Page:Historical Record of the Fifty-Sixth, Or the West Essex Regiment of Foot.djvu/70

60 Sir Arthur Wellesley, in the operations against the French under Marshal Soult, and took a conspicuous part in the expulsion of the French from Oporto. On the 27th of May, 1809, he was appointed colonel of the Third West India Regiment; and on the 1st of January, 1812, he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant-general. Early in 1813 he took the command of the Anglo-Sicilian army in the south of Spain, and was engaged in operations to create a diversion in favour of the grand allied army under Lord Wellington, and to prevent Marshal Suchet detaching troops to Castille. His proceedings on this occasion did not realize the expectations which had been entertained, and a general court-martial, assembled after his return to England, found him guilty of error of judgment. In 1818 he was appointed colonel of the Regiment; and, in 1825, promoted to the rank of general. His honorary distinctions were those of knight grand cross of the Royal Hanoverian Guelphic order, and the first class of the order of St. Januarius of Naples. He died in 1827.

to the Eighteenth or the Royal Irish Regiment, in 1832.

to the Fiftieth Regiment in 1842.