In the autumn of 1806, an armament, consisting of the Ninth and Seventeenth light dragoons, detachment of the Twenty-first light dragoons, Royal artillery and engineers, Fortieth, first battalion of the EIGHTY-SEVENTH, and Ninety-fifth (rifle corps) regiments, proceeded to share in the contest in South America. In October the Thirty-eighth regiment commanded by Colonel Vassal, and the Forty-seventh, under Colonel Backhouse, proceeded from the Cape of Good Hope to the Rio de la Plata, and on finding that Buenos Ayres had been recaptured by the Spaniards, the troops under the command of Colonel Backhouse, in conjunction with the naval squadron under Commodore Sir Home Popham, took possession of the town of Maldonado, and the island of Gorreti, on the left bank of the river Plate. In the summer of 1807 an expedition for a second attempt on Buenos Ayres proceeded to that part of the world, under the command of Lieut.-General Whitelocke, who assumed the command of the troops in South America. Other corps had also proceeded to South America, of which a list is inserted in the Appendix, page 91. [8] Lieutenant Fenton was promoted to the rank of Captain in the EIGHTY-SEVENTH regiment on the 22nd of April 1817. [9] A Memoir of the services of Lieut.-Colonel Shawe, is inserted in the Appendix, page 95. HISTORICAL RECORD OF THE SECOND BATTALION OF THE EIGHTY-SEVENTH REGIMENT, OR THE ROYAL IRISH FUSILIERS. [Sidenote: 1804.] The British Government continued to adopt the most vigorous measures for the defence of the kingdom, and for the prosecution of the war. In addition to the acts of Parliament passed in July 1803 for raising “_The Army of Reserve_,” further Acts were passed in June and July 1804 for levying a larger number of men in the several counties of Great Britain and Ireland, which were termed the “_Additional Force Acts_.” The EIGHTY-SEVENTH regiment was augmented by a second battalion, which, with seven other regiments, was appointed to receive men raised in _Ireland_ under the act of the 14th of July 1804; the men raised in the counties of _Tipperary_, _Galway_, and _Clare_, were allotted to the EIGHTY-SEVENTH regiment; the assembling quarter of the second battalion was appointed at Frome in Somersetshire, and the battalion was placed on the establishment of the army, from the 25th of December 1804, at six hundred rank and file, which was augmented in the following year to eight hundred, and in the year 1807 to one thousand rank and file, and continued at that number to December 1814, when it was reduced to eight hundred, and from December 1815 to six hundred rank and file. [Sidenote: 1805.] The second battalion marched from Frome to Bristol in March 1805, and embarked for Ireland. [Sidenote: 1806.] On the 27th of October 1806 the battalion, consisting of twenty-nine serjeants, nine drummers, and five hundred and sixty-eight rank and file, embarked from Ireland for England. [Sidenote: 1807.]