“Colonel Craufurd, of His Majesty’s Seventy-third regiment, having had my leave to return to Europe, will have the honor of delivering your lordship this letter.
“I should do injustice to the high sense I entertain of Colonel Craufurd’s merit as an officer, did I omit on this occasion mentioning how much he has acquitted himself to my satisfaction, and with honor and credit to himself, in the whole course of a most trying campaign. He was next in command to me at the battle of Sholingur, on which occasion his conduct was deserving of the highest applause.”
[14] Major John Elphinston, of the Seventy-third regiment, was promoted to the local rank of lieutenant-colonel in the East Indies on the 23d of May 1781.
[15] Droog signifies a fortified hill or rock.
[16] In 1794 Tippoo received back his sons, and immediately commenced secret negotiations with the French, who were then at war with Great Britain, in order to renew measures for “utterly destroying the English in India.” This animosity ended only with the death of the Sultan, which took place on the 4th of May 1799, while defending Seringapatam against his former opponents. His body was found amidst heaps of slain, and was interred in the mausoleum which he had erected over the tomb of his father, Hyder Ali, a portion of the victorious troops attending the ceremony.
[17] On the 23d of May 1821, His Majesty King George the Fourth was graciously pleased to authorise the Seventy-first to bear on the regimental colour and appointments the word “Hindoostan,” in commemoration of its distinguished services in the several actions in which it had been engaged, while in India, between the years 1780 and 1797.
[18] In consequence of the renewal of the war with France, in May 1803, the British Government introduced the “Army of Reserve Act,” which was passed in July following, for raising men for home service by ballot, and thus caused certain regiments to be augmented to two battalions. Volunteer and yeomanry corps were also formed in every part of the kingdom, in order to preserve Great Britain from the threatened invasion.
[19] Number of men which arrived at the Cape of Good Hope in January 1806, under Major General Sir David Baird.
| Brigades. | Regiments. | Number landed, including Recruits for India, attached. | |
| 1st. Commanded by Brigadier-General Beresford. | { | Twenty-fourth | 600 |
| { | Thirty-eighth | 900 | |
| { | Eighty-third | 800 | |
| 2d. Under Brigadier General Ferguson. | { | Seventy-first, 1st battalion | 800 |
| { | Seventy-second | 600 | |
| { | Ninety-third | 800 | |
| Fifty-ninth | 900 | ||
| Company’s recruits | 200 | ||
| Seamen and marines | 1,100 | ||
| Artillery | 200 | ||
| Twentieth light dragoons | 300 | ||
| ——— | |||
| Total | 7,200 | ||
[20] The lofty promontory of Southern Africa received the name of “Cabo da Boa Esperança” (Cape of Good Hope), from King John II. of Portugal, upon its discovery, in 1487, by Bartholomew Diaz, in consequence of a good hope being entertained of discovering the long-wished for passage to India, which ten years afterwards was realised by Vasco de Gama, who doubled the Cape, and continued the voyage to the Malabar coast. For more than a century the Cape continued as a temporary rendezvous for European mariners. In July 1620, Humphrey Fitzherbert and Andrew Shillinge, two of the East India Company’s commanders, took formal possession of the place, in the name of King James I., but no settlement was formed. In 1650 the government of the Netherlands resolved to colonize the Cape, which remained in possession of the Dutch until July 1795, when it was taken by the British for the Prince of Orange, but was restored to its former possessors by the Peace of Amiens, concluded in 1802. It was again captured by the British in 1806, in whose possession it has since remained.