After the battle, the regiment did not return to Spain to rejoin the English expeditionary force, but was instead ordered back to England; for a period of nearly four years the regiment remained in England, being quartered in Kent and the Isle of Wight as a garrison force, mustering for occasional parades and reviews. In December 1703, William Lloyd sold the colonelcy of the regiment to George Carpenter, who then assumed command. In 1706, the regiment was once again transferred to the Isle of Wight, where 240 officers, non-commissioned officers and troopers were attached to an 8,000 strong force assembling there. The force was tasked with landing on the coast of France near Charente and fighting its way inland, aided by local Protestant civilians. The fleet left England on 30 July, but the operation was cancelled due to poor weather and the failure of Dutch naval forces, who were to rendezvous with the transports and escort them to the French coast. The transports were then ordered to head for Spain, where they would land at Cadiz and reinforce English forces in the area; however, poor weather forced the ships to remain in Torbay for eleven weeks, with the troops remaining on board, until mid-August, when they attempted to sail for Lisbon. Even more severe weather meant that the ships could not be unloaded at Lisbon either, however, and they remained there for a further two months; during this time the regiment and the other English troops on board the ships suffered hundreds of casualties from a lack of proper food and water, and outbreaks of disease. By January 1707, the weather calmed down enough for the ships to leave Lisbon harbour and, in February, they reached Alicante, where the troops were off-loaded; of the 8,000 troops who had boarded the transports in July 1706, only 4,400 had survived.