In 1779 the 3rd and some companies of the 4th Battalion formed portion of an army under General Augustine Prevost in Georgia and South Carolina. The Regiment played a leading part at the brilliant action of Briars Creek (March 3rd, 1779), and also in the subsequent siege of Savannah, where a superior force of French and Americans under Comte d’Estaigne and General Lincoln was successfully held at bay by a very much smaller army under Prevost, and at the final assault was signally defeated with great loss (October the 9th, 1779). An improvised body of Light Dragoons (or Mounted Infantry), organised by Lieut.-Colonel Marc Prevost,[9] of the 60th, did remarkable service during these operations, and at the victory on the 9th of October lost heavily, but greatly distinguished itself by repulsing the main column of the enemy and capturing the colour of the Carolina Regiment, now in the possession of the Prevost family. Upon the termination of the American War of Independence in 1783 the 3rd and 4th Battalions were disbanded for the second time, but were again raised in 1788 and despatched to the West Indies. [Sidenote: WEST INDIES.] The Regiment, for the most part quartered in the West Indies, took part in the following military operations:— Capture of the Island of Tobago, a brilliant feat of arms April 17th, 1783 Capture (2nd) of Martinique March 1794 Capture Saint Lucia 1794 Capture Grande Terre Guadaloupe 1794 Capture Saint Vincent 1796 Capture Trinidad Feb. 1797 Capture Porto Rico April 1797 On the 23rd of August, 1797, Field-Marshal H.R.H. Frederick Duke of York[10] was appointed Colonel-in-Chief of the Regiment, _vice_ Lord Amherst deceased. [Sidenote: 1797, 5th BATTALION (RIFLES) RAISED.] In December of the same year the famous 5th Battalion was raised at Cowes, Isle of Wight, under Lieutenant-Colonel Baron de Rottenburg,[11] upon the German model as a Special Corps of Riflemen. Four hundred of Hompesch’s Mounted Riflemen—a German Corps raised for service under the British Crown—were drafted into the Battalion, which was armed with rifles and dressed in green with red facings. The second Lieutenant-Colonel was that celebrated Robert Crauford, who afterwards made his name so famous in the Peninsular War as the honoured leader of the Light Division. Thus, by the addition of the 5th Battalion to the Regiment as Riflemen in 1797, the gradual evolution of the 60th Royal Americans into The King’s Royal Rifle Corps was auspiciously begun. [Illustration: MAP I NORTH AMERICA Illustrating the area of Operations referred to in Part I, Sections 1 and 2, also Part II, Section 6. Stanford’s Geog^l. Estab^t., London. ]