Signed at the particular request of the Non-Commissioned Officers, Drummers, and Privates of the regiment,
Michael Eager, Serjeant-Major.
On the 7th of October, the remainder of the Second Battalion, under Lieutenant-Colonel Harris, arrived from the West Indies, joined the corps at Penzance, and the whole were incorporated into one battalion. In December the regiment was again marched to Plymouth, to do duty in Mill Prison; and on the 25th of the same month twelve lieutenants and two companies were reduced.
1798
In February, 1798, the Queen's received orders to hold itself in readiness for embarkation. It was brigaded at Plymouth with the Twenty-fifth and Twenty-ninth, under the command of Lord Dalhousie, in March; and on the 12th of June following embarked at Barnstaple, under Lieutenant-Colonel Eyre, for Ireland, where republican principles had gained ground, and being encouraged by promised aid from France, the malcontents broke into acts of open rebellion. The regiment landed in Ireland on the 20th of February, and arrived at Fowke's Mill in the middle of the action between Major-General Sir John Moore and the rebels. On the next day, the army moved on to Wexford, which Lord Dalhousie entered with the flank companies of the Queen's Royal, and liberated Lord Kingsborough, and several other Protestant gentlemen, who were to have been put to death. Lieutenant Charles Turner[26], of the Queen's Royal, was one of the officers who, a few days after, surprised and took prisoner the celebrated Bagenal Harvey, who had concealed himself in a cave in Saltee Island, and whose character for courage and desperation was such that few people would have ventured to approach his hiding-place.
When the French expedition under General Humbert landed in Ireland in July, 1798, the Queen's Royal marched to Tuam, where the army assembled. After the surrender of General Humbert, the regiment returned to Phillipstown, and wintered in Kilkenny, where they were brigaded with the Twenty-ninth regiment, under Major-General Peter Hunter.
1799
In the early part of the following year, the brigade, with some guns, marched to Tullamore and to Phillipstown, to be ready in case of a rising in that part of the country: this, although apprehended, did not take place, and in six weeks the brigade returned to Kilkenny, and in June the Queen's moved from thence to Cork, and encamped at Monkstown.
In the month of July, the regiment embarked for England, landed at Southampton, and marched to the camp on Barham Downs, near Canterbury, where it was recruited by volunteers from the militia; and with the Twenty-seventh, Twenty-ninth, and Eighty-fifth regiments, it formed the third brigade of the army commanded by Major-General Coote. With this brigade, to which the Sixty-ninth regiment was afterwards added, it served during the expedition to Holland, and was engaged with the enemy at the Helder, on the 27th of August, 1799, when the army commanded by Sir Ralph Abercrombie made good its landing, in defiance of great natural obstacles at the point of debarkation, and also made an advanced movement, in opposition to every exertion on the part of an active enemy, to prevent it.