Francis Duncan
History of the Royal Regiment of Artillery, Vol. 1 / Compiled from the Original Records

TO

HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS

FIELD-MARSHAL THE DUKE OF CAMBRIDGE,

K.G., G.C.B., K.P., G.C.M.G.,

COLONEL OF THE ROYAL REGIMENT OF ARTILLERY,

THIS

HISTORY OF ITS SERVICES

IS RESPECTFULLY, AND BY PERMISSION,

DEDICATED BY

THE AUTHOR.

PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION

A further reorganization of the Royal Artillery, involving alterations in the nomenclature of Batteries, having taken place since the publication of the Second Edition, the Author has deemed it desirable to issue a Third, with tables added to Appendix C, in the Second Volume, which will enable the reader to keep up the continuity.

These frequent changes are embarrassing to the student of history, but in the present instance the change has been distinctly advantageous in an administrative point of view.

Woolwich.

October, 1879.

PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION

The unexpected favour accorded to the first edition of this work having already rendered a second necessary, the author has taken the opportunity of making many corrections and additions, and of embodying the indices of both volumes in one. The history, as it now stands, represents the services of the Corps in detail as far as the year 1815, and gives a summary of the services of those batteries now in existence, which represent the troops and companies of the old Royal Horse Artillery, and of the nine senior battalions of the Royal Artillery. The tables at the end of both volumes will also assist the reader in tracing the antecedents of every battery in the Regiment.

The author takes this opportunity of expressing his gratitude to his brother officers for the cordial sympathy and encouragement which he has received from them during his labours, and his hope that the noble narrative commenced by him will not long remain unfinished. The importance of completing the record of the Corps' services in the Crimea and India, while the officers who served in these campaigns are yet alive, is very apparent; and the author would respectfully suggest that any documents throwing light upon these services, which are in the possession of any one belonging to, or interested in the Corps, should be deposited for safe keeping, and for reference, in the Regimental Record Office at Woolwich.

March 2, 1874.

PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION

Among the uneducated, discipline is created by fear, and confirmed by habit. Among the educated, the agency at work is more complicated. Sympathy with the machine of which the individual finds himself a part, and a reasoning apprehension of the necessity of discipline, are mingled with a strong feeling of responsibility; and, as in the former case, habit steps in to cement the whole. Of all these agents, the noblest is undoubtedly the sense of responsibility, and the highest duty of a military commander is to awaken this sense where it does not exist, and to confirm and strengthen it where it does.

Two means may be employed to ensure this end. First: let the importance of his duty be impressed on the individual, and let the value in a military sense of what might seem at first sight trivial be carefully demonstrated. Let it be explained that neglect of some seemingly slight duty may disarrange the whole machine; and that for this reason no duty, in a soldier's eyes, should appear slight or trivial. Second: let an esprit de corps be fostered, such as shall make a man feel it a shame to be negligent or unworthy.

History has a power to awaken this esprit, which it is impossible to overrate. Its power reaches the educated and the uneducated alike; it begets a sympathy with the past, which is a sure agent in creating cohesion in the present; for the interest which binds us to our predecessors binds us also to one another. In this cohesion and sympathy is to be found the most sublime form of true discipline.

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER

In the summer of 1682, for the space of nearly three months, an old man might have been seen pacing daily up and down near the Ordnance Offices in the Tower of London, growing shabbier day by day, more hopeless and purposeless in his gait, yet seeming bound to the place either by expectation or command.

At last with trembling hand he prepared for the Honourable Board of Ordnance the following quaint petition: —

"The humble Petition of John Hawling, Master Gunner of

His Majesty's Castle of Chester."

"Sheweth: —

"That ye Petitioner being commanded up by special order from the office hath remained here ye space of 13 weeks to his great cost and charges, he being a very poor and ancient man, not having wherewithal to subsist in so chargeable a place.

"He therefor most humbly implores yr Honrs to take his sad condition into your Honours' consideration, and to restore him to his place again, yt he may return to his habitation with such commands as your Honrs shall think fitt to lay upon him.

"And your Petitioner as in duty bound shall ever pray."

To which Petition the Honourable Board returned the following peremptory answer: —

"Let ye Petitioner return back to Chester Castle, and there submit himself to Sir Jeoffrey Shakerley, Governor, in ye presence of Sir Peter Pindar and Mr. Anderton, and obey ye orders of ye Governor and Lieut. – Governor of ye said castle, and upon his said submission and obedience, let him continue and enjoy his former employment of Master Gunner there, so long as he shall so behave himselfe accordingly."

John Hawling, this poor and ancient man, was one of the small class of Master Gunners, and Gunners of Garrisons, who with the few fee'd Gunners at the Tower, represented the only permanent force of Artillery in those days in England. Their scientific attainments as Artillerists were small, and their sense of discipline was feeble. To take a very superficial charge of Ordnance Stores, and to resent any military interference, such as at Chester seems to have driven John Hawling into mutiny, but at the same time to cringe to the Board, which was the source of their annual income, represented in their minds the sum and substance of their duties. And taking into consideration John Hawling's offence, his advanced years, and his petition, we do not err in taking him as a representative man.

In the House of Commons, on the 22nd of February, 1872, the Secretary of State for War rose to move the Army Estimates for the ensuing year. These included provision for a Regiment of Artillery, numbering – including those serving in India – 34,943 officers, non-commissioned officers, and men.

Although divided into Horse, Field, and Garrison Artillery, and including no less than twenty-nine Brigades, besides a large Depôt, this large force, representing the permanent Artillery Force of Great Britain, was one vast regiment – the Royal Regiment of Artillery.

To trace the growth, from so small an acorn, of so noble a tree, is a task which would inspire the boldest author with diffidence: and when the duty is undertaken by one who has had no experience in historical writing, he is bound to justify himself to his readers for his temerity.

When the writer of the following pages assumed, in January, 1871, the duties of Superintendent of the Royal Artillery Regimental Records, he found a method and order established by his predecessor, Major R. Oldfield, R.A., all the more remarkable when compared with the chaos too often prevailing in Record offices. The idea immediately occurred to him that if ever a History of the Regiment were to be written – a book greatly wanted, and yet becoming every day more difficult to write – here, in this office, could it most easily be done. This feeling became so strong in his mind, that it overcame the reluctance he felt to step into an arena for which he had received no special training.

The unwillingness felt by him was increased by the knowledge that there was in the Regiment an officer, Colonel F. Miller, V.C., who was eminently qualified for writing such a History. Other and more pressing duties had, however, prevented that officer from undertaking a work which he had once contemplated; but of the many documents and books which the author of the following pages has made use of for his purpose, none has been more valuable than an exhaustive pamphlet published some years ago by Colonel Miller for private circulation, and his recent edition of Kane's list of Artillery officers, with its comprehensive Appendix.

It has been said above that the writing of this History has been every year becoming more difficult. The statement requires explanation, as the difficulty is not caused so much by the accumulation – continually going on – of modern records, which might bury the old ones out of sight, as by a change in the organization of the Regiment which took place some years ago, and which sadly dislocated its history, although possibly improving its efficiency. In the year 1859, the old system which divided the Regiment into Companies and Battalions, with permanent Battalion Headquarters at Woolwich, was abolished; and Companies serving in different parts of the Empire were linked together in Brigades, on grounds of Geography, instead of History. Companies of different Battalions serving on the same station were christened Batteries of the same Brigade, and the old Battalion staff at Woolwich became the staff, at various stations, of the Brigades newly created. The old Companies, in donning their new titles, lost their old history and began their life anew. Every year as it passed made the wall which had been built between the present and the past of the Regiment more nearly approach the student's horizon, and the day seemed imminent when it would be impossible to make the existing Batteries know and realize that the glorious History of the old Companies was their own legitimate property.

The evil of such a state can hardly be described. The importance of maintaining the esprit of Batteries cannot be overrated. And esprit feeds and flourishes upon history.

Nor can Battery esprit be created by a general Regimental history. The particular satisfies the appetite which refuses to be nourished upon the general. The memory which will gloat over the stories of Minden, Gibraltar, or Waterloo, will look coldly on the Regimental Motto "Ubique." Therefore, he who would make the influence of history most surely felt by an Artilleryman must spare no labour in tracing the links which connect the Batteries of the present with the Companies of the past. For the Battery is the unit of Artillery: all other organization is accidental. Whether the administrative web, which encloses a number of Batteries, be called a Battalion or a Brigade system, is a matter of secondary importance. It is by Batteries that Artillerymen make War; and it is by Batteries that their history should be traced.

With this feeling uppermost in his mind, the author of these pages has endeavoured on every occasion to revive the memories which will be dear to the officers and men of Batteries – memories which ran a risk of being lost with the introduction of a new nomenclature. On such memories an esprit de corps, which no legislation can create, will blossom easily and brilliantly; and no weapon for discipline in the hand of a commander will be found more true than the power of appealing to his men to remember the reputation which their predecessors earned with their lives.

