Major-Gen. Robert R. Gillespie, who was one of the first lieutenants appointed when the regiment was raised in 1792, entered the army in 1783. When in the following year the French planters in San Domingo applied to Jamaica for aid, he volunteered for service with the infantry, and in the campaign there distinguished himself for bravery, returning home at the fall of Port-au-Prince. On being appointed in 1795 major of brigade to General Wilford, he accompanied him to San Domingo, and soon afterwards, though small in stature, killed six men single handed. Returning to Jamaica, he assumed command of the regiment, and in 1799 was recommended by the lieutenant-governor and House of Assembly for the rank of lieutenant-colonel and was so gazetted. He was offered by Lord Hugh Seymour the military command at Curaçoa; but Lord Balcarres said he could not spare him. At the Peace of Amiens in 1802, when the 20th Light Dragoons were transferred to the English establishment, Gillespie returned home in command, and the House of Assembly, glad to be rid of the regiment, voted one hundred pounds for a sword of honour for him. He subsequently had a brilliant career in the East, and in 1812 he received the thanks of the commander-in-chief in India, Sir George Nugent, for services in connection with the Palimbang expedition. With regard to the unfairness to them in expatriating them, it is only just to those who did it to add that those few Maroons to whom was offered liberty to stay in Jamaica elected to go with the rest, on the grounds that “they feared they could never live in security and quiet with the free people of colour and negroes in this island.” Balcarres was severely attacked in England for the use he made of the dogs from Cuba; but he, it would seem, fully justified his action in that matter. On June 6, 1796, the Maroons left Port Royal in three ships with the 96th Regiment as guard, and under convoy of H.M.S. _Africa_. The arrival of the exiles in Halifax is thus described in “Maroons of Jamaica and Nova Scotia, by J. C. Hamilton, LL.B.” in “Proceedings of the Canadian Institute, April 1890”: “Four years after this (_i.e._ in 1796) three ships entered the harbour of Halifax, laden with the most extraordinary cargoes that ever entered that port. Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, then in command at Halifax, boarded the _Dover_, was met by Colonel W. D. Quarrell, commissary-general of Jamaica, with whom Mr. Alexander Ouchterlony was associated, and a detachment of the 96th Regiment drawn up on board to receive him. Black men of good proportions, with many women and children, all in neat uniform attire, were mustered in lines. Other transports, the _Mary_ and _Anne_, were, his Highness was informed, about to follow, and the main cargo was six hundred Maroons exiled from Jamaica, with soldiers to guard them and meet any attacks from French vessels on the voyage.