The regiment was reviewed by the Right Honourable Sir David Baird, Commander of the Forces,[498] on the 24th of July, when its appearance and steadiness called forth his highest approbation.
On the 11th of August 1822, Lieutenant-General Sir Samuel Auchmuty, G.C.B., colonel of the regiment, died in Dublin, having been, a short time previously, appointed to the command of the forces in Ireland. He was succeeded in the regiment by Major-General Sir Edward Barnes, K.C.B.
When the regiment left Kilkenny for Dublin, in August 1824, a letter was received from the grand jury of the county Kilkenny, expressive of their high sense of the good conduct of the regiment during its stay of two years and a half in that county, and of their satisfaction at the unanimity which had at all times prevailed between them and the inhabitants. The regiment would have changed its station the preceding year, but was allowed to remain at the particular request of the gentlemen of the county. Lieut.-Colonel Lindsay was appointed a magistrate of the counties of Kilkenny and Carlow, and Captain Lardy a magistrate of Carlow.
On the 13th of January 1826, the regiment moved from Fermoy to Cork. Orders were received on the 26th of January for the regiment to hold itself in readiness to embark for Ceylon, in consequence of which four service companies and six dépôt companies were immediately formed. On the 7th of March new arms were issued to the six service companies, and a selection of the old ones made for the dépôt. The old arms had been in possession more than nine years, but not having been originally good, were considered unfit to be taken to a foreign station. Some of the arms issued as new had been previously for a short time in the possession of the 42nd Highlanders.
The service companies of the regiment embarked at the Cove of Cork on board three ships, which sailed together on the morning of the 23rd of April, and arrived at Colombo on the 9th, the 17th, and the 28th of August respectively, after a favourable passage.
The regiment remained in garrison at Colombo, from its disembarkation until the 2nd of October 1828, when the first division marched for Kandy.
“It was a great satisfaction to the officers of the regiment, to receive from the officers of the civil service their testimony to the good conduct of the men, that during nearly three years’ residence in Kandy no complaint had ever been made of ill treatment or injustice by them to any of the natives.”
On the 2nd of August 1831, the regiment received routes for four companies to Trincomalee, and to Galle. The companies for Trincomalee, with the headquarters, disembarked at their destination on the 22nd of August.
A year after its arrival the station was attacked by cholera in its most malignant form, and the regiment suffered severely.
The crisis of the disease, both in the fort and in the hulk, was from the night of the 22nd to that of the 24th; in these 48 hours 25 men died. The cases after that became gradually fewer and less virulent, and, by the 2nd of November, the disease may be said to have entirely left the fort, though it continued to rage among the natives outside for a month or six weeks longer. Altogether, in the 78th, there were attacked 132 men, 10 women, and 3 children, and of these there died 56 men, 2 women, and 1 child.