SOUTH AFRICAN REINFORCEMENTS.

Hastings Standard, Issue 318, 10 May 1897, Page 2

SOUTH AFRICAN REINFORCEMENTS.

The cables announced a day or two ago that a battalion of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, now quartered at Simla, had been ordered to the Cape. This must be the 2nd Battalion, as the Ist Battalion is stationed at Portsmouth. " The Records and Badges of the British Army," a standard work, give some interesting details of the regiment that is being sent to Capetown, with the possibility of having a brush with the Boers before very long. The " Old Toughs" date their origin from the year 1661, when the regiment was formed to garrison Bomba,y, as part of the dowry of Queen Catherine of Braganza, Queen-elect of Charles 11. From the absence of any complete published record of its eventful history, its movements during the following hundred years can be but imperfectly followed. It appears to have been employed in Bengal in the early part of the 18th century, and against the French in the Carnatic in 1748-54. It accompanied Clive to Bengal, and was present at the great victory at Plassey on June 23, 1757. It was actively engaged during the campaigns of 1758-65, and fought in the long series of contests ending with tha defeat of Meer Kossim at Buxar on Oct. 28, 1764, and the recovery of Bengal and Behar. In 1767 it is said to have been in Persia. In 1780 they made the campaign in Guzerat under General Goddard, and took part in the storming of Ahmedabad on the 15th January that year. The regiment was in the field during the war in the Carnatic in 1780-88, and during Lord Cornwallis's campaign in 1790-91. After serving at Goa, in Malabar and elsewhere, during the early years of the French Revolutionary War, the regiment formed part of the Bombay division of General Harris's army in Mysore in 1799, when it was present at the battle of Sedaseer and the storming and capture of Seringapatam. The regiment was employed in the campaigns in Guzerat and Malawa in 1808-4, and afterwards in minor operations in southern India. In 1817 it was much distinguished at Kirkee, where after one of the most remarkable marches on record it fought under Colonel Burr in the defeat of Bajee Rao, the last of the Peishwars of Poona. In 1817-18 the regiment was in the field against the Pindarees ; in 1819 it was at the capture of Cutch ; in 1821 it formed part of the expedition despatched under Sir Lionel Smith against the Arabs of the Beni-boo-Aly, a piratical tribe, not returning to Bombay until 1824. In 1839 the regiment was sent to take possession of Aden, and defended that place when its recapture by the Arabs was attempted the year after. After several years of harassing service at Aden the regiment returned to Bombay in time to take the field during the second Sikh war. During the years of the Mutiny, 1857-8, the regiment was employed on field service in various parts of the Presidency, and when the last East India Company's European troops were brought into the British Line it was .re-organised as the 103 rd (Royal Bombay Fusiliers). It was directed to wear " Royal " facings, and to bear upon its colors and appoint rnents a Royal Tiger with the wordBuxar, an Elephant with the word Mysore, together with the names Plassey, Kirkee, Beni-boo-Aly, Carnatic, Guzerat, Seringapatam, Punjaub, Aden, Moolten, Goojerat. After several years in the Bengal Presidency the regiment went to England in 1870, after having seen 209 years of foreign service. On the introduction of the territorial system it became the 2nd Royal Dublin Fusiliers. The Battalion went to Gibraltar in 1884, to Egypt in 1885, and the year following it proceeded to India.