1809
force, the troops returned on board the fleet; part of the enemy’s stores and the guns were destroyed; the remainder were embarked on board the company’s recaptured ship Streatham, which, with the Europe, were placed under their former commanders. In October the troops sailed for the Isle of Roderigue. The conduct of Ensign Pearce, of the Fifty-sixth Regiment, was highly commended in the public despatch of Lieut.-Colonel Keating.
In the beginning of this year, a detachment of the regiment, under Lieutenant John Elliot Cairnes, performed duty as marines, in the Indian Sea, on board of His Majesty’s ship Psyche, which was engaged in the war with the Rajah of Travancore, who governed a populous province at the south-west extremity of Hindoostan. This province was indebted for its independence to the valour of British troops, who rescued it from the power of Tippoo Sultan, when the forces of the Mysore had overrun the country, in 1790; and in 1795 a treaty of alliance was concluded with the rajah, who engaged to subsidize three battalions of British Sepoys for the defence of his dominions. Some disputes arising from the payments to be made in consequence of this treaty, produced war; the British Sepoys stationed at Quilon were menaced with annihilation; the house of the resident. Colonel C. Macauly, at Cochin, was attacked; and the Twelfth and Nineteenth British regiments were suddenly ordered to the scene of contest. A detachment of the Fifty-sixth, on board the Piedmontaise frigate, were employed in services connected with the safety of the troops at Quilon, and the preservation of the life of the British resident. This frigate cannonaded the port of Aleppi, where a party of the Twelfth Foot had been treacherously seized, their wrists broken with a heavy piece of iron, their hands tied behind them, and after lying several days in a dungeon, were precipitated from a rock into
