On 18 March 1809 he was appointed a lieutenant in the Madras engineers, and became captain in that corps on 2 May 1817, lieutenant-colonel on 4 November 1824, colonel on 13 May 1839 (brevet on 18 June 1831).
During the four succeeding campaigns against the Russians in 1810-13 Monteith was in command of a frontier force of cavalry with six guns, and of the garrison of Erivan.
He was still in Persia in 1819, and acted as aide-de-camp to Sir William Keir Grant, commanding the Bombay force sent against the Wahhabi pirates of the Persian Gulf, which destroyed their stronghold of Ras al-Khaimah.
After the Treaty of Turkmenchay was signed in 1828, Monteith was appointed commissioner for the payment of the indemnity, exacted from Persia by Russia, part of which was conveyed by him personally into the Russian camp.
He returned to India in July 1832, and was appointed chief engineer at Madras, but in January 1834 was superseded by the arrival of Colonel Gurnard.
[1] Monteith wrote Kars and Erzeroum, with the Campaign of Prince Paskiewitch (London, 1856), an account of the Russian wars in the Caucasus, as well as several works on the geography of Persia and India.