Twenty-first, with the relics of the other regiments included in the expedition, were under the painful necessity of laying down their arms, and surrendering themselves prisoners of war. This untoward event terminated for the present the active service of the Twenty-first. The battalion, on being released, returned to Britain, where it remained on home duty until 1789, when, embarking for America, it was employed for nearly four years in that country. The French Revolution having, by a flood of evil influences, submerged well nigh every vestige of living righteousness, war, with all its horrors, had been accepted as the dire alternative which, with its fiery deluge, should purge the political world of the cankering iniquities which hitherto fattened upon the miseries a tyrant democracy had inflicted upon civilisation. Unable to cope with the vast armaments which the revolutionary energy of France had brought into being and sent forth to convert Christendom to its own dogmas of “Equality, Fraternity, and Liberty,” and whilst these overran the Netherlands and other adjacent countries, our Government directed the efforts of its arms against the French West Indian Islands, the natives and lower classes of which, becoming infected by the republican fever, had assumed to be free, and in token thereof adopted the tri-colour cockade, whilst the Royalists, who, as proprietors and capitalists, had everything to lose, invoked the friendly aid of Britain. Accordingly, the Twenty-first, proceeding from Canada to the West Indies with the army under Major-General Bruce, took part in the first attempt upon the island of Martinique in 1793, which failed. A second attempt in 1794, under General Sir Charles Grey, was more successful, the Republicans being overthrown. This desirable result was speedily followed by the reduction of the islands of St Lucia and Guadaloupe, in the capture of both of which the Twenty-first was honourably distinguished. Our possession of Guadaloupe was not long to be enjoyed. A powerful French fleet from Europe, with a considerable body of troops on board, arrived and succeeded but too well in resuscitating the republican interests, and at length prevailing, the few British defenders, numbering only 125, were forced to surrender to overwhelming odds. In the fall of Fort Matilda, which terminated our dominion in the island, the Twenty-first met with another heavy disaster, which, with the ravages of the yellow fever, had so reduced the effective strength of the regiment, that in 1796 it was sent home to recruit, where it soon attained a strength of 800 men, by volunteers from the Scots Fencible Regiments.