Lieut.-General Napier died in November, 1766, when King George III. conferred the command of the regiment on Colonel Henry Clinton, from captain and lieut.-colonel in the first foot guards. [Sidenote: 1767] [Sidenote: 1769] In 1767, the TWELFTH were stationed in England; and in 1769, they proceeded to Gibraltar, to relieve the twentieth regiment on garrison duty at that fortress. [Sidenote: 1775] [Sidenote: 1778] [Sidenote: 1779] The American war commenced in 1775, and the colonel of the regiment, Lieut.-General Sir Henry Clinton, distinguished himself in that country: in December, 1778, he was appointed colonel of the eighty-fourth regiment, or Royal Highland emigrants, then first embodied for service in North America, and afterwards disbanded. The Colonelcy of the TWELFTH foot remained vacant until the 21st of April, 1779, when it was conferred on Colonel William Picton, from the seventy-fifth regiment; a newly-raised corps, which was disbanded at the peace in 1782-3. The TWELFTH regiment remained at _Gibraltar_. The possession of this fortress by the English, with a British garrison on the top of the rocky promontory overlooking the provinces of Spain, had been regarded by the Spaniards with great jealousy: every attempt to retake it had failed. Great Britain attached much importance to the possession of it; but the contest between the revolted provinces in North America and England appeared to present to the Spanish monarch a favourable opportunity for regaining possession of this valuable fortress. When the French monarch acknowledged the independence of the United States, and commenced hostilities against Britain, the time appeared particularly favourable for another effort to recapture Gibraltar, and in the summer of 1779, that fortress was beset, by sea and land, by the Spanish fleets and armies. The garrison consisted of the TWELFTH, thirty-ninth, fifty-sixth, fifty-eighth, and (late) seventy-second British, with the Hanoverian regiments of Hardenberg, Reden, and De la Motte, and a proportion of artillery and engineers. The TWELFTH mustered twenty-nine officers, twenty-nine serjeants, twenty-two drummers, and five hundred and nineteen rank and file, under the command of Lieut.-Colonel Trigge: the garrison mustered five thousand three hundred and eighty-two men, under the orders of General Eliott, afterwards Lord Heathfield.[14]