Orders were received in September to form six service and four depôt companies; the service companies embarked for Liverpool, from whence they proceeded to London, where they arrived on the 9th of October, and took the duty at the Tower.
1828
On the 5th of January, 1828, the first life guards, royal horse guards, four battalions of foot guards, and the SEVENTY-SECOND regiment, were reviewed on the parade in St. James’s park, by Field-Marshal the Duke of Wellington, in presence of Don Miguel, Infant of Portugal.
In April the regiment marched to Canterbury, where it was inspected on the 2nd of June by General Lord Hill, commanding-in-chief, who was pleased to state,—“That although it had been his lot to see and serve with most of the regiments in the service, he felt he should not be doing full justice to the SEVENTY-SECOND Highlanders, if he did not express his particular approbation of every thing connected with them, and add, he had never before seen a regiment their equal in movements, in appearance, and in steadiness under arms.”
The regiment remained at Canterbury until the end of June, when it marched to Gravesend, where it embarked, under the orders of Lieut.-Colonel Arbuthnot, for the Cape of Good Hope—a colony where the reputation of the corps was established, and it landed at Cape Town in September and October following.
1830
In May, 1830, the depôt companies were withdrawn from Ireland, and landing at Glasgow, were stationed in Scotland during the five following years.
1833
While the service companies were stationed in Cape Town, the aggressions of the Kafir tribes, which are divided into three nations,—the Amapendas, the Tambookies, and the Amakosa, assumed a formidable and an atrocious character previously unknown. The colonial boundary extended, on one side, to the Keiskamma, but a chief named Macoma, had been permitted to reside within the British territory. Owing to some atrocities committed by him and his followers on the Tambookies, which were attended with the shedding of human blood within the colony, he was deprived of the lands he held by sufferance in the British territory. His expulsion was, however, not strictly enforced until 1833, when he was removed beyond the boundary, and he became violently exasperated against the British. The predatory habits of the Kafirs also led to disputes, when the British were searching for stolen property, and the lenity observed towards the aggressors emboldened them, and occasioned them to become more audacious in their attacks.
1834