The nucleus of the Regiment was two companies of Malays recruited from among prisoners at St Helena.
Some 70 or 80 Danes, Norwegians, and Swedes joined the British East India Company.
The Malays apparently were glad to serve under British command as they found the treatment they received much better than that to which the Dutch had subjected them.
[1] In all, five independent companies of Malays were transferred from Dutch to HEIC service.
Since then the regiment under different names fought for the British in the Kandyan War and the Uva Rebellion of 1818.