This first volume will give the present designation, the past history, and the succession of Captains of the whole of the Companies of the seven Battalions formed during the last century and of the old troops of the Royal Horse Artillery. In the succeeding volumes, the same course will be pursued with regard to the later Battalions.

These stories will be all the more precious now, as the importance of the Battery as a tactical unit has been so distinctly recognized by His Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge within the last few months, and its responsibility and value as a command have been so recently and generously marked by the present Secretary of State for War.

The author does not pretend to underrate the difficulties of the task which he has undertaken – difficulties which cannot be realized by those who see merely these inadequate results of his labours. Not the least was the difficulty of knowing where to begin. The Regimental organization is comparatively recent; and had he confined his labours to the last one hundred and sixty years, his task would have been greatly lessened, and yet he might have said with literal truth that he had written a History of the Royal Artillery. But surely in any History worthy of the name there were antecedent circumstances which could not be left unnoticed, such as the circumstances which brought about the birth of the Regiment, the blunders and failures which marked the old system in England as wrong and foolish, and the necessity, which gradually dawned, of having in the country a permanent, instead of a spasmodic force of Artillery.

Repudiating, therefore, the notion that the Regiment's History should commence with its first parade, how far was he to penetrate in his antiquarian researches? There was a danger of wearying his reader, which had to be avoided fully as carefully as the risk of omitting necessary information, for a history – to be useful in awakening esprit de corps– should be read, not shelved as a work of reference. It is in this part of his labours that the author has to appeal for the greatest indulgence, because writing, as he has generally done, with all his documents and authorities round him for reference, he may unconsciously have omitted some details most necessary to the reader; or with some picture clearly present to his own mind as he wrote, he may have given light and shade which had caught his own fancy, and omitted the outlines without which the picture will be almost unintelligible.

Of the many to whom he is indebted for assistance he feels called upon to mention specially the Secretary of State for War, by whose permission he had unlimited access to the Ordnance Library in the Tower; Colonel Middleton, C.B., Deputy Adjutant-General of the Royal Artillery; General McDowell, commanding the troops in New York; Lieutenant A. B. Gardner, of the United States Artillery; and the Committees of the Royal Artillery and United Service Institutions.

The works which the author has consulted are too numerous to mention, but among those which were most useful to him were Drinkwater's 'Siege of Gibraltar,' Murdoch's 'History of Nova Scotia,' Browne's 'England's Artillerymen,' Clode's 'Military Forces of the Crown,' the Reports of the House of Commons, the Records of the Royal Military Academy, Kirke's 'Conquest of Canada,' Rameau's 'La France aux Colonies,' Cust's 'Annals of the Wars.'

Among the mass of MSS. through which he had to wade, the valuable manuscript notes connected with the 'History of the Royal Artillery,' arranged by the late Colonel Cleaveland, deserve special mention. The skeleton of this work, however, was furnished by the old Record Books of the Battalions, deposited in the office of which the author is Superintendent.

In the succeeding volumes, the advantage of being able to use the old letter-books of the head-quarter offices of the Royal Artillery will be apparent. But there was no head-quarter staff for the Regiment up to the time where this volume finishes; so that the student has, up to that date, to depend greatly on men like General James Pattison and Forbes Macbean, who placed on record, in their diaries and letter-books, valuable and interesting information connected with the Regiment during their service, which would otherwise have been hopelessly unattainable.

The value of such a History as this, if the writer has not utterly failed in his object, cannot be better shown than in some words addressed by one of our most distinguished Artillery officers (Sir E. C. Warde) to an audience at the Royal Artillery Institution a few months ago. The family affection which he urged as the model for Regimental esprit cannot be better fostered than by reviving the stories of our predecessors' gallant deeds and scientific excellence. As a Regiment, we are now large almost to unwieldiness, and conflicting interests and tastes tend to diminish the desired sympathy and cohesion. And, as in the crowded pit of a theatre before the performance commences, there is elbowing, and crowding, and wrangling for place, yet when the curtain rises all is hushed and quiet, – there is room for every one, – and the look of selfishness is exchanged for one of interest and pleasure, – so, among our great numbers, although there must be many and diverse interests and tastes, yet we all become as one as we gaze on the great dramas in which those of us have acted who have gone before.

The words used by Sir Edward Warde were as follows: – "It has ever been our pride, as a corps, to be regarded as one family; and if one member of it, in any remote part of the world, in any way distinguished himself, it was felt universally that he had reflected credit and honour on the whole corps. And so, vice versâ. Should we not, then, extend those feelings as they apply to private families, in which members embrace different professions? One becomes a soldier, another a sailor, a third enters the Church, a fourth goes up for the bar, and so on; and if any one gain honour and distinction, all equally feel that such honour and distinction is reflected upon the whole family, and all equally glory and rejoice in it. So should it be with us. Some of us take special interest in the personnel, as it is well known to you all that I have done throughout my career; but is that any reason why I should not take an interest – aye, and a warm interest – in the success of those brother officers who pursue scientific researches, and seek honour and distinction in the pursuit of literature, and in endeavouring to raise the character of our corps as one from which highly scientific attainments are expected? No, indeed; the very reverse should be our guiding rule; and I can conceive no position more honourable than that held for so many years by our highly distinguished brother officer, Sir Edward Sabine. Let us, then, feel that we are one family, and let us rejoice in the success of every one of its members, whether they are so fortunate as to gain distinction in the field, in the siege, or in literary and scientific pursuits; and by so doing may we hope, not only to maintain our present high reputation, but to increase it as time goes on."

CHAPTER I.
The Masters-General of the Ordnance and theirHonourable Board

There are many reasons why the Masters-General of the Ordnance must interest the student of the History of the Royal Artillery. In the days before the Regimental organization existed, all Artillery details came under the care and superintendence of the Masters-General; and to a distinguished one of their number does the Regiment owe its formation. The interest becomes deeper and closer after that date; for in addition to the general superintendence which had already existed, the Master-General had now a special interest in the Royal Artillery, in his ex officio capacity as its Colonel.

And whatever objections may be urged against the Board of Ordnance, the Royal Artillery, save in one particular, has always had abundant and special reason for regarding it with affection and gratitude. The almost fatherly care, even to the minutest details, which the Board showed to that corps over which their Master presided, was such as to awaken the jealousy of the other arms of the service. Had their government not been of that description which attempts to govern too much, not a word could be said by an Artilleryman, save in deprecation of the day when the Board of Ordnance was abolished. Unfortunately, like a parent who has failed to realize that his children have become men, the Board invariably interfered with the duties of the Artillery under whatever circumstances its officers might be situated. No amount of individual experience, no success, no distance from England, could save unhappy Artillerymen from perpetual worry and incessant legislation. The piteous protests and appeals which meet the student at every turn give some idea of the torture to which the miserable writers had been exposed. The way, also, in which the Board expressed its parental affection was often such as to neutralize its aim. It was rare indeed that any General Officer commanding an army on service made an appointment of however temporary or trivial a nature, which had to come under the approval of the Board, without having it peremptorily cancelled. Even in time of peace, the presence in every garrison of that band of conspirators, known as the Respective Officers – who represented the obstructive Board, and whose opinion carried far more weight than that of the General commanding – was enough to irritate that unhappy officer into detestation of the Honourable Board and all connected with it.

It has been declared – and by many well able to judge, including the Duke of Wellington himself – that in many respects the Board of Ordnance was an excellent national institution and a source of economy to the country. It may be admitted that in its civil capacity this was the case, and the recent tendency to revive in the army something like the Civil Branch of the Ordnance proves that this opinion is general. But, if we take a more liberal view than that of mere Artillerymen, we must see that the military division of its duties was only saved from exposure and disgrace by the fact that the bodies of troops over which it had control were generally small and scattered. The command of the Royal Artillery, now that it has attained its present numbers, could not have remained vested in the hands of a Board constituted as the Board of Ordnance was. What General Officer could have hoped to weld the three arms of his division into any homogeneous shape, while one of them could quote special privileges, special orders, and sometimes positive prohibition, from a body to which they owed a very special obedience? The Royal Artillery may indeed have lost in little comforts and perquisites by the abolition of the Board of Ordnance, but in a military point of view, in proficiency, and in popularity, the Regiment has decidedly been a gainer.

While admitting, however, the advantages, nay, the necessity of the change which has taken place, the long roll of distinguished soldiers and statesmen who have successively held the office of Master-General of the Ordnance is too precious an heirloom in the eyes of an Artilleryman to let pass without special notice and congratulation.

From 1483, the earliest date when we can trace one by name, down to the days of the Crimean war, when the last Master-General died in harness, the brave, gentle Lord Raglan, the list sparkles with the names of men who have been first in Court and field, and who have deserved well of England.

