Soon after the regiment arrived in the West Indies, hostilities were terminated; the British Monarch acceded to the independence of the United States, and a treaty of peace was concluded. This change occasioned the regiment to return to England in 1782.
In this year, the Thirteenth foot received directions to assume the title of the First Somersetshire Regiment, and, in order to facilitate the procuring of recruits, to cultivate a connection between that county and the regiment.
1783
The army was reduced in 1783, when the regiment was placed upon a peace establishment.
1784
In the spring of 1784, the regiment embarked for Ireland, where it was quartered during the succeeding six years.
1789
On the 5th of June, 1789, General the Honorable James Murray was removed to the twenty-first foot, or Royal North British Fusiliers, and His Majesty conferred the colonelcy of the Thirteenth regiment on Major-General George Ainslie, from the lieut.-colonelcy of the fifteenth light dragoons.
1790
In the following year, the regiment received orders to hold itself in readiness for foreign service. A revolution had taken place in France; the French monarch was divested of regal power; the doctrines of liberty and equality were disseminated, and Great Britain was on the eve of being engaged in a contest to arrest the destructive operation of the principles of democracy.