On the evening of the 12th of September, the advanced corps of the Anglo-Sicilian army posted at Ordal were attached and overpowered by the superior numbers of the enemy. The Tenth were suddenly ordered out at two o'clock on the following morning, and they formed across the road, covering the retreat of the broken remains of the corps in advance. At daybreak the French cavalry appeared, advancing rapidly and in great force, when the regiment commenced retiring, and skirmishing with the enemy during the retrograde movement; the army falling back towards Tarragona. In the evening the regiment took post on a height near Vendrills, where it halted several hours, and afterwards continued its retreat to the vicinity of Tarragona.
On the 24th of September, the regiment marched into quarters at Valls, and in October it was removed to Vendrills.
The brilliant success of the allied army under the Marquis of Wellington, and the disasters of Napoleon in Germany, had a great effect upon the war in Catalonia, and the troops under Marshal Suchet withdrew from several posts. The Tenth marched, in February, 1814, to the vicinity of Barcelona, and formed part of the force employed in the blockade of that fortress.
1814
Hostilities were terminated in April by a treaty of peace; Buonaparte was removed from the throne of France, and the Bourbon family restored.[8] The Tenth withdrew from before Barcelona, marched to Tarragona, and embarked at that port on the 25th of April; on the 19th of May they landed at the beautiful city of Palermo, situate in a bay on the northern coast of Sicily, where they went into barracks.
In March, 1814, the second battalion embarked from Sicily, and landed on the island of Malta on the 24th of that month.
1815
The return of Napoleon Buonaparte to France from Elba, and the declaration of war against the usurper by the allied sovereigns, in the spring of 1815, occasioned the Tenth to be removed from Sicily. They proceeded, in the first instance, by sea, from Palermo to Melazzo, and were stationed in the castle; at the same time the grenadier and light companies joined the flank battalion formed at Melazzo. The battalion companies afterwards sailed for Naples, where they landed on the 25th of May; three days after landing they went on board of two Neapolitan line of battle ships, "Geochinria" and "Carpi," and proceeded to Malta, where they landed on the 9th of June, and occupied Fort St. Elmo barracks.
The battle of Waterloo was succeeded by the flight of Buonaparte from France, and his surrender to the captain of a British man-of-war. Three hundred men of the Tenth, commanded by Lieut.-Colonel J. O. Beyer were detached to Fort Emanoel, in charge of the Duke of Rovigo, Lieut.-General L'Allemand, and six other French officers who had belonged to the suite of Buonaparte: these officers had been sent to Malta as state prisoners.