The regiment then sailed to the Cape Colony in 1851 to take part in the Eighth Xhosa War. In 1852 a detachment from the regiment departed Simon's Town aboard the troopship HMS "Birkenhead" bound for Port Elizabeth. At two o'clock in the morning on 28 February 1852, the ship struck rocks at Danger Point, just off Gansbaai. The troops assembled on deck, and allowed the women and children to board the lifeboats first, but then stood firm as the ship sank when told by officers that jumping overboard and swimming to the lifeboats would mostly likely upset those boats and endanger the civilian passengers. 357 men drowned. The regiment's commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Seton, together with one of his ensigns and forty-eight of his other ranks, were among those that perished.