Their duties were by no means honorary in earlier times, although during the last fifty years of the Board's existence the chief work fell upon the permanent staff, and the visits of the Master-General were comparatively rare and ceremonious. If any one would learn what they had to do in the seventeenth century, let him go to the Tower, and examine the correspondence of Lord Dartmouth, the faithful friend and servant of Charles II., a professional Artilleryman and James II.'s skilled Master-General to the last. He created order out of chaos in the Department of the Ordnance, under Charles II., and so admirable were his arrangements, that on King William ascending the throne, he issued a warrant ratifying all previous orders, and leaving the details of the management of the Ordnance unaltered. In the autumn of 1688, Lord Dartmouth's office – never a sinecure – became laborious in the extreme. Daily and hourly requisitions reached him from the excited King and his Ministers, for the arming of the ships and the Regiments which were being raised in every direction. Authority was given to raise more gunners, as if experience could be created in a moment and the science of Artillery begotten in a man's mind, without previous study, for "twelve-pence by the day." To Chatham the Master-General hurries to superintend the fitting-out of the men-of-war, and next day, for the same purpose, to Sheerness, where he finds a despatch from the trembling Privy Council, ordering him to fill six merchant ships with fireworks to accompany the King's fleet, as fire-ships against the enemy. A terrible life did poor Lord Dartmouth lead at this time. Sometimes his letters are written from on board ship in the river, sometimes from his cabin in the 'Resolution,' at Portsmouth; very frequently from Windsor, where James anxiously kept him near his person, plying him now with questions and now with contradictory orders. Sometimes we find him writing at midnight, ordering his loving friends, the principal officers of the Ordnance, to meet him next day at the Cockpit, in Whitehall; at other times he swoops down unexpectedly on the bewildered officials in the Tower. In the old, quiet days, his correspondence was distinguished by an almost excessive courtesy; but now, in these days of fever and in the depth of his anxiety, it almost disappears; orders are issued like minute-guns; explanations of delay are fretfully demanded; and a bombardment is incessant of peremptory inquiries as to the state of His Majesty's ships and stores.

His Lieutenant-General, Sir Henry Tichborne, has a hard place of it at this time. With so energetic a Master at the Board, his work hitherto has been of the lightest, and his head seems now to reel under the change. For a few weeks he holds out, but by the end of November in that eventful year matters came to a crisis with poor Sir Henry. He can no longer attend the meetings of the Board; a violent fit of the gout prevents him, which he carefully warns his colleagues will, in all likelihood, continue some time: and with a piteous prayer that, out of the small sum in hand, the Board will pay the salaries of the "poor gunners, as subsisting but from day to day," Sir Henry's name disappears from the Board's proceedings, and the History of the Ordnance knows him no more.

After this time the Honourable Board seems, when its Master was absent, to have enacted the part of the Unjust Steward, for we find various debts remitted to creditors who could not pay, and not a small issue of debentures to those whose friendship it was desirable to retain. All through the records of their proceedings at this time is to be traced, like a monotonous accompaniment in music, the work of that immovable being the permanent clerk. From the dull offices in the Tower issue the same solemn Warrants, appointing this man an Ordnance labourer at six-and-twenty pounds a year, and that man a gunner at twelve-pence a day, just as if no Revolution were at hand, and no foreign foe were menacing the very existence of their King and Honourable Board together. Lord Dartmouth may be guilty of curt and feverish memoranda, but the permanent clerk never moves out of his groove, nor shall posterity ever trace any uneasiness in his formal work.

And then comes the sudden gap in all the books; the blank pages more eloquent than words; the disappearance of the familiar signature of Dartmouth; and the student takes up a fresh set of books where England took up a fresh King.

The duties of the Master-General, and the various members and servants of the Board of Ordnance, were first reduced to a systematic form in Charles II.'s reign, while Lord Dartmouth was in office. The Warrant defining these was confirmed by James II. on the 4th February, 1686; by William III., on the 8th March, 1689; by Queen Anne, on the 30th June, 1702; by George I., on the 30th July, 1715; and by George II., on the 17th June, 1727.

Although some alterations were made by George III., they were very slight, and rendered necessary by the occasional absence of the Master-General and by the creation of the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich – the Cadets attending that institution being placed in a very special manner under the care and superintendence of the Master and Lieutenant-General of the Ordnance. The orders under which the Board worked up to the beginning of this century were, therefore, practically those instituted during Lord Dartmouth's term of office; and in examining them, one cannot fail to be struck with their exhaustive anticipation of every circumstance which might arise for consideration.

The Master of the Ordnance, as he was originally called – sometimes also termed the Captain-General of the Artillery – received, in 1604, the title of Master-General; and was considered one of the most important personages in the realm. Since the great Marlborough held the office, it has seldom been given to any one not already possessed of the highest military rank: but this was not always the case. Lord Dartmouth was plain Colonel Legge when first appointed, and the social, as well as military rank of his predecessors, was sometimes far from exalted. It became, therefore, necessary to attach to the office some relative military status: and accordingly we find a Warrant issued by James II., bearing date the 13th May, 1686, directing that the Master-General of the Ordnance should always have "the rank, as well as the respect, due to our youngest Lieutenant-General: and that our will and pleasure is, that he command in our Garrisons as formerly, but do not take upon him the charge or command as a Lieutenant-General in the field, without our especial commission or appointment." The command in the Garrisons referred to in the Warrant is in allusion to the Master-Gunners and Gunners of the various Garrisons, whose allegiance to the Board of Ordnance, as being, in fact, custodians of the Ordnance Stores, was always insisted on.

The relative rank awarded to the Master-General entitled him, when passing through any Camp or Garrison, to a guard of 1 officer, 1 sergeant, and 20 men; the guards were compelled to turn out to him and the drums to beat a march; and the officers and soldiers of the Regiments he passed had to turn out at the head of their respective camps. In the old pre-regimental days, when the Master-General took the field in time of war, in his official capacity, he was attended by a Chancellor, thirty gentlemen of the Ordnance, thirty harquebusiers on horseback, with eight halberdiers for his guard, two or three interpreters, a minister or preacher, a physician, a master-surgeon and his attendant, a trumpeter, kettledrums, and chariot with six white horses, two or three engineers, or more if required, and two or three refiners of gunpowder. These kettledrums do not seem to have been used in the field after 1748. They were used by the train of Artillery employed in Ireland in 1689, and the cost of the drums and their carriage on that occasion, was estimated at 158l. 9s. As the reader comes to compare the wages of the drummer and his coachman – 4s. and 3s. per diem respectively – with the pay given to other by no means unimportant members of an Artillery train, he will realize what a prominent position these officials were supposed to hold. The drummer's suit of clothes cost 50l., while a gunner's was valued at 5l. 6s. 4d. Even the coachman could not be clad under 15l.– nearly three times the cost of a gunner's clothes.

Prior to the date of King Charles's Warrant, the pay of the Master-General had been very fluctuating, being considerably affected by fees, and even by sales of places in the department. By that Warrant, however, it was fixed at a certain sum, inclusive of all perquisites, and the amount would appear to have been 1500l. per annum. This remained unchanged until the formation of the Cadet Company, when the annual sum of 474l. 10s. was added to the Master-General's salary, in his capacity as Captain of the Company, and charged in the Regimental accounts of the Royal Artillery. Considerable strides in the direction of further augmentation were afterwards made, more especially in 1801, until we find Lord Chatham, in 1809, drawing no less than 3709l. per annum as Master-General of the Ordnance.

There was an order forbidding any increase to the establishment of the Ordnance without the King's sign-manual, but it speedily became a dead letter; and changes were frequently made without authority, involving additional expense, and covered by something akin to supplementary estimates. In fact, the Parliamentary Commission which sat in 1810 to inquire into the various departments of the Ordnance ascertained that both in matters of personnel and matériel the power of the Master-General in his own department was simply unfettered. That it was not more frequently abused speaks well for the honesty of the department, and the honour of its chief officers.

The Lieutenant-General of the Ordnance at the meetings of the Board was like the Deputy-Chairman of a Company. His powers were in abeyance when the Master was present: although there were one or two cases in which his signature was required as one of the quorum necessary to legalize the business transacted. His office was created by Henry VIII., the designation of General being added subsequently. Until the days of Sir Christopher Musgrave he had an official residence in the Minories; and on its being taken from him he received in lieu the annual allowance of 300l. Another perquisite of the Lieutenant-General of the Ordnance was the ground called, as the old deed expresses it, "Ye old Artillery Garden situate near ye Spitle in ye parish of St. Buttolph, Bishopsgate: " but this also being taken away from him, he was allowed, in March, 1683, the large manor-house and grounds commonly known as the Tower Place at Woolwich, together with the Warren, &c., where the Royal Arsenal now stands, a name given on the occasion of the visit paid to it by George III. in the spring of 1805. The use of this property by the Lieutenant-General of the Ordnance was, however, trammelled by the following conditions: – "That the proving of great guns should go on as heretofore in Woolwich: that the Government should have full control over all wharves, magazines, cranes, &c., and that a dwelling for the Master-Gunner of England should be allowed in the said Mansion-house, and lodging for ten fee'd gunners in the adjoining houses, and also for such Ordnance labourers as might be necessary."

