Medals were accordingly granted to the deserving survivors of the campaign, who were divided into three classes: first class, men who had served in eight or nine general actions; second class, in six or seven general actions; third class, in four or five general actions.
The regiment remained in Ireland till May 1818, not having had a chance of distinguishing itself at the crowning victory of Waterloo, although it was on its way to embark for Belgium when news of that decisive battle arrived. While at Fermoy, on the 6th of April 1818, the regiment was presented with new colours. The colours which had waved over the regiment in many a hard-fought field, and which had been received in 1802, were burned, and the ashes deposited in the lid of a gold sarcophagus snuff-box, inlaid with part of the wood of the colour-staves, on which the following inscription was engraved:—“This box, composed of the old standards of the Seventy-fourth regiment, was formed as a tribute of respect to the memory of those who fell, and of esteem for those who survived the many glorious and arduous services on which they were always victoriously carried, during a period of sixteen years, in India, the Peninsula, and France. They were presented to the regiment at Wallajahbad in 1802, and the shattered remains were burned at Fermoy on the 6th of April 1818.”
The 74th embarked at Cork for Halifax, Nova Scotia, on the 13th of May, leaving one depôt company, which was sent to the Isle of Wight. The companies were divided between St John’s, Newfoundland, St John’s, New Brunswick, and Frederickton, where were headquarters and five companies. The regiment remained in North America till 1828, in August of which year proceeding to Bermudas, which it left at the end of the next year for Ireland, where it arrived in the beginning of 1830. In 1818 the regiment had been reduced to ten companies of 65 rank and file each, and in 1821 it was further reduced to eight companies of 72 rank and file. In 1825, however, the strength was augmented to ten companies—six service companies of 86 rank and file, and four depôt companies of 56 rank and file each.
The regiment remained in Ireland till 1834, during part of which time it was actively employed in suppressing the outrages consequent on the disturbed state of the country. In the latter part of 1834 the regiment was divided into four depot and six service companies; three of the latter were sent to Barbadoes, while the headquarter division, consisting of the three remaining companies, was sent to the island of Grenada. In November 1835 the two service divisions were sent to Antigua, where they remained till February 1837. From thence the headquarter division proceeded to St Lucia, and the other three companies to Demerara, both divisions being sent to St Vincent in June of the same year. The regiment was kept moving about among these western islands till May 1841, when it proceeded to Canada, arriving at Quebec at the end of the month. While the regiment was stationed at Trinidad it was attacked by fever and dysentery, which caused great mortality; and fever continued to prevail among the men until the regiment removed to Trinidad. With this exception the 74th remained remarkably healthy during the whole of its residence in the West Indies.
The 74th remained in the North American colonies till 1845, being removed from Canada to Nova Scotia in May 1844, and embarking at Halifax for England in March 1845. On arriving in England in the end of that month, the service companies joined the depot at Canterbury.
While the regiment was stationed in Canterbury, Lieutenant-Colonel Crabbe, commanding the regiment, submitted to the Commander-in-Chief, through the colonel (Lieutenant-General Sir Phineas Ryall), the earnest desire of the officers and men to be permitted to resume the national garb and designation of a Highland regiment, under which the 74th had been originally embodied.
The lieutenant-colonel having himself first joined the regiment as a Highland corps in the year 1807, and having served with it continuously during the intervening period, knew by his own experience, and was able to certify to the Commander-in-Chief, how powerfully and favourably its character had been influenced by its original organisation; and also that throughout the varied services and changes of so many years, a strong national feeling, and a connection with Scotland by recruiting, had been constantly maintained. Various considerations, however, induced an application for permission to modify the original dress of kilt and feathered bonnet, and with the resumed designation of a Highland corps, to adopt the trews and bonnet as established for the 71st regiment.
His Grace the Duke of Wellington was pleased to return a favourable answer to the application, in such terms as to render his consent doubly acceptable to the corps, causing it to be intimated to the colonel, by a letter from the adjutant-general, bearing date ‘Horse Guards, 13th August 1845,’ that he would recommend to Her Majesty that the 74th Regiment should be permitted to resume the appellation of a Highland regiment, and to be clothed “accordingly in compliment to the services of that regiment so well known to his Grace in India and in Europe.”
In the “Gazette” of the 14th November 1845 the following announcement was published:—
“War Office, 8th November 1845.