‘1st and 2nd Battalions Rifle Brigade.
A. Norcott, Col. and Lieut.-Col. Com.
D. Little Gilmour, Lieut.-Col.
J. Ross, Major and Lieut.-Col.
S. Mitchell, Major and Lieut.-Col.
J. Leach, Major and Lieut.-Col.
Geo. Miller, Major and Lieut.-Col.
W. Gray, Capt. and Major.
Morgan Brent, Major.’[178]
This address was forwarded to the Duke by Colonel Gilmour, then commanding the 2nd Battalion, with the following letter:—
‘Tuam, May 31, 1820.
‘My Lord Duke,
‘As senior Lieutenant-Colonel of the Rifle Brigade, I have the honour of forwarding to you a letter from the officers composing the two Battalions of it, and in doing so I beg leave to express the high sense I entertain of the honour which has now devolved upon me, as also to embrace this opportunity of acknowledging the many obligations personally conferred upon me by your Grace, and which I beg leave to assure you shall ever be held in my most grateful recollection.
‘I have the honour to be
&c., &c.
D. Little Gilmour,
Lieut.-Col., 2nd Battalion Rifle Brigade.’
During the time the 1st Battalion remained at Glasgow, they were frequently engaged, if not in actual conflict with the insurgents, yet in repressing acts of violence by the populace of Glasgow and Paisley, during the political excitement, then known as ‘The Radical War.’ Thus, among other occasions, I find that on April 2, 1820, the people of Glasgow, Paisley and the surrounding villages having left work and assembled for illegal and riotous objects, the Battalion was under arms from before day-break and posted in St. George’s Square; but the assemblage dispersed without acts of overt violence.[179]
On the removal of the Battalion from Glasgow, it received, by District Order dated November 12, 1820, the approbation of Major-General Reynell, commanding the district, for its conduct ‘upon those trying occasions when its steady, temperate deportment was so mainly conducive to the restoration and maintenance of tranquillity in that populous city.’[180]
A letter from the Provost of Glasgow, dated October 28, conveyed to Colonel Norcott the approbation of the magistrates of that city of the conduct of the Officers, Non-commissioned Officers and Privates of the Battalion, ‘during a period of great anxiety and alarm,’ for their ‘admirable discipline and propriety of conduct under very trying and harassing circumstances.’
The 1st Battalion left Glasgow in three Divisions on November 15, 16 and 17, 1820, and arrived at Belfast on the 24th and 27th and were there quartered, furnishing detachments to Downpatrick, Carrickfergus, Coleraine, Castle-Dawson, Ballycastle, Dungiven, Maghera, Newtown-Glens and Ballymoney.