British and Foreigners; and, indeed, we had all the reason in the world for it, for he never led us on to any one action that we did not succeed in. He stayed only three or four minutes, and then rode back: we were in pain for him while he stayed, lest the enemy might have discovered him, and fired at him, in which case they could not well have missed him. He had not been longer from us than he stayed when orders came to us to retire. As the corn we stood in was high, we slipped off undiscovered, and were a good way down the hill before they perceived that we were retiring, and then they let fly all their great and small shot after us; but as we were by this time under the brow of the hill, all their shot went over our heads." This statement of a distinguished officer of the EIGHTEENTH regiment shows how fully the great Duke of Marlborough possessed the confidence of his troops. During the siege of _Bouchain_, the ROYAL IRISH regiment was actively engaged in the trenches and the attacks; but did not sustain a very severe loss. Lieut.-Colonel Stearne states,--"In this siege our regiment had four officers wounded but none killed, and about forty men killed and wounded; the grenadiers suffered most. Bouchain being taken, our regiment was ordered to Tournay, where we were quartered the remaining part of the campaign, from whence we escorted what provision came that way to the army which continued about Bouchain." In October the regiment marched to Lisle, where it passed the winter. [Sidenote: 1712] In February, 1712, Lieut.-General Ingoldsby died, and was succeeded in the colonelcy of the regiment by Lieut.-Colonel Stearne, who had held a commission in the corps thirty-four years, and wrote an account of its services.[27] From Lisle the regiment advanced in April to some high ground beyond Bouchain, where a camp was formed of several corps, and entrenchments thrown up. The ROYAL IRISH regiment afterwards joined the army under the orders of the Duke of Ormond, and its grenadier company advanced on a reconnoitring party into Picardy; but a suspension of hostilities took place soon afterwards, and the army withdrew to Ghent, where the regiment passed the winter. The power of France was reduced, its armies defeated, its frontier towns captured, its ambitious monarch was forced to sue for peace, and the treaty of Utrecht gave repose to Europe. [Sidenote: 1713] The ROYAL IRISH regiment had acquired a high reputation during the war; and a board of officers being assembled in London, to decide on the rank of regiments, Colonel Stearne sent Captain Parker to England to claim rank for the regiment from the date of its formation in 1684, which would have given it rank as FIFTH foot; but this was not granted, and it continued to take date and rank in the English army from the time of its arrival in England in the autumn of 1688.[28]