Foot By the late seventeenth century, each regiment of the standing army had been allotted a "rank" in the order of precedence. These numbers came to be increasingly used until a royal warrant of 1751 decreed that regiments should in future be known by their numbers only. Accordingly, Pulteney's Regiment became the 13th Regiment of Foot. The redesignated 13th Foot entered a thirty-year period of garrison service in England, Ireland, Gibraltar and Minorca. American Revolutionary War In 1775, the American Revolutionary War broke out, widening into war with France from 1778 and Spain in 1779. The 13th Foot sailed for the West Indies, arriving in Barbados. They saw little active service, returning to England in 1782, moving on to Ireland in 1783. 13th (1st Somersetshire) Regiment of Foot It was at this time that the regiment's link to Somerset was first formed. On 21 August 1782, the Commander-in-Chief of the Forces, Henry Seymour Conway, issued a regulation giving an English county designation to each regiment of foot other than those with a royal title or highland regiments. The intention was to improve recruitment during the unpopular war, and the Secretary at War, Thomas Townshend issued a circular letter to the lieutenants of each county in England in the following terms: My Lord, The very great deficiency of men in the regiments of infantry being so very detrimental to the public service, the king has thought proper to give the names of the different counties to the old corps, in hopes that, by the zeal and activity of the principal nobility and gentry in the several counties, some considerable assistance may be given towards recruiting these regiments". The regiment duly became the 13th (1st Somersetshire) Regiment of Foot (the 40th Foot becoming the "2nd Somersetshire"). The attempt to link regimental areas to specific counties was found to be impractical, with regiments preferring to recruit from major centres of population. By June 1783, each regiment was again recruiting throughout the country, although the county names were to remain. French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars In 1790, the regiment sailed to Jamaica. In 1793, Britain was again at war with France, this time with the revolutionary régime. The 13th Foot landed in the French colony of Saint-Domingue, where the Haitian Revolution was in progress. Returning to Ireland in 1797 and England in 1799, the 13th were next engaged in a series of minor coastal