Note 7 — HISTORICAL RECORD

In June 1806, Buenos Ayres had been captured by the British under Brigadier-General William Carr Beresford, afterwards General Viscount Beresford; the place was, however, recovered by the Spaniards in August following, and the troops became prisoners.

In the autumn of 1806, an armament, consisting of the Ninth and Seventeenth light dragoons, detachment of the Twenty-first light dragoons, Royal artillery and engineers, Fortieth, first battalion of the Eighty-seventh, and Ninety-fifth (rifle corps) regiments, proceeded to share in the contest in South America. In October the Thirty-eighth regiment commanded by Colonel Vassal, and the Forty-seventh, under Colonel Backhouse, proceeded from the Cape of Good Hope to the Rio de la Plata, and on finding that Buenos Ayres had been recaptured by the Spaniards, the troops under the command of Colonel Backhouse, in conjunction with the naval squadron under Commodore Sir Home Popham, took possession of the town of Maldonado, and the island of Gorreti, on the left bank of the river Plate. In the summer of 1807 an expedition for a second attempt on Buenos Ayres proceeded to that part of the world, under the command of Lieut.-General Whitelocke, who assumed the command of the troops in South America. Other corps had also proceeded to South America, of which a list is inserted in the Appendix, page 91.