78th (Highlanders) Regiment of Foot

The 78th (Highlanders) Regiment of Foot was a Highland Infantry Regiment of the Line, raised in 1793. Under the Childers Reforms it amalgamated with 72nd Regiment, Duke of Albany's Own Highlanders to form the Seaforth Highlanders in 1881.

The regiment was raised by Francis Humberston MacKenzie, Chief of the Clan Mackenzie and later Lord Seaforth, as the 78th (Highlanders) Regiment of Foot (or The Ross-shire Buffs) on 8 March 1793. First assembled at Fort George in July 1793, the regiment moved to the Channel Islands in August 1793, and embarked for Holland in September 1794 for service in the French Revolutionary Wars. It saw action at the defence of Nijmegen in November 1794. In a bayonet attack there the regiment lost one officer and seven men; a further four officers and 60 men were wounded. The regiment moved to England in April 1795 and then sailed to France for the Battle of Quiberon Bay in June 1795 and the landing at Île d'Yeu, off the Brittany coast, in September 1795, after which it was stationed in England.

In 1794 the 78th raised a second battalion which, in July 1795, sailed for South Africa. Here it took part in the successful attack by a British fleet under Sir George Elphinstone on the Dutch Cape Colony, then held by the forces of the Batavian Republic: the attack led to the capitulation by the Dutch Navy at Saldanha Bay and the capture of the colony by British forces in September 1796.

In March 1796 the 1st battalion sailed from England to South Africa where, in June that year it amalgamated with the 2nd battalion. In November the newly merged regiment left South Africa for India. here it saw action at the Battle of Assaye in September 1803, during the Second Anglo-Maratha War. During the battle the regiment were tasked with retaking the Maratha gun line. For their part in this decisive victory, the 78th was presented with a special third colour by the East India Company, with the elephant symbol borne on the colour worn as a regimental badge. Later, when stationed in Ceylon, the 78th acquired a baby elephant as a regimental mascot. It returned to Scotland with the regiment, and was finally presented to Edinburgh Zoo.

The regiment remained in India until it joined the Invasion of Java and the capture of Fort Cornelis in August 1811. In June 1812, the regiment took part in the siege and ensuing sack of Yogyakarta. 100 men of the regiment took part in a 1812 punitive expedition against the Sultanate of Sambas, but the expedition was forced to return upon encountering shore batteries, with the complement insufficient to take the defenses by storm. A second expedition, involving the 14th Regiment and Sepoy troops, would be launched in 1813 with success. Also in 1813, part of the regiment would be engaged in the suppression of a peasant rebellion in East Java, which had seen two officers of the regiment killed.

Leaving Java in September 1816, the vessel the battalion was travelling on, Frances Charlotte, was wrecked off Preparis, Burma, on 5 November on the way to Bengal. There were relatively few deaths and the Prince Blucher rescued most of the survivors, who it carried to Calcutta; cruisers from the British East India Company rescued the remainder. Prince Blucher carried a part of the battalion on to England, arriving at Portsmouth in June 1817.

A second battalion was again raised in May 1804. In late 1805 this embarked for Gibraltar, before sailing to Italy and participating in the Battle of Maida in July 1806. It also took part in the Alexandria Expedition in spring 1807. Three companies of the regiment were captured at Al Hamed near Rosetta: among the prisoners was Thomas Keith who converted to Islam and entered Ottoman service. Returning home in January 1808, a draft from the battalion were present at the disastrous Dutch Walcheren Campaign in autumn 1809, which suffered substantial losses due to malaria. Although under strength, the battalion embarked for Holland in January 1814, and routed a larger French force during a skirmish at Merksem, near Antwerp. Remaining in Belgium on garrison duty, the battalion was in reserve at Nieuwpoort during the Waterloo campaign, returning home in February 1816.

By 1817 both the 1st and 2nd battalions were stationed in Scotland, where they were amalgamated the same year. The regiment was then posted to Ireland until 1826.