Chaplain.—John Stewart, died in 1781.
Surgeon.—Thomas Farquharson.
Adjutant.—Robert Leslie.
Mate.—Duncan Campbell.
Quarter-master.—Kenneth Mackenzie, killed at Mangalore.
The name of the 42nd Regiment was a sufficient inducement to the Highlanders to enter the service, and on the 21st of March 1780, only about three months after the appointment of the officers, the battalion was raised, and soon afterwards embodied at Perth.
In December the regiment embarked at Queensferry, to join an expedition then fitting out at Portsmouth, against the Cape of Good Hope, under the command of Major-General William Meadows and Commodore Johnstone. The expedition sailed on the 12th of March 1781, and falling in with the French squadron under Admiral Suffrein at St Iago, was there attacked by the enemy, who were repulsed. Suffrein, however, got the start of the expedition, and the commander, finding that he had reached the Cape before them, proceeded to India, having previously captured a valuable convoy of Dutch East Indiamen, which had taken shelter in Saldanha Bay. As the troops had not landed, their right to a share of the prize-money was disputed by the commodore, but after a lapse of many years the objection was overruled.
The expedition, with the exception of the “Myrtle” transport, which separated from the fleet in a gale of wind off the Cape, arrived at Bombay on the 5th of March 1782, after a twelve months’ voyage, and on the 13th of April sailed for Madras. The regiment suffered considerably on the passage from the scurvy, and from a fever caught in the island of Joanna; and on reaching Calcutta, 5 officers, including Major Patrick Græme, and 116 non-commissioned officers and privates had died.
Some time after the arrival of the expedition, a part of the troops, with some native corps, were detached against Palghatcheri, under Lieutenant-Colonel Mackenzie Humberston of the 100th Regiment, in absence of Lieutenant-Colonel Macleod, who, being on board the Myrtle, had not yet arrived. The troops in this expedition, of which seven companies of the Highlanders formed a part, took the field on the 2nd of September 1782, and after taking several small forts on their march, arrived before Palaghatcheri on the 19th of October. Finding the place much stronger than he expected, and ascertaining that Tippoo Sahib was advancing with a large force to its relief, Colonel Humberston retired towards Ponanee, closely pursued by the enemy, and blew up the forts of Mangaracotah and Ramgurh in the retreat.