Lieut.-General Napier died in November, 1766, when King George III. conferred the command of the regiment on Colonel Henry Clinton, from captain and lieut.-colonel in the first foot guards.
1767
1769
In 1767, the Twelfth were stationed in England; and in 1769, they proceeded to Gibraltar, to relieve the twentieth regiment on garrison duty at that fortress.
1775
1778
1779
The American war commenced in 1775, and the colonel of the regiment, Lieut.-General Sir Henry Clinton, distinguished himself in that country: in December, 1778, he was appointed colonel of the eighty-fourth regiment, or Royal Highland emigrants, then first embodied for service in North America, and afterwards disbanded. The Colonelcy of the Twelfth foot remained vacant until the 21st of April, 1779, when it was conferred on Colonel William Picton, from the seventy-fifth regiment; a newly-raised corps, which was disbanded at the peace in 1782-3.
The Twelfth regiment remained at Gibraltar. The possession of this fortress by the English, with a British garrison on the top of the rocky promontory overlooking the provinces of Spain, had been regarded by the Spaniards with great jealousy: every attempt to retake it had failed. Great Britain attached much importance to the possession of it; but the contest between the revolted provinces in North America and England appeared to present to the Spanish monarch a favourable opportunity for regaining possession of this valuable fortress. When the French monarch acknowledged the independence of the United States, and commenced hostilities against Britain, the time appeared particularly favourable for another effort to recapture Gibraltar, and in the summer of 1779, that fortress was beset, by sea and land, by the Spanish fleets and armies.
The garrison consisted of the Twelfth, thirty-ninth, fifty-sixth, fifty-eighth, and (late) seventy-second British, with the Hanoverian regiments of Hardenberg, Reden, and De la Motte, and a proportion of artillery and engineers. The Twelfth mustered twenty-nine officers, twenty-nine serjeants, twenty-two drummers, and five hundred and nineteen rank and file, under the command of Lieut.-Colonel Trigge: the garrison mustered five thousand three hundred and eighty-two men, under the orders of General Eliott, afterwards Lord Heathfield.[14]
Being blockaded by sea and besieged by land, the troops at Gibraltar became cut off from communication with all countries, and the garrison was like a little world within itself. The arrangements for the defence were devised with judgment, and executed with skill. The soldiers conformed to the strict rules which their circumstances rendered necessary, and severe exercise and short diet became habitual to them; at the same time the extensive preparations of the enemy, the great importance of the fortress, and the determined character of General Eliott and his garrison, occasioned this siege to become a subject of universal interest, and the eyes of all Europe were directed towards Gibraltar, watching the result of the contest.
As the enemy's works progressed, the pavement of the streets was taken up, the towers of conspicuous buildings were pulled down, the guard-houses unroofed, the stone sentry-boxes removed, traverses raised, a covered way begun, and every measure adopted to prevent the bombardment of the place being attended with serious results.