The proper salary of the Lieutenant-General at first was 800l. per annum, supplemented, as mentioned above, by 300l. in lieu of a house; but rising like the pay of the other officers of the Board, we find in 1810, that it amounted to 1525l., besides an allowance for stationery. The Parliamentary Committee which sat in 1810 and 1811 suggested the abolition of the office of Lieutenant-General – a suggestion which was ultimately carried out in 1831. It was revived for a short time during the Crimean war, Sir Hew Ross holding the appointment during the absence at the seat of war of the Master-General, Lord Raglan; but this was a contingency which the Committee had foreseen, and was prepared to meet.

In examining the individual, apart from the collective, duties of the principal officers of the Ordnance, we find that the Lieutenant-General had the supervision of the military branch, and acted as a sort of Adjutant to the Master, who looked to him for all information connected with the various trains of artillery at the Tower and elsewhere. These he was bound always to have fit and ready to march: he had to direct and superintend the practice of the Master-Gunner of England, Firemaster and his mates, Fireworkers and Gunners, and acquaint the Master with their proficiencies; and also to see that all officials connected with the Department did their several duties.

The other four principal officers of the Ordnance were the Surveyor-General, the Clerk of the Ordnance, the Storekeeper, and the Clerk of the Deliveries, any three of whom formed a quorum. At the beginning of the present century the salaries of these officials were respectively 1225l., 825l., 725l., and 1000l. with a further annual sum of 200l. to the Clerk of the Deliveries during war. The whole of the principal officers were allowed 25l. a year for stationery, besides certain patent fees varying from 54l. 15s. in the case of the principal Storekeeper, to 18l. 5s. in that of the Clerk of the Deliveries. The departmental expenses were swollen by an army of public and private secretaries, clerks, and attendants.

As the work of the Lieutenant-General lay with the personnel, so that of the Surveyor-General lay with the matériel. On him lay the responsibility of superintending all stores, taking remains, and noting all issues and receipts.

The Clerk of the Ordnance had, in addition to the ordinary correspondence of the department, to look after salaries, debts, debentures, and bills falling due, and generally to perform, on a large scale, the duties of a modern book-keeper. If we may judge by the correspondence on financial matters which is to be found among the Ordnance Records, there must have been many a Clerk of the Ordnance whose days and nights were haunted by visions of bills falling due which could not be paid. During the times of the Stuarts, the poverty of the office was sometimes as terrible as the shifts to which the Board had recourse were pitiable.

Money seems to have been more plentiful during the reign of William III.; but when Queen Anne came to the throne, England's continental wars drained the Ordnance exchequer wofully; and while most of their debts were only paid in part, many were never paid at all. An amusing incident of the Board's impecuniosity occurred in 1713. An expedition to Canada having taken place, the gunners and matrosses employed were found after a time to be sadly in want of clothing. The Commissary of the Ordnance on the spot, being without funds, drew a bill on the Honourable Board for 140l., which instead of selling as usual to the merchants, he disposed of to one of the gunners, apparently a man of means, and destined ever after to be immortal, Mr. Frederick Price.

The bill, in due course, reached the Tower, but only two-thirds of the amount were paid. Mr. Price naturally remonstrated; but as the proceeding seems not to have been unusual, the Board took no notice. So the injured gunner petitioned the Queen, and a courteous letter from the Treasury speedily reached the Tower, in which a nice distinction was drawn between Mr. Price's case and that of the merchants, who had been similarly treated, "who had been great gainers as well by the exchange as by the stores and provisions which they had sold." The Board admitted the force of the reasoning, and the creditor got his own again.

The duties of the storekeeper are expressed by his title, and involved close and frequent personal inspection of stores, as well as great clerical labour.

The Clerk of the Deliveries had to draw all proportions for delivering any stores, and to keep copies of all orders or warrants for the proportions, and journals vouched by the persons who indented for them. He had to compare monthly the indents taken for all deliveries of stores with the Storekeeper's proportions; and had to attend, either in person or represented by one of his sworn clerks, at all deliveries of stores, and when taking remains of ships.

The Treasurer of the Ordnance, who had to find heavy personal securities, was one of the most important of the remaining officers attached to the Board.

So much for the individual duties of the principal officers of the Ordnance, duties which, it must be admitted, were generally well and conscientiously performed. Their acts, in their collective capacity, are more open to criticism. Although the Master-General could act independently of the Board, when he chose, and had full power of dismissing or suspending any of the officers, reporting the same to the Sovereign, he generally worked by means of the Board and, with his consent, their acts were perfectly legal and binding without his presence. His personal influence appeared chiefly in matters of patronage and promotion, and, after the foundation of the Royal Military Academy, it appeared in a very marked way in all matters connected with its government. But, with these exceptions, the actions of the Board which were most public, and call for most comment, are those which are to be traced to it in its collective capacity; and, as we shall see in the course of this History, their joint acts were often characterized by a pettiness, a weakness, and a blindness worthy of the most wooden-headed vestry of the nineteenth century. It is marvellous how frequently men who, when acting by themselves, display the utmost zeal and the strongest sense of responsibility, lose both when associated with others for joint action, where their individuality is concealed. The zeal seems instantly to evaporate: their sense of justice gets blunted by the traditions of the Board of which they have become members; and even the most radical – after a few useless kicks and plunges – soon settles into the collar, and assists the team to drag on the lumbering vehicle of obstruction and unreason. The power over a Board which is exercised by its permanent clerks is not the less tyranny because it is adroitly exercised, or because the tyrants are necessary evils. If an individual is put at the head of a department, self-esteem assists a sense of duty in making him master the details, and ensure the proper working of the machine. But when he finds himself merely one of several shifting and shadowy units whose individualities are lost, and whose faults are visited upon an empty abstraction instead of on themselves, he speedily in mere sympathy becomes like them; and, like them, he bows to the customs and precedents quoted by the permanent officials with an ill-disguised contempt for those to whom these precedents are unfamiliar. Then follows the unresisting signature of documents placed before the Board by clerks who have no idea of anything beyond their office walls – who imagine the world was created for them, not they for the world, and who believe and almost say, that the very members of the Board are there merely to be the channels of their offensive and dictatorial opinions. There has been in all ages in this country an officialism which cannot look beyond the letter of the law, whose representatives decline to enter into argument, to consider the circumstances of a case, or to make allowance for emergencies: – whose minds prefer sinning in a groove to doing right out of it: and whose conduct would often appear malicious, were not malice too active a feeling to enter into their cold and contracted bosoms.

This officialism was often rampant in the Ordnance; nor with the extinction of that Honourable Board can it be said to have vanished from England's administration.

As in the history of every corporation, there were at the Ordnance fits of economy and extravagance. The extravagance always began at the Tower, the centre of the Board's official centre and kingdom; the economy away at the circumference, among poor gunners at distant stations, among decaying barracks and fortifications crying out loudly for repair. It seems destined to be the motto of departments in every age, "Charity begins at home: economy abroad." After the peace of Utrecht, there was a determined resolution on the part of the Government to retrench, – a wise and praiseworthy resolution, if the method to be adopted were judicious. The Treasury communicated with the Ordnance: and the Tower having made plausible promises to Whitehall, the Honourable Board met to see what could be done. Starting with the official postulate, so characteristic of English departments, that their own salaries were to be untouched, the field of their labour was in proportion contracted. Ultimately they decided to economize in Scotland: they reduced all the stores there; voted no money for the repair of the fortifications or barracks; and, regardless of past services, they reduced the gunners in various garrisons.

From the far north a plaintive appeal meets the student's eye. It is from one John Murray, who had been Master-Gunner of Fort William for nineteen years, and who in this fit of economy had been ruthlessly struck off the establishment. Verily, ere many months be over, honest John shall have his revenge!

From Scotland, the Board turned to the Colonies, and reminded them that they must pay for their own engineers and gunners, if they wished to keep them. A committee sat to inquire how the American dependencies could be made to pay for themselves, – the beginning of that official irritation which culminated in the blaze in which we lost them altogether; and in the mean time demands for stores were neglected. One unhappy Governor wrote that he had under his command a company of troops which for fifteen years had received no fresh bedding: and "many of the soldiers were very ill, and in ye winter ready to starve." A special messenger was sent to lay the matter before the Board; but, he having been recalled by domestic reasons before succeeding in his prayer, the Board adroitly pigeon-holed his petition for four years; and, in the language of a subsequent letter, "For want of bedding, many of ye soldiers have since perished."

But ere long came the inevitable swing in the other direction. Queen Anne died; King George had not yet landed at Greenwich; there was agitation and conspiracy among the adherents of the Stuarts, and Scotland was simmering with rebellion. Then did the fearful Privy Council send letter after letter to the Ordnance urging them to find arms for 10,000 men for Scotland, or for 5000, or even for 4000; but from their diminished stores even this small body could with difficulty be armed. A train of artillery was ordered to march, and could not: everything was starved, and in chaos; and its commander, Albert Borgard, wrote, "Things are in such confusion as cannot be described." Orders were sent to man and defend Fort William, the now desolate scene of John Murray's nineteen years; and General Maitland, on reaching it, reported that "the parapets want repairing: there are no palisadoes; without an engineer to help me, I can but make the best of a bad bargain." He had to advance the money himself: "Who pays me," he wrote, "I know not." By next messenger he asked for a little gunpowder, a few spades, pickaxes, and wheelbarrows, all rather useful articles in a fortification, but which had vanished under the breath of economy. There were no gunners, he wrote, to work the guns; and he requested that the hand-grenades which were coming from Edinburgh might be filled and fitted with fuzes before they should be sent to him, "for we have none here that understand this matter well." Of a truth, John Murray had his revenge!

