As a convenient mode of Publication, the Record of each Regiment will be printed in a distinct number, so that when the whole shall be completed, the Parts may be bound up in numerical succession.
LONDON: HARRISON AND CO., PRINTERS, ST. MARTIN'S LANE.
BEAR ON THEIR APPOINTMENTS, AS A REGIMENTAL BADGE,
---- ---------- against Forts Montgomery and Clinton 20
---- Actions at Crooked Billet and Barren Hill 22
---- Covering the March from Philadelphia 23
1780 Covering the Siege of Charlestown 27
1784 Clothing changed from Scarlet to Blue --
1794 Suppressing the Rioters called Defenders, &c. 38
---- ----------- sail for the West Indies 40
---- Serve against the Maroons at Jamaica --
1796 Five troops embark for St. Domingo 42
1800 Suppressing Riots at Duffield, &c. 46
1815 Marches into the Province of Cutch 59
1830 Clothing changed from Blue to Scarlet 72
1839 Sir Arthur B. Clifton, K.C.B., K.C.H. --
[Illustration: 17th Lancers, 1768. [To face page 9. ]
The institution of entire regiments of Light Cavalry, as part of the standing army of Great Britain, in the spring of 1759, was attended with such signal success, that, after the formation of the two splendid corps of Eliott and Burgoyne, which were numbered the Fifteenth and Sixteenth, King George II. was induced to carry the plan to a still greater extent, and to augment the Light Dragoon establishment with five additional regiments, which were numbered the Seventeenth, Eighteenth, Nineteenth, Twentieth, and Twenty-first Light Dragoons. The first of these additional corps was raised in Scotland by Lord Aberdour; it never consisted of more than two troops, and was disbanded at the termination of the seven years' war, in 1763. The second was embodied in Hertfordshire, under the superintendence of Lieut.-Colonel JOHN HALE, from the Forty-seventh Foot, an officer who had served with credit in Europe and America, and who was the bearer of the public despatches announcing the victory at Quebec on the 13th of September, 1759, and the fall of the brave Major-General JAMES WOLFE, a name which will be ever recorded among the heroes of the British army.
This corps was numbered the EIGHTEENTH Light Dragoons; but after the reduction of Lord Aberdour's regiment it obtained rank as Seventeenth, and now bears the title of the "SEVENTEENTH LANCERS." Its first rendezvous was at Watford and Rickmansworth, and it consisted of four troops. The first troop was raised by Captain Franklin Kirby, from Lieutenant in the Fifth Foot; the second by Captain Samuel Birch, from Lieutenant in the Eleventh Dragoons; the third by Captain Martin Basil[1], from Lieutenant in Eliott's Light Horse; and the fourth by Captain Edward Lascelles, from Cornet in the Royal Horse Guards. Of this corps, Lieut.-Colonel JOHN HALE, whose merits had procured for him the favour of his sovereign, was appointed Lieut.-Colonel Commandant, by commission dated the 7th of November, 1759; and purposing that his regiment should consist of men of decided character, who would emulate the glorious example of the heroic WOLFE, whose gallant conduct the Colonel had witnessed, he procured His Majesty's authority for his regiment to bear on its standards and appointments the "_Death's Head_," with the motto, "_Or Glory_," which it has continued to bear to the present time.