In 1801 Colonel Stewart was selected to command the troops (the 49th Regiment and a company of the Rifle Corps) ordered to embark on board the fleet commanded by Admiral Sir Hyde Parker. And on February 28 Captain Beckwith’s[21] company, consisting of 1 captain, 2 first lieutenants, 1 second lieutenant, 5 sergeants, 2 buglers, 1 armourer, and 101 rank and file, embarked at Portsmouth on board H.M.S. ‘St. George,’ bearing the flag of Vice-Admiral Lord Nelson. On arrival in Yarmouth Roads the right platoon of Captain Beckwith’s Riflemen was shifted to the ‘London,’ Sir Hyde Parker’s flag-ship. But the men of the Rifle Corps seem to have been distributed, on arrival in the Baltic, among the ships of Nelson’s squadron, which on April 2 attacked and reduced the Danish fleet at Copenhagen. In this action First Lieutenant and Adjutant Grant was killed ‘whilst gallantly fighting the quarter-deck guns of H.M.S. “Isis.”’ He was the first officer of the Regiment killed in action. He had volunteered for this service. His head was taken off by a cannon-ball as clean as if severed by a scimitar. Stewart recommended Second Lieutenant Pendergast, who was in the expedition, for the vacancy, and he was accordingly promoted on May 9. Two rank and file were also killed; and 1 sergeant and 5 rank and file wounded, of whom some subsequently died of their wounds.[22] Lord Nelson, in his despatch, says: ‘The Honourable Colonel Stewart did me the favour to be on board the “Elephant;” and himself, with every officer and soldier under his orders, shared with pleasure the toils and dangers of the day.’ It is said in the Record of the 1st Battalion that ‘an appropriate medal was issued upon this occasion by Admiral Lord Nelson to the non-commissioned officers and several soldiers.’ I have not been able to find any trace of this medal, which does not seem to have been given to the officers. For it appears from a correspondence between Stewart (then Lieutenant-General Sir William Stewart), Earl St. Vincent, and Lord Sidmouth in 1821-2, that Nelson had been desirous of obtaining a medal for the captains of his squadron who were engaged at Copenhagen, and had recommended Stewart for one; but that Lords St. Vincent and Sidmouth opposed the issue of any such medal, on the ground that it would be a very invidious distinction from those captains who, being with Parker’s fleet, were not engaged. Stewart advanced a request for this medal in 1821, on the plea that, being a military man, his case was essentially different from that of the captains. But though his application was then supported by Earl St. Vincent, it was refused (in very flattering terms however) by Lord Sidmouth.[23]