Adjutant General.
The foregoing orders were sent to the officers commanding the 8th, 12th, 13th, 14th, 17th, and 18th light dragoons; to the Earl of Drogheda; to the major of brigade for the general officers; and to the agents, Messrs. Montgomery, Wybrants, and Cane.
1791
1793
The regiment remained in Ireland performing the usual duties of a cavalry corps on home service, until the events attendant on the French revolution occasioned it to be employed in continental and colonial warfare. When this revolution assumed its wild and violent character, the spirit of republicanism soon extended to the French West India Islands. The resolution to grant the immediate freedom of the slaves, for which they were unprepared, was followed, in 1791, by acts of outrage and spoliation committed by the blacks against the properties of their owners. In 1793 the planters of St. Domingo obtained British aid; and the revolutionists afterwards received assistance from France.
1794
1795
In the same year, a British army appeared in Flanders under the Duke of York, to arrest the progress of the French aggressions on the continent; and in 1794, two troops of the Fourteenth light dragoons were withdrawn from Ireland to engage in the contest. On their arrival in Flanders, the two troops of the regiment were attached to the eighth light dragoons; and they formed part of the van of the forces under Lieut.-General the Earl of Moira, on the march from Ostend to join the army under His Royal Highness the Duke of York. The squadron of the Fourteenth also shared in the toils and hardships of the winter campaign in Holland; it took part in several skirmishes with the enemy, and after enduring great privation and suffering from an unusually severe season, which occasioned the loss of several men and horses, it arrived in the early part of 1795, in Germany, where it was incorporated in the eighth regiment of light dragoons.
The contest in the West Indies had, in the meantime, been carried on with varied success, and the seven troops of the Fourteenth light dragoons in Ireland were ordered to give up their horses to the twenty-fourth light dragoons at Clonmel, and to embark for the West Indies dismounted. This transfer took place under the direction of Major-General Egerton, who bore testimony to the alacrity with which the officers and men prepared for embarkation.
The regiment embarked on the 25th of February, 1795, under the command of Lieut.-Colonel Arthur Carter; on arriving at St. Domingo, it was furnished with such horses as could be procured, and it was soon engaged in active operations against the bands of armed negroes and mulattoes who had enrolled themselves under the banners of the French republic.
1796
1797