The first battalion of the Fourteenth Regiment was stationed at the military cantonment of Berhampore, from whence it marched, in the beginning of 1815, and joined the army assembled under Major-General George Wood, in consequence of the war with the kingdom of Nepaul. The Nepaulese were soon reduced to submission, and in April, the Fourteenth proceeded to the military cantonment of Dinapore, situated on the south bank of the river Ganges, in the province of Bahar, where they remained until October, when they embarked in boats, and proceeded to the cantonments near the ancient Hindoo town of Cawnpore, on the west bank of the Ganges, in the province of Allahabad.
1816
On the 26th of April, 1816, the second battalion embarked from Malta, for the Ionian Islands, where it was stationed during the following seventeen months.
The first battalion remained at Cawnpore during the whole of this year.
1817
In the mean time the resistance made by a powerful Hindoo Zemindar, or landholder, who possessed the town and fort of Hatrass, in the province of Agra, occasioned the regiment once more to take the field in India, in the beginning of 1817. This Zemindar was named Dyaram; during the troubles in the province of Agra, he only paid his rents when threatened with a large military force, and in the year 1803, when the country between the rivers Jumna and Ganges, called the Dooab, was taken possession of by the British, he expressed himself willing to pay his assessment, but objected to any interference in what he called his territory. This was not agreed to, but he was not then molested. His refusing to acknowledge the authority of the civil law, afterwards rendered it necessary to bring him to obedience by force of arms, and he had the presumption to defy the British power. To reduce this refractory Zemindar, a body of troops was placed under Major-General Sir Dyson Marshall, and the first battalion of the Fourteenth Regiment took part in the enterprise. The fortified town of Hatrass was reputed of great strength, and when the troops arrived before it, in February, 1817, some inquiry was made respecting the depth of the ditch, which a soldier of the Fourteenth, volunteered to ascertain, and fastening a large stone to the end of a cord, he proceeded alone after dark, and gained the necessary information, with a cool intrepidity, exposed to such great danger, as created great surprise. The fire of the batteries soon forced the town to submit, when it was taken possession of by Lieutenant-Colonel Watson, and the Fourteenth; but the castle held out several days; at length the principal magazine exploded, and during the following night the refractory Dyaram escaped at the head of a hundred horsemen all in complete armour. The castle was afterwards taken possession of without opposition; and this was followed by the submission of all the zemindars of the Dooab. After the performance of this service the Fourteenth returned to Cawnpore, where they remained several months.
The second battalion embarked from Cephalonia in the autumn of this year, and proceeded to Malta, where it remained a few days. The peace of Europe appearing to be established upon a firm basis, a reduction in the army took place, which occasioned the second battalion to receive orders to return to England for the purpose of being disbanded; it landed at Portsmouth on the 24th and 25th of November, and was reduced at Chichester on the 23rd of December, transferring four hundred and twenty rank and file to the first battalion.
1818
The aggressions of the bands of Pindarees, who made incursions into the territory subject to Great Britain, and committed great depredations, occasioned the regiment to be again called into the field in October of this year. Colonel Watson having received the appointment of Brigadier-General, and been nominated to a command under Major-General Sir Dyson Marshall, the command of the regiment devolved on Major Johnstone. The Pindarees were a community of professed marauders, and they were encouraged to make ravages in the British dominions in India, by the Mahratta states. Being all horsemen subsisting by plunder, the services of the corps employed against them were of an arduous and trying character:—traversing extensive districts by forced marches, passing rivers and thickets, and attempting to surprise these bands of plunderers, were duties calculated to exhaust the strength of European soldiers, when performed under an Indian sun. The regiment continued actively employed on these services until April, 1818, when it proceeded to the military cantonment of Meerut.