Seeing, as he tells us, no reason why he should not rise again as he had done before, Shipp enlisted into the 24th light Dragoons, which he had known in Lake's army; returned to India to join that regiment; and in the course of a few years rose to the position of regimental sergeant-major. In 1815 he was appointed by the Marquis of Hastings (Earl of Moira), then Governor-general and Commander-in-chief in India, to an ensigncy in the 87th Prince's Own Irish, better known under its later name of the 87th Royal Irish Fusiliers, the first battalion of which landed at Calcutta from Mauritius in August that year. Shipp's commission bore the original date of the vacancy, May 4, 1815; but by an omission, then not uncommon in the case of Indian appointments, he was not gazetted at home until some time later, and his name never appeared in the Army List until May, 1819. Shipp had thus twice won a commission from the ranks by the time he was little more than thirty years old--an achievement which may be regarded as unique in the annals of the British army. Shipp served with the 87th in the second campaign of the Ghoorkha War, and distinguished himself by a single combat with one of the enemy's sirdars in the action near Muckwanpore. He also served at the siege of Hattrass, where he was the first to enter the fort, and was wounded in the hand. He was on the staff of the left division of the grand army under the Marquis of Hastings in the Mahratta and Pindaree War of 1817-18, during which he distinguished himself on several occasions. He became a lieutenant in the 87th on July 5, 1821.