Having been relieved from duty in North America, the regiment embarked for England, where it arrived in August, 1786.
1789
In the year in which the regiment returned to England, a company of merchants, residing in the East Indies, formed a settlement at Nootka Sound,—a bay of the North Pacific Ocean, on the west coast of North America,—with the view of obtaining furs. This settlement was seized by the Spaniards in 1789, and two ships were detained. To chastise this violation of British enterprise and liberty, a fleet was fitted out, and the SEVENTEENTH were embarked to serve as marines, but the subject was settled without hostilities taking place.
1792
Lieut.-General Morrison was removed to the fourth foot in 1792, and was succeeded in the colonelcy of the SEVENTEENTH regiment by Major-General George Garth, from lieut.-colonel in the first foot-guards.
1793
1796
1798
The regiment was employed on home service during the early part of the war of the French Revolution, and was stationed in Ireland, from whence it embarked on the 25th of February, 1796, for the island of St. Domingo, where a contest was being carried on between the British troops and the republican forces on that island. The climate of St. Domingo proved particularly injurious to the health of the British troops, and the SEVENTEENTH regiment lost Lieut.-Colonel Hooke, and several other officers and a number of men, by disease; also a few men in skirmishes with the republican troops. The island was eventually evacuated, and the surviving officers and men embarked for England in 1798, and landed at Deptford in January, 1799.
1799
In this year the soldiers of the militia corps were permitted to volunteer their services into regiments of the regular army, when fifteen hundred men volunteered to the SEVENTEENTH regiment, which was augmented to two battalions, the second battalion being placed on the establishment of the army in the beginning of August, under the orders of colonel-commandant Major-General Eyre Coote; four lieut.-colonels and four majors being placed on the establishment.
A favourable opportunity appearing to present itself for rescuing Holland from the power of France, Great Britain and Russia sent a body of troops to that country, under the command of his Royal Highness the Duke of York; and the two battalions of the SEVENTEENTH formed part of the leading division of the British force under Lieut.-General Sir Ralph Abercromby, which effected a landing on the Dutch coast, near the Helder, on the 27th of August, and defeated a body of French and Dutch troops.