1808
In December they embarked from Cork, and sailed to Spithead, where they arrived on the 18th of January, 1808; but circumstances had occurred which occasioned their embarkation for India to be countermanded; they landed and marched to Steyning barracks, where they remained until May, when they returned to the island of Jersey.
During this period, the first battalion had remained at Gooty and Bellary.
1809
The second battalion was stationed at Jersey until the summer of 1809, when it was completed to a thousand rank and file by volunteers from the militia, and embarked for the Peninsula, to join the British army, under Sir Arthur Wellesley, and take part in the deliverance of Portugal and Spain from the tyrannical domination of the Emperor Napoleon, who was attempting to bring those kingdoms under his despotic sway. After landing at Lisbon, on the 4th of July, the battalion was encamped near that place, with the brigade under Brigadier-General James Catlin Craufurd, for three weeks, and afterwards proceeded in boats up the river Tagus, under Lieutenant-Colonel Maister, to Santarem, from whence it marched into Spain, to co-operate with the troops under Lieutenant-General Lord Wellington, who had driven the French from Portugal, and repulsed the army under Joseph Bonaparte (titular King of Spain) at Talavera, a short time before. After several movements, the brigade joined the army under Lord Wellington in Spanish Estremadura; and the Thirty-fourth were placed in village cantonments on the right bank of the Guadiana, near Badajoz, where the battalion suffered from the epidemic fever which thinned the British ranks.
When Lord Wellington marched northward, the Thirty-fourth were left in Portuguese Estremadura, under Lieutenant-General Sir Rowland Hill.
In the mean time, the disaffection to the civil authorities of Madras, which occurred in the native army in India, particularly among the European officers, had occasioned the first battalion to be withdrawn from garrison, and to be employed in services necessary to bring the disaffected to submission; at the same time four captains and eight lieutenants were attached to the Company’s artillery, and to the Seventh, Ninth, Twenty-second, and Twenty-fifth Regiments of native infantry, in the place of the suspended officers: officers of the Thirty-fourth were also appointed to perform the duties of assistant adjutant-general, fort-adjutant, and deputy judge advocate.
1810
The Thirty-fourth Regiment performed many long marches with the field force, under Colonel Conran, of the First, or the Royal Regiment of Foot, in October, November, and December, 1809, and it was also frequently in motion during the first four months of 1810. On the 8th of May it encamped at Jaulnah, and was in tents during the periodical heavy rains: in October it moved into temporary barracks. Previous to this period, the arrival of Lord Minto, Governor-General of India, had been followed by happy results, and the authority of the civil government of Madras had been restored.