The French monarch having employed the greater part of his forces in making conquests in the Netherlands, a small army, of which DOUGLAS' and Hamilton's Scots regiments formed part, was employed on the Rhine during the campaign of 1676, under the orders of Marshal Luxembourg. The imperial army, commanded by the Duke of Lorraine, had great superiority of numbers. In the beginning of June, the two armies were manœuvring and skirmishing in Alsace; and on the 5th of that month, while the French were retiring through the mountains near _Saverne_, the Germans attacked the rear-guard with great fury, and, having forced a defile, put several French squadrons into confusion. But as the German horsemen galloped between the mountains in pursuit, two battalions of Scots foot having taken post on some high ground beyond the defile, the musketeers opened so tremendous a fire that the pursuing squadrons were checked and forced to retire, when a regiment of German horse, and several squadrons of Lorraine dragoons, were nearly destroyed. In this rencontre Sir George Hamilton and several other officers of distinction were killed. The French army subsequently formed an entrenched camp near Saverne; and the Germans besieged Philipsburg, which was surrendered on the 15th of September. [Sidenote: 1677] During the campaign of 1677, the French army on the Rhine was commanded by Marshal de Crequi. The British troops with this army consisted this year of two squadrons of Royal English horse, and two battalions of DOUGLAS' and a battalion of Monmouth's regiments.[58] The opposing armies took the field, and after much manœuvring and skirmishing, the Prince of Saxe-Eysenach, who commanded a division of Germans, having been driven into an island on the Rhine, was forced to capitulate. A sharp skirmish afterwards took place at _Kochersberg_, in Alsace, when the Imperialists were defeated, and sustained great loss. _Fribourg_ was subsequently besieged by a detachment from the French army, and the garrison surrendered on the 16th of November, when DOUGLAS' regiment proceeded into winter quarters. [Sidenote: 1678] At length the conquests effected by France occasioned the English Court and Parliament to become sensible of the necessity of restraining the ambition of Louis XIV.; and King Charles II., having concluded a treaty with the Dutch, gave orders for the British troops in the French service to return to England; at the same time, his Majesty issued commissions for an augmentation of about twenty thousand men to the English army, and declared his determination of engaging in the war with France. DUMBARTON'S Regiment, as it was now designated, accordingly received orders in the early part of the year 1678 to quit the service of the French monarch, and from this period it has been permanently on the British establishment.