In December of the following year the regiment left Surat for new cantonments at Ruttapore, near Kaira, in the northern division of Guzerat. [Sidenote: 1812.] On the 1st of January following Lieutenant-Colonel Evan Lloyd was promoted to be Major-General, and retired from the command. He was the last of the officers then doing duty with the regiment who had served with it in the American War. His successor was the Hon. Lincoln Stanhope, who came from the 16th Lancers, and was blamed by his brother officers in that corps, not without justice, for preferring “an arduous campaign in Bond Street” to duty with his regiment in the Peninsula. None the less he did good service enough with the Seventeenth. The year 1812 brought with it a further change in the clothing. The cord lacing and the innumerable buttons that had adorned the front of the jacket were abolished, and another jacket with broad, white facings, almost as wide as a plastron, was substituted in its stead. Simultaneously the old helmet disappeared and the felt shako took its place. The old white breeches and knee-boots were likewise swept away to make room for French gray overalls, with a double white stripe, and Wellington boots. These last may perhaps have been introduced rather earlier than the other changes; the Wellington boot, according to one authority, having been prescribed for Light Dragoons in 1808. The old crimson sash of the officer made way for a girdle similar to that worn at present. White welts to the seams and a small pair of epaulettes, white for men and silver for officers, completed the transformation. When the Seventeenth received this new dress it is impossible to say; and the change is therefore recorded under the year when it was ordered, though probably not carried into effect until a year or two later. [Sidenote: 1812.] The fact that the regiment was quartered in India, of course, made in those days no difference as to the clothing issued to it, except that white covers were worn over the shakos. In September there arose a mighty famine in Guzerat, which carried off thousands of natives. Simultaneously there broke out an epidemic fever which was as fatal to Europeans as to natives. In the four months, October 1812 to January 1813, four officers and 73 men of the Seventeenth were swept off by this fever; yet even this was a small matter to those who could remember the ravages of yellow fever in the West Indies. [Sidenote: 1813 to 1815.]