“Officers! be the friends and guardians of these brave fellows committed to your charge! “Soldiers! give your confidence to your officers. They have shared with you the chances of war; they have bravely bled along with you; they will always do honour to themselves and you. Preserve your regiments reputation for valour in the field, and regularity in quarters.” Spain and Portugal having been despoiled of their independence by the perfidious usurpation of France, Britain—allied with the patriots of the Peninsula in the struggle going on for the emancipation of these kingdoms from the thraldom of Napoleon—sent an army to Portugal, which included the first battalion of the Seventy-first, and under the command of Sir Arthur Wellesley, effected a landing in Mondego Bay in 1808. Through the victories of “Roleia” and “Vimiera,” commemorated upon the colours of the regiment, the convention of Cintra was achieved, which expelled the French under Marshal Junot, Duke of Abrantes, from Portugal. At Vimiera, the Grenadier company of the Seventy-first, under Captain Forbes, captured a battery of five guns and a howitzer, which every attempt of the enemy failed to recover. On the same occasion George Clarke, the piper of the regiment, was specially commended for his gallantry in resolutely continuing at his post, although severely wounded, cheering his countrymen by the wild inspiring music of the bag-pipe. Corporal MʻKay, at the same battle, was fortunate enough to receive the sword of the French General Brennier. Advancing upon Madrid, associated in brigade with the Thirty-sixth and Ninety-second regiments, the Seventy-first was ultimately joined to the army of Lieutenant-General Sir John Moore, which had promised to relieve the citizens of that metropolis from the intolerant yoke of France. The corps was with the British army in the disastrous yet glorious retreat, terminated in the victory of Corunna, possessing a melancholy interest from the death of the hero whose genius had accomplished it, and which delivered a British army from a situation of imminent peril. Embarked, the regiment returned to England, and in 1809—a year to be mournfully remembered, as fatal to the wearing of the kilt in the army—it was ordered to lay aside the Highland garb, and was uniformed as a light infantry regiment. Every care was in consequence bestowed to promote its efficiency. Strengthened, it was associated with the Sixty-eighth and Eighty-fifth regiments in the light brigade, and was ordered to accompany the army in the ill-advised expedition, which wasted a splendid armament in a vain attempt to obtain a footing in Flanders. The good conduct of the regiment was nevertheless most conspicuous in the various actions of the brief campaign.