To which the colonel replied:--"I beg leave to express in the warmest terms, how much I feel the marked attention showed me by this very elegant entertainment. I return you a thousand thanks for the testimony of your attachment, esteem, and regard, manifested by the proposed present of a superb sword, which I shall wear with pride, and I hope with honour to the end of my life. To your assistance alone, during the three years I have had the honour to command you, am I indebted for enabling me to bring the KING'S OWN regiment to its present state of perfection; and I attribute the recent mark of favour which his Majesty has been graciously pleased to confer on me, to your generous aid."
[32] In 1808 the officers' lace, epaulettes, and buttons, were directed to be changed from silver to gold.
[33] Lieut.-General Leith was wounded during the action, when Major-General Pringle assumed the command of the fifth division, and Lieut.-Colonel Brooke that of the brigade.
[34] Brevet Major John Wynne Fletcher was senior captain of the regiment, in which he had served most zealously twenty-five years, and he was sincerely lamented by his brother officers. He was aide-de-camp to Lieut.-General Sir Henry Warde, K.C.B., commander of the forces in the Windward and Leeward Islands, who followed his remains to the grave, and directed a marble tablet, with the following inscription, to be placed in the church at Bridgetown;--
of a good Christian, a gallant soldier, and an honest man, in life beloved and in death lamented.
Near this spot rest the mortal remains of Brevet Major
Captain in the Fourth, or the King's Own Regiment of Foot, And Aide-de-camp to Lieut.-General Sir Henry Warde, Who departed this life on the 24th of October, 1824, Aged 39 years.
CHARLES FITZ-CHARLES, natural son of King Charles II., by Catherine, daughter of Thomas Pegg, Esq., of Yeldersley, in Derbyshire, was advanced to the peerage in July, 1675, by the titles of Baron Dartmouth, Viscount Totness, and EARL OF PLYMOUTH. Being a sprightly youth, and an aspirant to military fame, he obtained permission of the king, his father, to proceed in the character of a volunteer to the city of Tangier, in Africa, where he was initiated in the first rudiments of war. Having been educated abroad, he was familiarly styled Don Carlos, and in the printed narratives of several skirmishes with the Moors he is spoken of in terms of commendation. While he was engaged in the defence of this fortress the SECOND TANGIER, now KING'S OWN, regiment of foot was raised in England, of which his lordship was appointed colonel. During the siege he was attacked with a severe dysentery, of which he died in October, 1680, in the twenty-third year of his age. He was a very promising officer, of good natural abilities, affable, generous, and brave, and his death was much regretted by his companions in arms, also by the king, his father. His body was embalmed, sent to England, and interred in Westminster Abbey.