The regiment arrived at Edinburgh on the 31st of July and 1st of August: it had the honour of mounting guard over the royal person, when the King visited that city, and Captain Ellard, who commanded the guard of honor assembled to receive His Majesty on landing, obtained the brevet rank of major.
After His Majesty’s departure, the regiment embarked for Chatham, where it arrived on the 21st, 23rd, and 24th of September.
The regiment having been selected to proceed to India, made preparations for transferring its services to that part of the British dominions. Previous to embarking, it was constituted a corps of Light Infantry, to take date as such from the 25th of December, 1822; and the usual augmentation was made to its numbers.
THIRTEENTH,
PRINCE ALBERT’S REGIMENT OF
LIGHT INFANTRY.
1823
On the 1st and 3rd of January, 1823, the regiment embarked on board the ‘General Kydd’ and ‘Kent’ Indiamen, under Lieut.-Col. M‘Creagh and Major Robert H. Sale, and landed in May at Calcutta, where it received six hundred and twenty volunteers from corps about to return to England.
1824
Soon after the arrival of the regiment in India, the tranquillity of the eastern dominions of Great Britain was interrupted by the sovereign of Ava, who governed a numerous nation of Burmans, inhabiting an extensive territory, lying in one direction, between the Chinese dominions and Bengal. For many years the Burmese officers, in the country contiguous to the British territory, had been guilty of acts of encroachment and aggression, which at length became of so outrageous a character, as to render it necessary to call upon the court of Ava for an explanation. No answer was given; but after overcoming several petty tribes by which his kingdom was surrounded, the King of Ava made preparations for invading the British territory. Troops were assembled to penetrate the Burman empire, and to put an end to these acts of aggression, and an armament was prepared at Port Cornwallis, under the command of Brigadier-General Sir Archibald Campbell and Commodore Grant, for the capture of Rangoon, a city, and the principal part of the Burmese empire, situate on the north bank of the river Irawaddy, thirty miles from the sea. The Thirteenth light infantry embarked on this service, on the 5th of April, 1824; their commanding officer, Lieut.-Colonel M‘Creagh was appointed to the command of a brigade, with the rank of Brigadier-General, and the command of the regiment devolved on Major Sale. The fleet entered the Irawaddy on the 10th of May: the Burmese made a feeble attempt to defend the city, but their batteries were soon silenced, and the place was captured without the loss of a man; the inhabitants quitting their houses and seeking refuge in the thickly-wooded country.
Brigadier-General M‘Creagh was detached with three companies against the island of Cheduba, on the Arracan coast, where he landed on the 14th of May, captured the Burmese stockade by storm on the 17th, made the rajah, or governor, prisoner, and reduced this fertile and productive island to submission: in which service the Thirteenth had Brevet Major Thornhill, Ensign Kershaw, one serjeant, one bugler, and eighteen rank and file wounded.