The regiment was employed on home service during the early part of the war of the French Revolution, and was stationed in Ireland, from whence it embarked on the 25th of February, 1796, for the island of St. Domingo, where a contest was being carried on between the British troops and the republican forces on that island. The climate of St. Domingo proved particularly injurious to the health of the British troops, and the SEVENTEENTH regiment lost Lieut.-Colonel Hooke, and several other officers and a number of men, by disease; also a few men in skirmishes with the republican troops. The island was eventually evacuated, and the surviving officers and men embarked for England in 1798, and landed at Deptford in January, 1799. [Sidenote: 1799] In this year the soldiers of the militia corps were permitted to volunteer their services into regiments of the regular army, when fifteen hundred men volunteered to the SEVENTEENTH regiment, which was augmented to _two battalions_, the second battalion being placed on the establishment of the army in the beginning of August, under the orders of colonel-commandant Major-General Eyre Coote; four lieut.-colonels and four majors being placed on the establishment. A favourable opportunity appearing to present itself for rescuing Holland from the power of France, Great Britain and Russia sent a body of troops to that country, under the command of his Royal Highness the Duke of York; and the two battalions of the SEVENTEENTH formed part of the leading division of the British force under Lieut.-General Sir Ralph Abercromby, which effected a landing on the Dutch coast, near the _Helder_, on the 27th of August, and defeated a body of French and Dutch troops. The SEVENTEENTH were engaged in repulsing an attack of the enemy on the 10th of September, when the first battalion had two rank and file killed, and the second two killed and eighteen wounded. At the attack of the enemy's positions on the 19th of September, the regiment distinguished itself; but the inconsiderate valour of the Russians occasioned a failure. The first battalion had six rank and file killed; Major William Grey, Major Peter Cockbourne, Captains M. J. Grace and William Knight, Lieutenant Charles Wilson, Ensign J. Thompson, two serjeants, and thirty-four rank and file wounded; Lieutenant Wickham and three rank and file missing: the second battalion had two men killed; Major Robert Wood, Lieutenant William Saunders, and nineteen rank and file wounded. In the action at _Bergen_ on the 2nd of October, the regiment was again engaged, and had two rank and file killed; Lieutenants William Wynne and Joshua Morrison, and five men wounded. The Dutch people not seconding these gallant efforts for their deliverance, the army returned to England. [Sidenote: 1800] [Sidenote: 1802]