While the regiment was stationed in Ireland, war was proclaimed on the 23rd of October 1739, by Great Britain against Spain, in consequence of the Spanish depredations in the West Indies.
1740.
Lieut.-Colonel Samuel Walter Whitshed was promoted from the Eighth dragoons to the colonelcy of the Thirty-ninth regiment on the 28th of December 1740, in succession to Colonel Dalway, removed to the Thirteenth dragoons.
While the war was being carried on between Great Britain and Spain, the decease of Charles VI. Emperor of Germany, on the 20th of October 1740, and the support given by France to Charles Albert, Elector of Bavaria, in opposition to the claims of the Archduchess Maria Theresa, the eldest daughter of the late Emperor, to her father’s hereditary territories, occasioned the contest that is designated the “War of the Austrian Succession.”
1742.
The Elector of Bavaria was chosen Emperor of Germany at Frankfort on the Maine, and crowned as Charles VII. on the 11th of February 1742; and in the summer of that year the King of England sent an army of sixteen thousand men, under Field-Marshal the Earl of Stair, to Flanders, in order to support the Queen of Hungary, Maria Theresa.
1743.
Colonel Edward Richbell was appointed to the colonelcy of the Thirty-ninth regiment on the 14th of June 1743, in succession to Colonel Samuel Walter Whitshed, who was removed to the Twelfth dragoons.
The battle of Dettingen was fought on the 27th of June 1743, and is remarkable as the last action in which a British monarch was present; but King George II. at this period did not act as a principal in the war, his troops having been furnished as allies to the Austrians.