The 72nd remained in the Channel Islands till April 1824, and on leaving was presented with addresses by the authorities and principal inhabitants, expressing their high admiration of its discipline, and of the peaceful and orderly behaviour of the men. After staying a short time at Plymouth, the regiment proceeded to Scotland, landing on the 13th of September at Newhaven, from which it marched to Edinburgh Castle, headed by its colonel, Lieutenant-General Sir John Hope. Detachments were sent to Stirling, Fort-William, and Dumbarton.
While in Edinburgh, in August 1825, the regiment received new colours, which were presented to the colonel, Sir John Hope, by Lady Hope. In presenting them to the regiment, Sir John addressed it as follows:—
“In delivering to your charge these colours, which have been presented to the 72nd regiment by Lady Hope, I am fully aware that I am not addressing a newly raised corps, whose name and character have yet to be acquired. As it has pleased His Majesty to confer so distinguished an honour on the regiment as to permit the 72nd to assume the name of the Duke of Albany’s Own Highlanders, I cannot omit congratulating the corps on having received so flattering and honourable a mark of approbation, and expressing my conviction that this additional badge, which is now placed on these colours, will afford a new and powerful inducement for maintaining the high character which the 72nd regiment has so long and so deservedly possessed. I feel particularly gratified that the honour of delivering these colours has devolved on me, and that their presentation should also have taken place in the capital of the country where the regiment was first raised, and after its return from a long period of honourable and distinguished service. The country being now at peace, there is no opportunity for the 72nd to gain fresh honours by victories in the field; but the regiment may deserve and obtain almost equal honour and credit by setting an example of discipline and good conduct on home service, which becomes now particularly incumbent when so highly distinguished by being named after His Royal Highness the Commander-in-Chief, to whom the whole army is indebted for the present state of order and discipline to which it has attained. That the 72nd will ever continue to deserve the approbation of His Royal Highness I make no doubt: and I have now to offer my most sincere good wishes for the prosperity of the corps collectively, and of every individual officer, non-commissioned officer, and private soldier of the regiment.”
The regiment left Edinburgh for Ireland during the same month, the Lord Provost and Magistrates of the city thanking the men for their exemplary conduct.
While in Ireland—where it was divided into detachments posted at various places—the regiment, in September 1827, was formed into six service and four depôt companies, the former proceeding to London, and taking duty at the Tower. In June 1828, it was inspected at Canterbury by Lord Hill, who complimented it by stating “that although it had been his lot to see and serve with most of the regiments in the service, he felt he should not be doing full justice to the 72nd Highlanders if he did not express his particular approbation of everything connected with them, and add, that he had never before seen a regiment their equal in movements, in appearance, and in steadiness under arms.”
In the end of the same month the service companies of the regiment again embarked for the Cape of Good Hope, where its reputation had already been so well established, and reached it on the 11th October. On disembarking at the Cape of Good Hope, it was quartered in the main barracks at Cape Town until it was removed on the 1st of October 1832 to the Castle. During this period it furnished in its tour the detachments at Simon’s Bay and Rotten Island. From the latter part of 1829 to the end of 1830 a company was employed in making a road through Hottentot Holland Kloof, since called “Sir Lowry’s Pass.” With this exception, nothing occurred to interrupt the usual routine of garrison duty, until the 31st of December 1834, when an express having arrived with the unexpected intelligence that a great part of the eastern frontier district was overrun and plundered by the Kaffirs, the Governor, Major-General D’Urban, immediately directed a wing of the regiment to be held in readiness for embarkation and on the 2nd of January 1835 Nos. 3 and 5, with the Light Companies, under the command of Major Maclean, immediately sailed for Algoa Bay. On the 6th, the Grenadier Company marched to Simon’s Bay, and embarked in His Majesty’s 16-gun ship “Trinculo,” in which the Governor took his passage to the frontier. Lieutenant-Colonel Peddie, K.H., with the remaining companies, proceeded, in four divisions, overland to Uitenhage, where the lieutenant-colonel with the first division arrived on the 16th, after a harassing journey of ten days, and was joined on the three succeeding days by the remaining divisions.
A detachment, consisting of Captain Sutherland, one subaltern, and forty rank and file, which rejoined the head-quarters at Grahamstown on the 12th of February, was left here for the protection of the town until a local force could be organised. Lieut.-Colonel Peddie, with the remainder, marched for Grahamstown on the 20th of January, arriving there on the 23rd, and finding at the Diodsty the three companies which had preceded them by sea, except the Light Company. With the latter and a small mounted force Captain Jervis had, on the 16th, been sent to re-occupy Fort Willshire. This, with all the military posts on the frontier, except Fort Beaufort and Hermann’s Kraal, had been abandoned to the Kaffirs, and sacked by them.
At this time the Kaffirs had swept off nearly all the cattle in the colony, and were returning with their booty to the most distant and secure parts of their own country, while the Governor was at Grahamstown awaiting the arrival of armed boors and Hottentots, who hastened from the remote districts, and were collecting supplies for the prosecution of the war in Kaffirland. On the 27th of January, Major Cox, of the 75th regiment, had collected a force, of which Captain Jervis, with forty men of the Light Company, and the whole mounted force at Fort Willshire, formed part, for the purpose of bringing off the missionaries and traders, who were assembled at Burns Hill in Kaffirland: this service they successfully executed. During their absence, however, which had the effect of weakening the garrison of the fort, then under the orders of Lieutenant Bent, Royal Engineers, on the 29th of January the Kaffirs, in overwhelming numbers, made a sudden attack on the cattle-guard. Although assistance was promptly afforded from the fort, which was not a thousand paces distant, and though the guard made a most gallant resistance, yet the Kaffirs succeeded in killing Corporal Davidson, and Privates Arnut, Webster, and Woods, of the Light Company, with two Hottentots of the new levies that composed it, and carried off all the cattle.
As it had been ascertained by Lieutenant-Colonel England, 75th regiment, that the Fish River Bush was occupied by the Kaffirs in great force, Captain Murray, with his company, marched, on the 31st of January, to Trompetter’s Drift, to join a force collected there for the purpose of clearing the country; and Major Maclean, with 100 men of the 72nd, also marched thither on the 7th of February to reinforce this command, which was now under the direction of Lieutenant-Colonel Smith, C.B., and which returned to Grahamstown on the 17th of February. The next day, the Commander-in-Chief in General Orders, congratulated the troops—“all of whom behaved admirably”—“upon the complete success which has crowned their recent operations, and by which the necessary and important object has been gained of driving the hostile tribes from the woods and fastnesses of the Great Fish River. The enterprise was one of no ordinary difficulty. The enemy was numerous, and well armed with muskets, and was determined to hold his ground, which, from the rugged and well-wooded ravines, was singularly adapted to his peculiar mode of fighting. The enemy was routed everywhere, and driven from his strongholds and over the Keiskamma, with a great loss in killed and wounded, and all his possessions in cattle, of which 4000 head, with large quantities of sheep and goats, fell into our hands.”
During these operations there were lost altogether eleven killed and eleven wounded, of whom three killed and four wounded belonged to the 72nd regiment.