Lastly, it must be noted that, although the history of the American War is usually slurred over in consequence of its disastrous conclusion, yet to the rank and file of the British army there is far more ground therein for pride than for shame. British troops have never known harder times, harder work, nor harder fighting, than in the fifteen hundred miles of the march through the Carolinas. They were continually matched against heavy odds under disadvantageous conditions, yet they were almost uniformly victorious. The Americans fought and kept on fighting with indomitable courage and determination, but it was not the Americans but the French, and not so much the French army as the French fleet, that caused Cornwallis to capitulate at Yorktown. [Illustration: _G. Salisbury._ OFFICER, Review Order. PRIVATE, Field-day Order. CORPORAL, Marching Order. 1814.] CHAPTER VI RETURN OF THE 17TH FROM AMERICA, 1783--IRELAND, 1793--EMBARKATION FOR THE WEST INDIES, 1795 [Sidenote: 1783.] In 1783 the Seventeenth embarked from New York and returned to Ireland, after an absence of eight years. I have failed to discover the exact date. [Sidenote: 1784.] The last muster in America is dated New York, 29th June 1783; the first in Ireland, Cork, 14th January 1784, which latter date must be approximately that of their arrival. This muster-roll at Cork is somewhat of a curiosity. Firstly, it is written on printed forms, the earliest instance thereof in the history of the Seventeenth; in the second place, it shows the regiment to be 327 men short of its proper strength, which is, to say the least of it, singular; and, lastly, it shows that every troop had lost exactly forty horses, no more and no less, cast and dead in America,--a coincidence which sets one wondering who may have been the person or persons that made money out of it. The regiment was now reduced to a peace establishment of 204 non-commissioned officers and men, and stationed at Mount Mellick, Maryborough, and other quarters in King’s and Queen’s Counties. It also received new clothing, and for the first time discarded the scarlet, which it had hitherto worn, for blue.