During the year 1783, the regiment was stationed in Yorkshire, and rapidly increased in numbers; in the following year it proceeded to Ireland, and was employed on Dublin duty in 1785.
1790
1791
After remaining in Ireland six years, the regiment embarked at Cork, in the summer of 1790, mustering seven hundred men, and proceeded to Barbadoes. In 1791, its establishment was reduced, and upwards of two hundred men were transferred to other corps.
1792
Lieut.-General Fawcett was removed to the third dragoon guards, in August, 1792; and King George III. conferred the colonelcy of the Fifteenth foot on Major-General James Hamilton, from the lieut.-colonelcy of the twenty-first, or royal North British fusiliers.
1793
In 1793 the regiment was removed from Barbadoes to Dominica, where it was stationed several months.
1794
Resistance to the authority of the crown, in France, had, in the meantime, led to a violent and sanguinary revolution, and the French West India Islands had become the scene of democratic outrage. Great Britain engaged in war to arrest the progress of anarchy; and the Fifteenth regiment was selected to join an expedition under General Sir Charles Grey, prepared to rescue the French West India Islands from republican outrage.
The expedition sailed from Carlisle-bay, Barbadoes, early in February, 1794; landed at three different points on the island of Martinique, on the 5th, 6th, and 8th of that month, and drove the enemy from numerous strong posts. Two companies of the Fifteenth distinguished themselves in storming Mount Mathurine, where a battery was erected, which compelled the garrison of Pigeon Island to surrender at discretion. 'The Fifteenth regiment, led by Major Lyon and commanded by Captain Panmier, surprised several hundreds of the enemy, very strongly posted, on the heights of Le Grand Bouclain, on the 12th of February, killing several and taking all their arms, ammunition, cattle, &c.'[13] The enemy's out-posts being driven in, Fort Royal and Fort Bourbon were besieged; the former was captured on the 20th of March, and the latter surrendered two days afterwards. The loss of the regiment on this service was limited to a few soldiers killed and wounded.