Historical Record of the Seventy-Third Regiment: Containing an account of the formation of the Regiment from the period of its being raised as the Second Battalion of the Forty-Second Royal Highlanders in 1780 and of its subsequent services to 1851Cannon, Richard
History
Historical Record of the Seventy-Third Regiment: Containing an account of the formation of the Regiment from the period of its being raised as the Second Battalion of the Forty-Second Royal Highlanders in 1780 and of its subsequent services to 1851
Cannon, Richard
Great Britain. Army. Regiment of Foot, 73rd -- History
While at Colwell barracks, sixty men, who had volunteered from
veteran battalions to serve at New South Wales, were transferred
to the SEVENTY-THIRD regiment, and were ordered to embark with
the first battalion for that colony, which, by the addition of
these men, and of the volunteers from the militia, was now upwards
of eight hundred strong, and its establishment was fixed at ten
companies, consisting of fifty-four serjeants, twenty-two drummers,
and a thousand rank and file.
The first battalion embarked on the 8th of May, 1809, at Yarmouth,
in the Isle of Wight, on board of His Majesty’s ships “Hindoostan”
and “Dromedary,” and sailed from St. Helen’s on the 25th of that
month. The fleet touched at Madeira, Port Praya, Rio Janeiro, and
at the Cape of Good Hope, and anchored at Port Jackson, New South
Wales, on the 28th of December.
[Sidenote: 1810]
The battalion landed at Sydney on the 1st of January, 1810, and
detachments were sent out in the course of that, and the two
following months, to the Derwent and Port Dalrymple, in Van
Diemen’s Land; to Norfolk Island, and to Newcastle, whence Sydney,
the capital of the colony, was supplied with coals, lime, and cedar
wood, for buildings and making furniture.
[Sidenote: 1812]
The first battalion of the SEVENTY-THIRD regiment having been
considerably reinforced by volunteers from the hundred-and-second
regiment (late New South Wales corps), which it relieved at
New South Wales, and which was ordered home, its establishment
was raised, in the year 1812, to twelve hundred rank and file,
which included a veteran company formed from the veterans of the
hundred-and-second regiment, and attached to the SEVENTY-THIRD,
while the battalion continued to serve at New South Wales, and was,
on its leaving that colony, transferred to the forty-sixth regiment.
[Sidenote: 1813]
[Sidenote: 1814]
About the end of the year 1813, an order arrived from England to
embark the first battalion of the SEVENTY-THIRD regiment for the
island of Ceylon, and the first division, consisting of three
companies, sailed from Port Jackson on board the ship “Earl
Spencer,” hired for the passage, on the 24th of January, 1814. On
the 24th of March two more divisions embarked on board the “General
Hewitt” and “Windham,” and sailed from Port Jackson on the 5th
of April; but the “Windham” being ordered to the Derwent to take
on board the two companies stationed at Van Diemen’s Land, the
“General Hewitt,” having the head-quarters and flank companies
on board, under the command of Lieut.-Colonel Maurice Charles
O’Connell, after a very circuitous voyage round New Guinea, New
Britain, and through the Molucca islands, arrived at Colombo, in
Ceylon, on the 17th of August.
Prior to the embarkation of the SEVENTY-THIRD regiment from New
South Wales, Major-General Lachlan Macquarie,[11] commanding in
New South Wales, stated in General Orders, dated 17th March, 1814,
that--
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