The battalion was afterwards ordered to join the British forces, then in the north of Germany, under the command of Major-General Samuel Gibbs, at Rostock, and subsequently embarked for England at Warnemunde on the 2nd of November, but on arriving at Yarmouth the battalion was ordered, without landing, to join the army in Holland under General Sir Thomas Graham, afterwards Lord Lynedoch: the battalion arrived at Williamstadt on the 18th of December. [Sidenote: 1814] The Prussian General, Bulow, having requested that the British would make a forward movement upon _Antwerp_, to favour his operations, the battalion accordingly marched to the attack of that place, which was bombarded by the British forces on the 13th of January, 1814; and again from the 2nd until the 6th of February, for the purpose of destroying the French fleet lying there. In the attack on the village of _Merxem_ on the 2nd of February, 1814, where the enemy was strongly posted, Lieutenant John McConnell, and Lieutenant and Adjutant Thomas Frederick James were wounded, the former severely. A volunteer, named J. Simpson, was also dangerously wounded. This youth was about sixteen years of age, and was attached to the light company. Soon after the action commenced, and in the course of a few minutes, he was shot through both his legs, before which a bullet had lodged in the butt of his firelock. His military career was short, as he died of his wounds in a few days. On this occasion, the light company, under Captain Richard Drewe, supported the ninety-fifth (rifle brigade) in driving the enemy from the _abatis_ formed at the entrance to the village. The troops suffered very severely during the foregoing operations from the intense cold, the winter being unusually severe, and though sleeping on the line of march was generally fatal, it was no easy matter to prevent it. General Sir Thomas Graham stated in his despatch, “All the troops engaged behaved with the usual spirit and intrepidity of British soldiers,” and the conduct of Major Dawson Kelly, of the SEVENTY-THIRD, was particularly noticed. After this success the British troops were employed in constructing a breastwork and battery; on the 3rd of February several pieces of heavy ordnance opened upon the city of Antwerp, and on the French shipping in the Scheldt; the cannonade was continued until the 6th, when General Bulow, having received orders to march southward, to act with the grand army of the Allies, it became necessary to relinquish the attack on Antwerp, when the British retired towards Breda. On the 16th of March, 1814, a detachment of the SEVENTY-THIRD, consisting of two hundred men, under the command of Major Dawson Kelly, was bombarded by a French seventy-four gun-ship and eight gun brigs, in Fort Frederick on the river Scheldt.