After British forces landed at the colony on 11 June, the Pandour Corps fought in several skirmishes, including successful attacks at Sandvlei on 8 August and Muysenburg on 1 September.

After assuming control of the colony for the second time, Britain continued to raised Coloured units, which would go on to serve in the fourth, fifth and sixth Xhosa wars.

[2] Coloured people were already familiar with European forms of warfare, and suggestions to recruit them for military service was met with increasing approval among officials of the Cape Colony.

During the 1770s, as Dutch expansion on the colony's frontier stalled due to resistance from the Khoekhoe and San peoples, VOC officials took a closer interest in the Coloured community.

[8] At the urging of Sir Francis Baring, Secretary of State for War Henry Dundas dispatched a British expeditionary force to invade the Cape Colony and eliminate the potential threat it posed to Britain's trade with the East Indies.

[9] When the expeditionary force arrived at Simon's Bay on 11 June, the Pandour Corps was stationed at defensive fortifications constructed at the strategic location of Muysenburg alongside several other infantry and cavalry units under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Carel Matthys Willem de Lille.

[6][10] The Dutch colonial government, hesitating to attack the British outright, stood by as they took control of a strategic bridgehead at a VOC outpost in Simon's Bay.

"[6] On the morning of 1 September, the Pandour Corps, again operating in concert with the Swellendam Light Cavalry, attacked two British outposts near Muysenburg, killing 5 soldiers and wounding 14 while suffering no casualties of their own.

However, in the afternoon the unit mutinied by marching with their weapons drawn to the Castle of Good Hope to personally present their complaints of being ill-treated and poorly compensated to Governor Abraham Josias Sluysken.

[12] This was done as the administration concluded that raised a Coloured unit was necessary to secure the loyalty of that community to Britain and intimidate rebellious burghers into accepting British rule; Villiers described the decision as "a frankly actuated more by political than military views.

"[13] British officials perceived the establishment of the Hottentot Corps as the best way to alter the lifestyle of the Coloured community, which were stereotyped as excessively sedentary by Dutch colonial accounts.

This unit was subsequently renamed as the Hottentot Light Infantry and fought at the Battle of Blaauwberg of the War of the Third Coalition, which saw another British expeditionary force invade and occupy the Cape Colony in January 1806.