On the 14th of June, 1765, the colonelcy was conferred by King George III. on Major-General William Rufane, from the half-pay of the seventy-sixth foot (a corps raised in 1756, and disbanded after the peace in 1763), in succession to General Guise, deceased.
1769
1772
The regiment left Scotland in 1769, and was stationed in England during the three succeeding years: in October, 1772, it embarked for the West Indies, to assist in reducing to submission to the British government the refractory Charibbees in St. Vincent. This island was ceded to Great Britain by the treaty of 1763, and was found to contain two tribes of natives, called the red and black Charibbees; the former being the aborigines, and the latter having sprung from a cargo of African slaves who escaped from a vessel which was wrecked on the island. The Charibbees were found devoted to the French interest, and were dangerous and troublesome neighbours to the English planters. A resolution was taken to restrain their ambulations to a smaller range in the island, and to enforce obedience to several necessary regulations: and if this was found impracticable, to remove them to some other island, or to the continent of Africa. The Charibbees were, however, of a resolute spirit: they possessed many thickly-wooded fastnesses, and they resisted the attempt to restrict the indulgence of their roving propensities and mode of life so powerfully, that it was found necessary to augment the military force on the island.
1773
Soon after arriving at St. Vincent the Sixth lost their colonel, Lieut.-General Rufane, who died on the 14th of February, 1773, and was succeeded by Lieut.-General John Gore from the sixty-first regiment: this officer died in November following, when his Majesty conferred the colonelcy of the Sixth on Lieut.-General Sir William Boothby, Baronet, from the fiftieth foot.
1774
The regiment was employed in operations against the Charibbees of St. Vincent; several skirmishes occurred among the thickly-wooded parts of the country, and a few men were killed and wounded in the bush-fighting which took place daily. At length the natives were reduced to submission, and an agreement was concluded with their chiefs in February, 1774, by which further hostilities were prevented.
Having reduced the two refractory tribes to submission, the Sixth and forty-eighth regiments were stationed at the Charibbee islands until after the breaking out of the war of independence in North America.
1775
1776
1777
Hostilities commenced in 1775, when the establishment of the Sixth was augmented from ten companies of thirty-eight private men each, to twelve companies of fifty-six private men each. In the following year they were withdrawn from the West Indies, and joined the army commanded by Lieut.-General Sir William Howe at New York. The health of the soldiers had, however, been impaired by their residence in a tropical climate, and after transferring a few men to other corps, they returned to England, where they arrived in March, 1777.