The principal gate of the fortress was so rotten and shattered that it could not be made use of, and was of no defence at all. There never had been any gate, the General wrote, to the port of the ravelin; and unless the platform could be renewed, it would be impossible to work the guns. "And," he adds in a well-rounded period, "the old timber houses in which the officers of the Garrison are lodged, and also the old timber chapell, are all in such a shattered pitifull condition, that neither the first can be lodged in one, nor the Garrison attend divine service in the other without being exposed to the inconvenience of all weathers."

Nor was General Maitland singular. From Dumbarton Castle Lord Glencairn wrote to the Board, "We not only want in a manner everything, but we have not so much as a boat. And, besides, the Garrison wants near four months' pay." From Carlisle the Governor wrote that there were only four barrels of powder in the garrison, a deficiency of every species of stores, and only four gunners, "three of which are superannuated." Most of the gun-carriages were unserviceable, and the platforms wanted repairing. There was haste and panic at Portsmouth, as empty stores and unarmed ships warned the Board what work there was before them. And from Chester, Mr. Asheton, the zealous governor just appointed, reported, "The guns are all here, but not the carriages, so that the stores, &c., would be of service – not prejudice – to an enemy." The only men there who were capable of doing any work were forty invalids; and he therefore begged for assistance in men and stores, "in order" he wrote, "that I may be capable of doing my country service by maintaining the rights of our gracious Sovereign King George against all Popish Pretenders whatsoever."

As the guns of the Tower blazed out their welcome to the King, the smoke must have clouded over such an accumulation of testimony in the Ordnance offices hard by, proving that there may be an economy which is no economy at all, as might almost have penetrated the intelligence of a Board. This period in the history of the Ordnance is unsurpassed, even by the many blundering times which, in the course of these volumes, we shall have to examine, down to that day in the year of grace 1855 when, "from the first Cabinet at which Lord Palmerston ever sat as Premier, the Secretary at War brought home half a sheet of paper, containing a memorandum that the Ordnance – one of the oldest Constitutional departments of the Monarchy … was to be abolished."¹

In the early days of the Ordnance Board, its relations with the navy were more intimate than in later years. The gunners of the ships were under its control, and had to answer to it for the expenditure of their stores. In this particular, as in most details of checking and audit, the Board was stern to a degree, and not unfrequently unreasonable. In 1712, the captain of a man-of-war, sent to Newfoundland in charge of a convoy, found the English inhabitants of the Island in a state of great danger and uneasiness, and almost unprotected. At their urgent request, he left with them much of his ordnance and stores before he returned to England. With the promptitude which characterized the Board's action towards any one who dared to think for himself, it refused to pass the captain's or gunner's accounts, nor would it authorize them to draw their pay. Remonstrance was useless; explanations were unattended to: the lesson had to be taught to its subordinates, however harshly and idiotically, that freewill did not belong to them, and that to assume any responsibility was to commit a grievous sin. It actually required a petition to the Queen and the Treasury before the unhappy men could get a hearing, and, as a natural consequence, an approval and confirmation of their conduct.

The arming of all men-of-war belonged to the Ordnance; indeed, the office was created for the Navy, although, in course of time, Army details almost entirely monopolized it. Although obliged to act on the requisitions of the Lord High Admiral, their control in their own details, and over the gunners of the ship as regarded their stores, was unfettered. The repairing of the ships, and to a considerable extent their internal fittings, were part of the Board's duties; but it is to be hoped that the technical knowledge of some of their officials exceeded that possessed by the Masters-General. A letter is extant from one of these distinguished individuals, written on board the 'Katherine' yacht, in 1682, to his loving friends, the principal officers of the Ordnance. "I desire" he wrote, "you would give Mr. Young notice to proceed no further in making ye hangings for ye great bedstead in ye lower room in ye Katherine yacht, till ye have directions from me."

But the Naval branch of the Board's duties is beyond the province of the present work. Of the Military branch much will be better described in the chapters concerning the old Artillery trains, the Royal Military Academy, and in the general narrative of the Royal Artillery's existence as a regiment. A few words, however, may be said here with reference to their civil duties, once of vast importance, but, with the naval branch, swallowed up, like the fat kine of Pharaoh's dream, by the military demands which were constantly on the increase, and were fostered by the military predilections of the Masters and Lieutenants-General.

The civil duties have been well and clearly defined by Clode in his 'Military Forces of the Crown,' vol. ii. He divides into duties – 1. As to Stores; 2. As Landowners; 3. As to the Survey of the United Kingdom; 4. As to Defensive Works; 5. As to Contracts; and 6. As to Manufacturing Establishments.

Of the first of these it may be said that their system was excellent. Periodical remains were taken (the oldest extant being dated April, 1559), and a system of issues and receipts was in force which could hardly be improved upon.

In their capacity as Landowners, the members of the Board were good and cautious stewards; but as buyers of land, their characteristic crops up of thinking but little of other men's feelings or convenience. Perhaps their line of action in this respect can be best illustrated by an anecdote which comes down over many years in the shape of an indignant and yet pitiful remonstrance. It was in good Queen Anne's time, and the Board had formed a scheme for fortifying Portsmouth. They appointed Commissioners to arrange the situation of the various works, and to come to terms with the landowners. These gentlemen did their duty; and, among others, one James Dixon was warned that some land on which he had recently built a brewhouse would be required for the Board's purposes. A jury was empanelled, and assessed the value of the whole at 4000l. When James Dixon built his brewhouse, he had borrowed money on mortgage: the interest would, he believed, be easily paid, and the principal of the debt gradually reduced by the earnings of the brewery. But after the jury sat, not a drop of beer was brewed: no orders could be taken, with the fear hanging over him that he must turn out at any moment; nor could he introduce additional improvements or fixtures after the assessment had been made, as he would never receive a farthing for them over the first valuation. Little knowing the admirable system of official management in which an English department excels, he sat waiting for the purchase-money. One month passed after another: Christmas came, and yet another, and another, and the only knocks at James Dixon's door were from the angry creditor demanding his money. At last, after waiting four years, – the grey hairs thickening on the unhappy brewer's head, – the knock of a lawyer's writ came; and before the Master of the Rolls his miserable presence and story were alike demanded. The narrative ends abruptly with a petition from him for six months' grace. Even then hope was not dead in him; and he babbled in his prayer that "he was in hopes by this time "to have redeemed it out of the 4000l. agreed to be paid yr Petitioner as aforesaid."

In the course of our story we shall find many such lives crushed beneath the wheels of an official Juggernaut. Alas! that Juggernaut is still a god!

'The Survey of the United Kingdom' will be the most honourable vehicle for transmitting to posterity the story of the Board's existence; for, although not yet completed, to the Board is due the credit of originating a work whose national value can hardly be over-estimated. The defensive works erected under the Ordnance already live almost in history, so rapidly has the science of fortification had to move to keep pace with the strength of attack. Their contracts showed but little favouritism, and, on the whole, were just: they included everything, from the building of forts to the manufacture of gunpowder and small arms; and, in peace and war, they reached nearly over the whole civilized world. With this extensive area came the necessity for representatives of the Board at the various stations, – who were first, and wisely, civilians, three in number; afterwards, most foolishly, owing to the increasing military element at the Board, two soldiers, the commanding officers of Artillery and Engineers, and one civilian. And as no man can serve two masters, it was soon apparent that the military members could not always serve their local General and their absent Board; discipline was not unfrequently strained; jealousy and ill-will supervened; and when the death of the Board sounded the knell of the Respective officers, as they were termed, there can be no doubt that it removed an anomaly which was also a danger. Under the new and existing system, the commanding officers of Artillery and Engineers occupy their proper places: they are now the advisers of their General, not his critics: and the door is opened for the entry of the officers of the scientific corps upon an arena where civilian traditions are unknown or powerless.

Of the manufacturing departments of the Ordnance, what has to be said will come better in its place in the course of the narrative.

In summing up, not so much the contents of this Chapter, which is necessarily brief, as the study of the Board's history, the following are the ideas presented to the student's mind: – The Board of Ordnance formed a standard of political excellence, – which it endeavoured to follow when circumstances permitted, – of financial and economical excellence, which it planted everywhere among its subordinates for worship, but which was not allowed the same adoration in its own offices in the Tower. It saved money to the country legitimately by an admirable system of check and audit – illegitimately too often by a false economy, which in the end proved no economy at all; it obstructed our Generals in war, and hampered them in peace: it was extravagant on its own members and immediate retainers to an extent which can only be realized by those who study the evidence given before the Parliamentary Commission of 1810-11. Jobbery existed, but rarely secret or underhand; and its extensive patronage was, on the whole, well and fairly exercised. And although every day shows more clearly the wisdom of removing from under the control of a Board that part of our army, the importance of which is made more apparent by every war which occurs, yet the Artilleryman must always remember with kindly interest that it was to this board and its great Master (Marlborough) that his Regiment owes its existence, that to it we owe a nurture which was sometimes too detailed and careful, but under which we earned a reputation in many wars; and that, after a long peace, it placed in the Crimea, for one of the greatest and most difficult sieges in history, – difficult for other reasons than mere military, – the finest siege-train of Artillery that the world has ever seen. In command of the English Army, during this war, the Board's last Master died; and in the list which preceded him, and with which this chapter closes, will be found names which would almost atone for the worst offences ever committed by the Board over which their owners presided.

