Reconstituted as the 102d Regiment of Foot, it was transferred to Bermuda and Nova Scotia, before taking part in the Chesapeake campaign of the War of 1812.

In June 1789, the regiment was formed in England as a permanent unit to relieve the New South Wales Marine Corps, who had accompanied the First Fleet to Australia.

[2] A fourth company was raised from those Marines wishing to remain in New South Wales under Captain George Johnston, who had been Governor Arthur Phillip's aide-de-camp.

[4] In a connived attempt to improve agricultural production and make the colony more self-sufficient, Grose turned away from collective farming and made generous land grants to officers of the Corps.

[4] Grose also relaxed Phillip's prohibition on trading of rum, sometimes a generic term for any form of distilled beverage, usually made from wheat, commonly from Bengal.

[6] Due to poor health Grose returned to England in December 1794 and Captain William Paterson assumed temporary command until a permanent replacement, Governor John Hunter, arrived in September 1795.

[8] Governor Hunter attempted unsuccessfully to use the troops of the Corps to guard imported rum and stop the officers from buying it up.

Attempts to stop the importation were also thwarted by the failure of other governments to co-operate and by the Corps' officers chartering of a Danish ship to bring in a large shipment of rum from India.

In 1800, he charged Major George Johnston, who had served as Hunter's aide-de-camp, with giving a sergeant part payment in rum at an exorbitant rate.

[9] Governor Philip King, appointed in September 1800, continued Hunter's efforts to prevent the Corps trading in rum.

He had the power to levy an excise duty on alcohol, and the Transit Board now required all ships to lodge a bond which was forfeit for disobeying the Governor's orders, which included the prohibition of the landing of more than 500 gallons of rum.

King also encouraged private importers and traders, opened a public brewery in 1804,[10] and introduced a schedule of values for Indian copper and Spanish pieces of eight which were used as currency.

At midnight on 4 March, Captain Daniel Woodriff of HMS Calcutta landed 150 of his crew to assist the New South Wales Corps and Governor King.

[15] Although the economy had developed and diversified somewhat by 1806, Bligh arrived determined to bring the Corps, and especially John Macarthur, to heel, and stop their trading in rum.

The construction of Sydney Hospital was entirely funded by granting a monopoly on the import of rum to the contractors, who were the merchants Alexander Riley and Garnham Blaxcell.

[1] In 1813, Lieutenant-Colonel, Sir Thomas Sydney Beckwith arrived in Bermuda to command a force tasked with raiding the Atlantic Seaboard of the United States, specifically in the region of Chesapeake Bay, with the 102d Regiment's Commanding Officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Charles James Napier, as his Second-in-Command.

[20][page needed] After carrying out raids on the Atlantic coast of the United States, and minus the two companies of Frenchmen, they left the Chesapeake and landed at Halifax, Nova Scotia, on 20 September 1813.