The SIXTH were employed on home duty until the winter of 1753, when they embarked for Gibraltar to relieve the thirty-second regiment; and they were employed on garrison duty at that important fortress during the whole of the Seven years' war. Hostilities commenced in America in 1755, and in 1756 a French armament, commanded by Marshal Duke of Richelieu, invaded the island of Minorca, in the capture of which the SIXTH took so distinguished a part in 1708; and a detachment of the regiment was held in readiness to proceed to Port Mahon to reinforce the garrison. This service was, however, delayed; and Lieut.-General Fowke, who commanded the forces at Gibraltar, was dismissed the service for neglecting to strengthen the troops in Minorca by a battalion from his garrison. [Sidenote: 1763] After the peace of Fontainebleau the SIXTH were relieved from duty at Gibraltar, and returned to England, where they arrived in the summer of 1763. Two years afterwards they proceeded to Scotland. [Sidenote: 1765] On the 14th of June, 1765, the colonelcy was conferred by King George III. on Major-General William Rufane, from the half-pay of the seventy-sixth foot (a corps raised in 1756, and disbanded after the peace in 1763), in succession to General Guise, deceased. [Sidenote: 1769] [Sidenote: 1772] The regiment left Scotland in 1769, and was stationed in England during the three succeeding years: in October, 1772, it embarked for the West Indies, to assist in reducing to submission to the British government the refractory Charibbees in St. Vincent. This island was ceded to Great Britain by the treaty of 1763, and was found to contain two tribes of natives, called the red and black Charibbees; the former being the aborigines, and the latter having sprung from a cargo of African slaves who escaped from a vessel which was wrecked on the island. The Charibbees were found devoted to the French interest, and were dangerous and troublesome neighbours to the English planters. A resolution was taken to restrain their ambulations to a smaller range in the island, and to enforce obedience to several necessary regulations: and if this was found impracticable, to remove them to some other island, or to the continent of Africa. The Charibbees were, however, of a resolute spirit: they possessed many thickly-wooded fastnesses, and they resisted the attempt to restrict the indulgence of their roving propensities and mode of life so powerfully, that it was found necessary to augment the military force on the island. [Sidenote: 1773] Soon after arriving at St. Vincent the SIXTH lost their colonel, Lieut.-General RUFANE, who died on the 14th of February, 1773, and was succeeded by Lieut.-General JOHN GORE from the sixty-first regiment: this officer died in November following, when his Majesty conferred the colonelcy of the SIXTH on Lieut.-General Sir WILLIAM BOOTHBY, Baronet, from the fiftieth foot. [Sidenote: 1774]