1809
the sea. This detachment of the Fifty-sixth landed at Quilon, under Lieutenant Warren, to co-operate in the preservation of the life of the British resident, who had escaped from Cochin. The services of the detachment under Lieutenant Cairnes, on board of the Psyche, were connected with the operations of the army under Brigadier-General the Honorable A. St. Leger; and under the cover of the frigate’s broadside, the soldiers of the regiment stormed and captured a strong battery, commanding Colatchi Bay; thus co-operating in the capture of Travandrum, the capital, which reduced the refractory Rajah of Travancore to submission.
Measures for enforcing a system of economy, having interfered with the emoluments which British officers in the command of native regiments had been accustomed to receive, from the contract for supplying their corps with camp equipment, the civil and military authorities of Madras became opposed to each other; from this misunderstanding resulted serious disaffection and disobedience of orders in the native army; and the head-quarters and companies of the first battalion of the Fifty-sixth at Bombay, were suddenly ordered to Madras. They embarked on board the Cornwallis frigate and two transports, on the 30th of July, under secret orders, and landed at Madras on the 11th of August, before any disclosure of the approach of this reinforcement had reached the army of that presidency. The governor addressed a communication to the regiment on this occasion, in which he stated he felt—“particular satisfaction that the selection for this delicate service had fallen to the first battalion of the Fifty-sixth Regiment, whose distinguished and characteristic zeal for the maintenance of professional subordination to the authority of legal government, must so powerfully tend to recal the misguided to a sense of their duty.”
