Page:Historical Record of the Fifty-Sixth, Or the West Essex Regiment of Foot.djvu/34

24 company in that commanded by Major-General Dundas. The troops employed on this service arrived at St. Lucia on the 1st of April, and the conquest of that fine island was achieved in three days.

The army afterwards proceeded against the island of Guadaloupe, and the had the honor to share in this enterprise. A determined resistance was made by the French republicans; but the island was captured before the end of April, and the commander of the forces declared he could not find words to express “the high sense he entertained of the extraordinary merit evinced by the officers and soldiers in this service.”

The regiment was afterwards stationed at Grenada and Martinico, and a great loss of life having been sustained from the effects of climate and other causes, an order was received in October, to transfer the men of the, fit for duty, to the Sixth, Ninth, and Fifteenth Regiments.

On the 3rd of January, 1795 the officers, staff, and such non-commssioned officers and soldiers as had not been transferred to other corps embarked from Martinico, and sailed for England; they arrived at Gravesend on the 18th of February, and were stationed at Chatham: active measures were adopted to recruit the ranks of the regiment.

After commanding the regiment nearly thirty years, General Walsh died, and was succeeded in the colonelcy by Major-General Samuel Hulse, from the lieut.-colonelcy of the First Foot Guards, by commission, dated the 7th of March, 1795.

In September the regiment marched to Gravesend, where it embarked for Cork, and landed at Spike Island on the 1st of October.

Great success had attended the recruiting and training of the regiment, and although one year only had elapsed since its return from the West Indies a skeleton, it had