The  second  battalion  embarked  from  Cephalonia  in
the  autumn  of  this  year,  and  proceeded  to  Malta,  where
it  remained  a  few  days.  The  peace  of  Europe  appear-
ing to  be  established  upon  a  firm  basis,  a  reduction  in
the  army  took  place,  which  occasioned  the  second  bat-
talion to  receive  orders  to  return  to  England  for  the
purpose  of  being  disbanded;  it  landed  at  Portsmouth
on  the  24th  and  25th  of  November,  and  was  reduced  at
Chichester  on  the  23rd  of  December,  transferring  four
hundred  and  twenty  rank  and  file  to  the  first  battalion.
The  aggressions  of  the  bands  of  Pindarees,  who
made  incursions  into  the  territory  subject  to  Great
Britain,  and  committed  great  depredations,  occasioned
the  regiment  to  be  again  called  into  the  field  in  Oc-
tober of  this  year.  Colonel  Watson  having  received
the  appointment  of  Brigadier-General,  and  been  nomi-
nated to  a  command  under  Major-General  Sir  Dyson
Marshall,  the  command  of  the  regiment  devolved  on
Major  Johnstone.  The  Pindarees  were  a  community
of  professed  marauders,  and  they  were  encouraged  to
make  ravages  in  the  British  dominions  in  India,  by  the
Mahratta  states.  Being  all  horsemen  subsisting  by
plunder,  the  services  of  the  corps  employed  against
them  were  of  an  arduous  and  trying  character : — tra-
versing extensive  districts  by  forced  marches,  passing
rivers  and  thickets,  and  attempting  to  surprise  these
bands  of  plunderers,  were  duties  calculated  to  exhaust
the  strength  of  European  soldiers,  when  performed
under  an  Indian  sun.  The  regiment  continued  actively

1818  employed  on  these  services  until  April,  1818,  when  it
proceeded  to  the  military  cantonment  of  Meerut.