List of the Masters-General of the Ordnance

The most recent list of these distinguished officials is that published in Kane's 'List of Officers of the Royal Artillery.' In it all the Masters before the reign of Henry VIII. are ignored, as being merely commanders of the Artillery on expeditions or in districts. But this seems somewhat stern ruling. Undoubtedly Henry VIII. reorganized the Ordnance Department, and defined the position of the Master, as never had been done before, and the sequence of the Masters from his reign is clear and intelligible. But before his time there were not merely Masters of the Ordnance on particular expeditions, but also for life; and there were certainly Offices of the Ordnance in the Tower. It has, therefore, been thought advisable in the following list to prefix a few names, which seem deserving of being included, although omitted in 'Kane's List.'

The earliest of whom there is any record is

Rauf Bigod, who was appointed on 2nd June, 1483, "for life." His life does not, however, seem to have been a very long one, for we find

Sir Richard Gyleford, who was appointed in 1485.

Sir Sampson Norton was undoubtedly Master of the Ordnance, appointed in 1513, as has been proved by extant MSS.

The next one about whom there is any certainty would appear to be the one who heads 'Kane's List' —

Sir Thomas Seymour, who was appointed about 1537. Other lists show Sir Christopher Morris as Master at this time; but there seems little doubt that he was merely Lieutenant of the Ordnance, although a distinguished soldier, and frequently in command of the Artillery on service.

If one may credit 'Dugdale's Baronage,' the next in order was

Sir Thomas Darcie (afterwards Baron Darcie), appointed in 1545: but if so, he merely held it for a short time, for we find him succeeded by

Sir Philip Hoby, who was appointed in 1548.

'Grose's List' and others interpolate Sir Francis Fleming, as having been appointed in 1547; but this is undoubtedly an error, and his name wisely rejected by the author of 'Kane's List,' where it is placed, as it should be, in the list of Lieutenants of the Ordnance. There is a folio of Ordnance accounts still in existence, extending over the period between 29th March, 1547, and the last day of June, 1553, signed by Sir Francis Fleming, as Lieutenant of the Ordnance.

The next in rotation in the best lists is

Sir Richard Southwell, Knight, shown by 'Kane's List' as appointed in February, 1554, and, by certain indentures and Ordnance accounts which are still extant, as being Master of the Ordnance, certainly in 1557 and 1558.

The next Master held the appointment for many years. He was

Ambrose Dudley, Earl of Warwick, and can be proved from indentures in the possession of the late Craven Ord, Esq., which are probably still in existence, and from which extracts were made in 1820 by the compiler of a manuscript now in the Royal Artillery Library, to have been appointed on the 19th February, 1559, and to have held the office until 21st February, 1589, over thirty years.

Possibly owing to the difficulty of finding any one ready to undertake the duties of one who had had so much experience – a difficulty which occurred more than once again – the office was placed in commission after 1589, probably until 1596. From 'Burghleigh's State Papers' we learn that the Commissioners were, the Lord Treasurer, the Lord High Admiral, the Lord Chamberlain, and Vice-Chamberlain Sir J. Fortescue.

On 19th March, 1596, Robert, Earl of Essex, was appointed Master of the Ordnance, and held the appointment until removed by Elizabeth, in 1600. No record of a successor occurs until the 10th September, 1603, when

Charles, Earl of Devonshire, was appointed. He died in 1606, and was succeeded by

Lord Carew, appointed Master-General throughout England, for life, in 1608. He was created Earl of Totnes in 1625, and died in 1629. From a number of Ordnance warrants and letters still extant, there can be no doubt that he held the office until his death. For a year after, until 5th March, 1630, we learn, from the Harleian Manuscripts, that there was no Master-General. On that date

Howard Lord Vere was appointed, and held office until the 2nd September, 1634, when

Mountjoy, Earl of Newport, was appointed.

Then came the troubles in England – the Revolution, the Commonwealth, and at last the Restoration. Lord Newport seems to have remained Master-General the whole time; for on Charles II. coming to the throne, he issued directions specifying, "Forasmuch as the Earl of Newport may, by Letters Patent from our Royal Father, pretend to the office of our Ordnance, We, for weighty reasons, think fit to suspend him from said charge, or anything belonging thereto; and Our Will is that you prepare the usual Bill for his suspension."

On the 22nd January, 1660, a most able Master-General was appointed, whose place the King afterwards found it most difficult to fill. He was

Sir William Compton, Knight, and he remained in office until his death. By letters patent, on the 21st October, 1664, specifying that he had not determined with himself to supply the place of office of his Master of the Ordnance, then void by the death of Sir William Compton, and considering the importance of his affairs at that time to have that service well provided for, the King appointed as Commissioners to execute the office of Master of the Ordnance

John, Lord Berkly of Stratton, }

Sir John Duncombe, Knight, and }

Thomas Chicheley. }

This Commission lasted until the 4th June, 1670, when the last-named Commissioner (now Sir Thomas Chicheley, Knight), was appointed Master of the Ordnance, and in the warrant for his appointment, which is now in the Tower Library, there is a recapitulation of the names of previous Masters, which includes one – placed between Sir Richard Southwell and the Earl of Essex – which does not appear in any other list, but which one would gladly see included —

Sir Philip Sidney.

After the death of Sir Thomas Chicheley, the office was again placed in Commission, the incumbents being

Sir John Chicheley, son of the late Master,

Sir William Hickman, and

Sir Christopher Musgrave, the last-named of whom afterwards became Lieutenant-General of the Ordnance. This Commission lasted from 1679 to 8th January, 1682, when the celebrated

"George, Lord Dartmouth," became Master, having held the office of Lieutenant-General under the Commission from 1st July, 1679, as plain Colonel George Legge. He remained in office until after the Revolution of 1688, when he forfeited it for his adherence to the King. His successor, appointed by William III. in 1689, and afterwards killed at the Battle of the Boyne, rejoiced in the following sounding titles:

Frederick, Duke de Schomberg, Marquis of Harwich, Earl of Brentford, Baron of Teys, General of their Majesties' Forces, Master-General of their Majesties' Ordnance, Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, Count of the Holy Roman Empire, Grandee of Portugal, General of the Duke of Brandenburg's forces, and Stadtholder of Prussia.

After his death, the Master-Generalship remained vacant until July, 1693, when it was conferred upon

Henry, Viscount Sidney, afterwards Earl of Romney, who held it until 1702. He was succeeded, almost immediately on Queen Anne's accession, by her favourite, the great

John, Earl of Marlborough, who held the appointment until he fell into disgrace with the Queen, when he resigned it, with his other appointments, on 30th December, 1711. He was succeeded by

Richard, Earl Rivers, who, after six months, was followed, on 29th August, 1712, according to the British Chronologist, or on the 1st July, 1712, according to Kane's List, by

James, Duke of Hamilton, who was killed in a duel in November of the same year.

For two years the appointment remained vacant, but in 1714 it was again conferred upon

John, now Duke of Marlborough, who held it until his death, in 1722. He was succeeded, as follows, by

William, Earl of Cadogan, on 22nd June, 1722, and by

John, Duke of Argyle and Greenwich, on 3rd June 1725.

At this period there is an unaccountable confusion among the various authorities. The 'British Chronologist' and the 'Biographia Britannica' make the list run as follows: – The Duke of Argyle and Greenwich was succeeded, in 1740, by John, Duke of Montague, and resumed office again, for three weeks, in 1742, when, for the last time, he resigned all his appointments, being again succeeded by the same Duke of Montague, who continued to hold the office until 1749, when he died.

'Grose's List,' on the other hand, makes the Duke of Argyle's tenure of office expire in 1730, instead of 1740, and makes no allusion to his brief resumption of the appointment in 1742, and 'Kane's List' has followed this. It is possible that for the brief period that he was in office the second time, no letters patent were issued for his appointment, which would account for its omission in most lists; but the difference of ten years in the duration of the first appointment is more difficult to account for. There is no doubt that, in 1740, the Duke of Argyle resigned all his appointments for the first time, but it is not stated whether the Master-Generalship was one, although it has been assumed. On the other hand, he might have been away during these ten years to a great extent, or allowed his officers of the Ordnance to sign warrants, thus giving an impression to the casual student that he no longer held office. The manuscript in the Royal Artillery Library, already referred to, bears marks of such careful research, that one is disposed to adopt its reading of the difficulty, which is different from that taken by Grose's and Kane's Lists, and agrees with the other works mentioned above.

