Nothing further transpired during the remainder of the voyage, and on the 18th of January 1780 the second battalion disembarked at Gibraltar, then closely blockaded by the Spaniards, who had despatched Don Juan de Langara to intercept the British admiral. [Sidenote: 1st bat.] The first battalion had, in the meantime, continued on its voyage to India, and on the 20th of January 1780 anchored in Madras Roads, being twelve months from the time of leaving England. The battalion landed immediately at Fort St. George, and after remaining there about a month was removed to Poonamallee. The intricate politics of India gave rise to a war in that country. Hyder Ali, the son of a petty chief in the Mysore, had risen to the chief command of the army of that state, and when the rajah died, leaving his eldest son a minor, Hyder assumed the guardianship of the youthful prince, whom he placed under restraint, and seized on the reins of government. Having a considerable territory under his control, he maintained a formidable military establishment, which he endeavoured to bring into a high state of discipline and efficiency. Hyder, now Sultan of Mysore, formed a league with the French, and entered into a confederacy with the Nizam of the Deccan, the Mahrattas, and other of the native powers, for the purpose of expelling the British from India. In July 1780, Hyder Ali, having passed the Ghauts (as the passes in the mountains on both sides of the Indian peninsula are termed), burst like a torrent into the Carnatic, while his son, Tippoo Saib, advanced with a large body of cavalry against the northern Circars, and the villages in the vicinity of Madras were attacked by parties of the enemy’s horse. These events occasioned the first battalion of the regiment to be ordered to proceed to join the army which was being assembled at St. Thomas’s Mount, under the command of Major-General Sir Hector Munro, K.B., consisting entirely of the troops of the Honorable East India Company, with the exception of the _Seventy-third_, then about 800 strong. Sir Hector Munro’s army amounted to upwards of 4,000 men, and was thus composed:-- { Infantry 1,000 European { Artillery 300 { Dragoons 30 Native { Infantry 3,250 { Dragoons 30 ------ Total 4,610 ====== With the army were also thirty field-pieces and howitzers, together with four battering twenty-four pounders. The Anglo-Indian army marched to Conjeveram, sixty miles westward of Madras, where it was to be joined by a detachment from the northward, under the command of Lieut.-Colonel Baillie.