeypore, in pursuit of the forces of Holkar, who was still in the field. Having been chased to the banks of the Hyphasis river, on the borders of the great desert, the Mahratta chieftain was forced to submit, and the war was terminated by a treaty of peace[6].

In orders dated Riapoora Ghaut, on the left bank of the Hyphasis, 13th December, 1805, General Lord Lake returned thanks to Major-General Jones, the officers, and soldiers, of the division of the army from Bombay, for the important services rendered by them during the war; and, alluding to the period they had been under his immediate command, added, “His Lordship has been proud to witness, on every occasion on which they have been employed, the steady conduct and gallantry in action of all the troops composing the division.”

1806

From the banks of the Hyphasis, near the spot where Alexander the Great crossed that river when he invaded India, the regiment commenced its march for Bombay, where it arrived on the 29th of March, 1806, and embarking for Goa, landed on the rock of Aguada on the 3rd of April, after a most active and harassing service of more than five years, during which period it had sailed up the Red Sea, crossed the desert twice, served a campaign in Egypt, traversed the north and western provinces of India from Bombay to Bhurtpore, and received the thanks of Lord Lake on the banks of the Hyphasis; having sustained a loss of Lieut.-Colonel Robinson, Captains Maclaurin and Macquarrie, Lieutenants Harvey, Price, and Wilson, Ensigns Massey, Ellison, McKay, Leovick, and upwards of a thousand non-commissioned officers and soldiers.

In October of this year, Lieutenant-General Craig, K.B., was removed to the Twenty-second Foot, and was succeeded in the colonelcy of the Eighty-sixth by Lieut.-General Sir Charles Ross, Baronet, from the Eighty-fifth regiment.

At Goa, the regiment was joined by a detachment, consisting of Lieutenant Michael Creagh, Ensigns Blackall, Hillhouse, Paymaster Cope, and thirty non-commissioned officers and soldiers. This detachment was employed under Major-General Sir David Baird, at the capture of the Cape of Good Hope, in January, 1806, when Lieutenant Creagh was wounded. The strength of the regiment was also augmented with two hundred and thirteen volunteers from the Seventy-seventh, on that corps embarking from England.

In this year, His Majesty was pleased to change the designation of the corps to the “Eighty-sixth, or Leinster Regiment of Foot.”