After the death of the Duke of Montague, the office remained vacant until the end of 1755, when it was conferred upon

Charles, Duke of Marlborough, who held it until his death, on 20th October, 1758.

During the vacancy immediately preceding the appointment of the last-named Master-General, Sir J. Ligonier had been appointed Lieutenant-General of the Ordnance, and for four years had performed the duties of both appointments, – acted as Colonel of the Royal Artillery, and Captain of the Cadet Company. A few months after the death of the Duke of Marlborough – namely, on the 3rd July, 1759 – he was appointed Master-General, being by this time

Field-Marshal Viscount Ligonier. He was succeeded, on the 14th May, 1763, by

John, Marquis Granby, who held it until 17th January, 1770, when we find that he resigned all his appointments, except the command of the Blues. For nearly two years the office remained vacant, and on the 1st October, 1772, it was conferred upon

George, Viscount Townshend, whose tenure of office extended over nearly the whole of that anxious period in the history of England which included such episodes as the American War of Independence and the great Siege of Gibraltar. The sequence of the remaining Masters may be taken from Kane's List, and is as follows: —

On the abolition of the Board of Ordnance, the command of the Royal Artillery was given to the Commander-in-Chief of the Forces at that time,

Field-Marshal Viscount Hardinge, G.C.B. His successor (appointed Colonel of the Royal Artillery on the 10th May, 1861, and at this date holding that office) was

H.R.H. the Duke of Cambridge, K.G., &c. &c., now Field-Marshal Commanding-in-Chief.

CHAPTER II.
The Infancy of Artillery in England

The term Ordnance was in use in England before cannon were employed; and it included every description of warlike weapon. The artificers employed in the various permanent military duties were called officers of the Ordnance.

The first record of cannon having been used in the field dates from Henry III.; and with the increasing skill of the founders the use of cannon speedily became more general. But the moral influence of the guns was far beyond their deserts. They were served in the rudest way, and their movements in the field and in garrison were most uncertain, yet they were regarded with superstitious awe, and received special names, such as "John Evangelist," the "Red Gun," the "Seven Sisters," "Mons Meg," &c. In proportion to the awe which they inspired was the inadequate moral effect produced on an army by the loss of its artillery, or by the capture of its enemy's guns.

In the earliest days cannon were made of the rudest materials, – of wood, leather, iron bars, and hoops; but as time went on guns of superior construction were imported from France and Holland. The first mention of the casting in England of "great brass cannon and culverins" is in the year 1521, when one John Owen began to make them, "the first Englishman that ever made that kind of Artillery in England." The first iron guns cast in this country were made by three foreigners at Buckstead in Sussex, in the year 1543. In this same year, the first shells were cast, for mortars of eleven inches calibre, described as "certain hollow shot of cast iron, to be stuffed with fireworks, whereof the bigger sort had screws of iron to receive a match, and carry fire to break in small pieces the same hollow shot, whereof the smallest piece hitting a man would kill or spoil him." The following table² gives the names, weights, and charges of the guns which were in general use in the year 1574. There were, in addition to these, guns called Curtals or Curtaux, Demicurtaux, and Bombards: —

Among the earliest occasions recorded of the use of Artillery by the English, were the campaigns in Scotland of Edward II. and Edward III.; the capture of Berwick by the latter monarch in 1333; his campaigns in Flanders and France in 1338-39-40; his siege of Vannes in 1343; his successful raid in Normandy in 1346; the battle of Cressy on the 26th August in that year, when the fire of his few pieces of cannon is said to have struck a panic into the enemy; the expedition to Ireland in 1398; Henry IV.'s defeat of the French in Wales, in 1400; another successful siege of Berwick in 1405; the capture of Harfleur in 1415; and the battle of Agincourt on the 25th October of that year; the sieges of Tongue and Caen in 1417; of Falaise and other towns in Normandy in 1418; concluding with the capitulation of Cherbourg and Rouen after protracted sieges, stone projectiles being thrown from the cannon with great success; the engagements between Edward IV. and Warwick, when Artillery was used on both sides; the expedition to France in 1474, and to Scotland in 1482, when yet another successful siege of Berwick took place, successful mainly owing to the Artillery employed by the besieging force; the capture of Sluis, in Flanders; and the attack on Calais and Boulogne in 1491. In the sixteenth century may be enumerated the expedition to Flanders in 1511, in aid of the Duchess of Savoy; the Siege of Térouenne and Battle of the Spurs in 1513; the Siege of Tournay; the Battle of Flodden Field, where the superior accuracy of the English Artillery rendered that of the Scotch useless; the descent on the coast of France and capture of Morlies in 1523; the Siege of Bray and Montedier in 1524; the siege of Boulogne in 1544; the expedition to Cadiz under the Earl of Essex in 1596, and that to the Azores in 1597. In the next century, daring the Civil War, and in all Cromwell's expeditions, the use of Artillery was universal; and the part of the century after the Restoration will be alluded to in a subsequent chapter.

The use, therefore, of Artillery by the English has existed for centuries; but, – regarding it with modern eyes, its application would better deserve the term abuse. Nothing strikes the student so much as the absence of the scientific Artillery element in the early trains; and this feeling is followed by one of wonder at the patience with which our military leaders tolerated the almost total want of mobility which characterized them. Not until the last decade of the eighteenth century was the necessity of mobility officially recognized, by the establishment of the Royal Horse Artillery; and it took half a century more to impress upon our authorities that a Field Battery might not unreasonably be expected to move occasionally faster than a walk.

It is difficult, in reviewing such a period as the last fifteen years have been in the history of Artillery in England – so full of improvements in every way – to single out any one of these as more worthy of mention than the rest; but when posterity comes to review it dispassionately, the improvement in equipment and mobility of our Field Artillery will most probably be considered the prominent feature of the time. And these are the very qualities which for centuries remained in England unimproved and stagnant. The eighteenth century saw Artillery conducted by drivers, not under military discipline, nor marked by distinctive costume; who not unfrequently fled with their horses during the action, leaving the gunners helpless, and the guns at the mercy of the enemy. In this year, 1872, our drivers go into action unarmed, it being considered that the possession of defensive weapons might distract their attention from their horses. But we do not commit the old error of using men not under martial law. A driver who, on an emergency, finds himself with his whip merely to defend him, may possibly feel aggrieved: but however far he may run away, he cannot escape the embrace of the Mutiny Act, and is as liable to punishment as the man who deserts before the enemy, after his country has sent him into the field armed from head to foot.

In the very earliest days of Artillery in England, the number of gunners borne on permanent pay on the books of the Ordnance bore a very small proportion to the artificers so borne. With the increasing use of cannon, an increase in the number of artillerymen took place, but by no means pari passu: and, as towns in England became gradually fortified, a small number of gunners in each was found to be necessary to protect and take care of the stores, and to fire the guns on high days and holidays. In 1344, although no fewer than 321 artificers and engineers were borne on the books of the Ordnance in time of peace, only twelve gunners and seven armourers appear. In 1415, at the Siege of Harfleur, there were present 120 miners, 130 carpenters, and 120 masons; but only 25 master, and 50 servitor gunners – the latter corresponding probably to the matrosses of a later date. At the Siege of Tongue, in 1417, no less than 1000 masons, carpenters, and labourers were present, but only a small number of gunners. At this time, the driving of the guns, the placing them in position, and shipping and unshipping them, devolved on the civil labourers of the trains, and there was a military guard to escort the guns on the march. The gunner's duty seems to have been a general supervision of gun and stores, and the laying and firing it when in action. He was the captain of the gun in war – its custodian in peace. After the fifteenth century there was a marked increase in the number of artillerymen in the trains, although still totally inadequate. For example, in the train ordered on service in France, in 1544, where the civil element was represented by 157 artificers, 100 pioneers, and 20 carters, there were no less than 2 master-gunners, 264 gunners, and a special detachment of 15 gunners, for the guns placed immediately round the King's tent. The principal officers of the Ordnance also accompanied the expedition.

