HISTORICAL RECORD
OF THE
FIFTY-SIXTH,
OR
THE WEST ESSEX REGIMENT
OF
FOOT.
1755The aggressions of foreign Princes, possessing extensive military establishments, have repeatedly rendered considerable augmentations to the British army necessary, for the preservation of the kingdom and its numerous colonial possessions; and a circumstance of this character occasioned the formation of the Fifty-sixth Regiment, during the winter of 1755–6.
The unjustifiable claims of France on certain portions of North America,—the forcible expulsion of a company of British settlers from a tract of land beyond the Allegany Mountains, and near the river Ohio, by a body of French troops,—and the building of a fort to command the entrance into the country on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, thus excluding the English from a valuable portion of their possessions, gave indication of an approaching war.
In December, 1755, an order was issued for adding ten regiments of infantry to the regular army. The seventh of these new regiments was raised in the north of England, under the superintendence of Lord Charles Manners, who was nominated to the
