The regiment returned to Barbadoes in April, 1848, and was transhipped on board the Bombay transport on the 12th of that month, and sailed in a few days for North America.
On the 1st of July, the date to which the record has been continued, the service companies were stationed at Montreal, under the command of Major Sanders, and the depôt companies, under Major Calley, remained in Ireland, the head-quarters occupying the barracks at Castlebar.
1848
The details narrated in the foregoing pages, contain accounts of the services of the NINETEENTH REGIMENT OF FOOT, for a period of one hundred and sixty years, and although the Regimental colour does not display any mark of distinction for services performed, yet the record of the regiment proves, that when opportunity has offered, the regiment has evinced that zeal and devotion to its country's cause, and that patient endurance and bravery in the field, for which every British corps has been distinguished; these qualities were shown in the war in Flanders under King William III., particularly at the battles of Steenkirk and Landen, and at the siege of Namur, from 1692 to 1695; again in Flanders in 1710 and 1711, with the army under the command of the Duke of Marlborough. The regiment again distinguished itself in the war in Flanders, particularly at the battles of Fontenoy, Roucoux, and Val, in 1745, 1746, and 1747. In 1761, in the attack and capture of Belle Isle, where nature as well as art had combined to render the place impregnable, the regiment evinced an extraordinary degree of bravery. Its services were again evinced in Flanders, with the army under His Royal Highness the Duke of York, in 1794 and 1795.
The regiment has also been distinguished by long and arduous services in the eastern parts of the world from 1796 to 1820; it was engaged in the storming of Seringapatam on the 4th of May, 1799, where the celebrated Tippoo Saib was mortally wounded, and the city captured. Its services in the conquest of the Island of Ceylon and the deposition of the King of Candy, in 1815, likewise form an important and honorable era in the records of the regiment; the gallantry of the troops on this occasion caused the annexation of the colony of Ceylon to the British dominions, and the conduct of the NINETEENTH regiment in suppressing the rebellion in that island, in 1818, secured the possession of this valuable appendage to the territories of Great Britain.
The services of the NINETEENTH regiment in the Field, as well as in arduous Colonial duties, have been such as to show in the foregoing pages, that the officers and men have ample cause for feelings of pride in the honor acquired by the corps in whatever duty it has been employed, and this tribute of commendation is considered to be justly due to a regiment, the services of which have been so highly meritorious during a period of one hundred and sixty years.
1848.