In the year 1777, a corps was authorised to be raised at the expense of the town of Manchester, consisting of ten companies of one hundred men per company; it was numbered the _Seventy-second_ Regiment, or Royal Manchester Volunteers, commanded by Colonel Charles Mawhood, and was placed on the establishment of the army in December, 1777. The Regiment embarked at Portsmouth for Gibraltar on the 28th April, 1778, and was employed in the memorable siege of that fortress from 1779 to 1782, and continued on duty in that garrison until the early part of the year 1783, when the Spaniards abandoned their attempts to regain possession either by force or stratagem. The regiments at Gibraltar were relieved in the spring of 1783, and the _Seventy-second_ Regiment, to which Major-General Charles Ross had been appointed, in October, 1780, in succession to Colonel Mawhood, deceased, returned to England in 1783. The number of infantry regiments was again reduced in 1783, after the termination of hostilities with America, by the treaty of peace concluded at Paris on the 30th of November, 1782, and when peace had also been concluded with France, Spain, and Holland; the _Seventy-second_, or _Royal Manchester Volunteers_, was disbanded on the 9th of September, 1783. 3.--The disbandment of certain regiments after the conclusion of the general peace in 1783, occasioned an alteration in the numerical titles of certain regiments, which were retained on the reduced establishment of the army: the _Seventy-third_ was directed to be numbered the _Seventy-first_ Regiment; the _Seventy-eighth_ to be numbered the _Seventy-second_ Regiment; and the _Second Battalion_ of the _Forty-second_ to be constituted the _Seventy-third_ Regiment. These corps had been raised in Scotland, in 1777, and denominated _Highland_ Regiments. They embarked for India in 1779 and 1781; the alterations took place in 1786 in their numerical titles, which were regulated by the dates at which they were placed on the establishment of the Army, viz.:-- 71st late 73rd Highland Regiment on 19th December, 1777 72nd late 78th ” on 29th December, 1777 73rd late Second Battalion of the 42nd Royal Highland Regiment raised in 1779, and constituted the 73rd Regiment on the 18th April, 1786. The details of the services of the present _Seventy-second Regiment_, or _The Duke of Albany’s own Highlanders_, are contained in the following pages; the histories of the 71st and 73rd Regiments are given in distinct numbers. 1848. GENERAL ORDERS. _HORSE-GUARDS_, _1st January, 1836_.