There was a distinction between the gunners of garrisons and those of the trains, as regarded the source of their pay, or rather its channel. At first, both were paid from the Exchequer; but after the proper establishment of an Ordnance Department at the Tower, the gunners of the various trains were paid by it, the others receiving their salaries as before. The company of fee'd gunners at the Tower of London differed from the gunners of other garrisons in receiving their pay from the Ordnance directly. It must not be imagined, however, that the gunners of garrisons were beyond the control of the Board of Ordnance because their pay was not drawn on the Ordnance books. Not merely had the Master of the Ordnance the nomination of the gunners of garrisons, but the power also of weeding out the useless and superannuated. The instance given in the Introductory Chapter of this volume, shows how directly they were under the Board in matters of discipline; and although, as a matter of Treasury detail, their pay was drawn in a different department, a word from the Ordnance Office could stop its issue to any gunner in any garrison who was deemed by the Board to have forfeited his right to it in any way. It was not until 1771, long after the formation of the Royal Artillery, that these garrison gunners were incorporated into the invalid companies of the regiment; and at the present date they are represented by what is called the Coast Brigade of Artillery. The pay of the old gunners of garrisons depended on the fort in which they resided. Berwick, for example, as an important station, was also one in which the gunner's pay was higher. In the reign of Edward VI. we find the average pay of a master-gunner was 1s. a-day, and of the gunners, from 4d. to 1s. Later, the pay of the master-gunner was raised to 2s. a-day, and that of the gunners rarely fell below 1s. In time of war, the pay of the gunners of the trains far exceeded the above rates. The senior master-gunner was styled the Master-Gunner of England. From 2s. a-day, which was the pay of this official in the sixteenth century, it rose to 160l. per annum, and ultimately to 190l. His residence and duties lay originally in the Tower, and chiefly among the fee'd gunners at that station; but after Woolwich had attained its speciality for Artillery details, quarters were allotted to him there in the Manor House. Among the oldest Master-Gunners of England whose names are recorded may be enumerated Christopher Gould, Richard Webb, Anthony Feurutter³ or Fourutter,⁴ Stephen Bull, William Bull, William Hammond, John Reynold, and John Wornn – all of whom held their appointments in the sixteenth century, and the majority of them by letters patent from Elizabeth. From the fact that in the wording of their appointments two of the above are particularized as soldiers by profession, it would appear that the others were not so; and it is more probable that they were chosen for their knowledge of laboratory duties, and of the "making of pleasaunt and warlike fireworks."

The company of fee'd gunners at the Tower, which might be supposed to have had some military organization, really appears to have had little or none. Their number in Edward VI.'s reign was 58, with a master-gunner; but gradually it was increased to 100, which for many years was the normal establishment. They were supposed to parade twice a week, and learn the science of gunnery, under the Master-Gunner of England; but their attendance was so irregular, and their ignorance of their profession so deplorable, that a strong measure had to be adopted, to which allusion will be made in a later chapter. Colonel Miller, in his researches among the warrants appointing the gunners, found some venerable recruits – who can hardly have been of much value in the field – of ages varying from sixty-four to ninety-two. There is no doubt that these appointments were frequently sold, or given in return for personal or political services, without any regard to the capability of the recipient. The clerks at the Ordnance Office had their fees for preparing these men's warrants, whose wording of the duties expected of the nominee must have frequently read like a grotesque satire. The situations were desirable because they did not interfere with the holders continuing to work at their trades near the Tower; and if the gunners were ordered to Woolwich for the purpose of mounting guns, or shipping and unshipping stores, they received working pay in addition to their regular salaries. It was from their ranks that the vacancies among master-gunners and gunners of garrisons were almost invariably filled.

When a warlike expedition had been decided upon, the Master of the Ordnance was informed what size of a train of Artillery was required; but he was permitted to increase or decrease its internal proportions as he thought fit. To him also was left the appointment of all the officers and attendants of the train; and, with the exception of any belonging to the small permanent establishment, it was understood that the services of any so appointed were only required while the expedition lasted. This spasmodic method of organizing the Artillery forces of this country was sufficient to account for the want of progress in the science of gunnery, and the equipments of our trains, which is apparent until we reach the commencement of the eighteenth century. But it took centuries of stagnation, and of bitter and shameful experience, to teach the lesson that Artillery is a science which requires incessant study, that such study cannot be expected unless from men who can regard their profession as a permanent one, and the study as a means to an end; and that, even admitting the possibility of such study being carried on by men in the hope of occasional employment, it would be too theoretical, unless means of practice and testing were afforded, beyond the power of a private individual to obtain. Nor could habits of discipline be generated by occasional military expeditions, which, to an untrained man, are more likely to bring demoralization; it is during peace-service that the discipline is learnt which is to steady a man in the excitement and hardships of war.

As samples of the trains of Artillery before the Restoration, the following, of various dates, may be taken: and an examination of the constituent parts will well repay the reader.

The first is a train in the year 1544, already alluded to, and which was commanded by the Master of the Ordnance himself, Sir Thomas Seymour.

1. Train of Artillery ordered on Service in 1544.

John Rogers, of the privy ordnance and weapons.

15 Gunners appointed to the brass pieces about the King's tent.

55 Gunners appointed to the shrympes, with two cases each.

4 carpenters.

4 wheelers.

3 armourers.

Charles Walman, an officer employed to choose the gunpowder.

N.B.– The pioneers received 2s. a piece transport money from Boulogne to Dover, and conduct money from Dover to their dwelling-places – 4d. a mile for the captain, and ½ d. for every pioneer.

Harl. MS. 5753.

2. Establishment of a Small Train of Artillery in 1548.

3. Establishment of a Train of Artillery in the year 1618.

4. Establishment of a Train of 22 pieces of Ordnance in the year 1620.

5. Establishment of a Train of 30 pieces in the year 1639.

It will be seen that in Tables 2, 3, 4, and 5, the Artillery element is alone given. Nor are the proportions of the trains, and their constituent parts, such as to enable us to draw any fixed law from them. They are merely interesting – not very instructive. Table 1, on the other hand, is both interesting and instructive. The appearance of medical officers in the train of 1618, and of matrosses – a species of assistant-gunner – in that of 1639, will not have escaped the reader's notice.

In the next chapter we shall find that the presence of a man like Lord Dartmouth, and his predecessor, Sir William Compton, at the Ordnance, reveals itself in the greater method visible in the Artillery arrangements; and with the introduction of Continental artillerists, under William III., comes a greater experience of the value of Artillery, which nearly brought about, in 1698, that permanent establishment which was delayed by circumstances until 1716.

CHAPTER III.
The Restoration, and Revolution of 1688

The first step, of course, on the restoration of Charles II., was to undo everything in the Ordnance, and remove every official bearing the mark of the Protectorate. Having filled the vacant places with his own nominees, he seemed to consider his duty done, and, with one exception, the official history of the Ordnance for the next few years was a blank. The exception was the Company of Gunners at the Tower, which from 52, in 1661, rose to 90 in the following year, 98 in 1664, and then the old normal number 100.

But the work in the Department done by the Master-General, Sir William Compton, although not of a demonstrative character, was good and useful, and prepared the way for the reformations introduced by his more able successor, Lord Dartmouth. The Master-Gunners of England were now chosen from a higher social grade than before. In 166 °Colonel James Weymes held the appointment, followed in 1666 by Captain Valentine Pyne, and in 1677 by Captain Richard Leake. A new appointment was created for Captain Martin Beckman – that of Chief Firemaster. His skill in his department was rewarded by knighthood, and he held the appointment, not merely until the Revolution of 1688, but also under William III., having apparently overcome any scruples as to deserting his former masters. A Surveyor-General of the Ordnance, Jonas Moore by name, was appointed in 1669, who afterwards received permission to travel on the Continent to perfect himself in Artillery studies, for which purpose he received the sum of 100l. a year.

The names of the Ordnance in the various fortifications in England during the reign of Charles II. were as follows: —

Brass Ordnance

Cannon of 8.

Cannon of 7.

Demi-cannon.

24 prs.

Culverings.

12 prs.

Demi-culverings.

8 prs.

6 prs.

Sakers.

Mynions.

3 prs.

Falcon.

Falconett.

Brass baces of 7 bores.

Inch and ¼ bore, and 7 other sizes.

Iron Ordnance

Cannon of 7.

Demi-cannon.

24 prs.

Culverings.

12 prs.

Demi-culverings.

8 prs.

6 prs.

Sakers.

Mynions.

3 prs.

Falcon.

Falconett.

Rabonett.

Brass Mortar Pieces

18½ in.⁵

16½ in.

13¼ in.

9 in.

8¾ in.

8 in.

7¾ in.

7¼ in.

6½ in.

6¼ in.

4½ in.

4¼ in.

Iron Mortar Pieces

12½ in.

4¼ in.

Taken from Harl. MS. 4244.

The reader will observe the immense varieties of mortars, and the large calibres, compared with those of the present day. They were much used on board the bomb-vessels; but it is difficult to see the advantage of so many small mortars, varying so slightly in calibre.

From an account of some new ordnance made in 1671, we find that iron cannon of 7 were 10 feet long, and weighed on an average 63 cwt., or 9½ feet long, and weighing from 54 cwt. to 60 cwts. Iron culverings of 10 feet in length averaged 43 cwt. in weight, and demi-culverings of the same length averaged in weight about 35 cwt. Iron falconetts are mentioned 4 feet in length, and weighing from 300 to 312 lbs.

The King, having occasion to send a present to the Emperor of Morocco, not an unfrequent occurrence, selected on one occasion four iron demi-culverings, and three brass demi-cannon of 8½ feet long, with one brass culvering of 11½ feet. A more frequent present to that monarch was gunpowder, or a quantity of muskets.

The salutes in the Tower were fired from culverings and 8-pounders, and were in a very special manner under the command of the Master-General himself. As little liberty of thought was left to the subordinates at the Tower as possible. Warnings of preparation were forwarded often days before, followed at intervals by reminders that the salute was not to be fired until a positive order should reach the Tower from the Master-General.

The letter-books at the Tower teem with correspondence and orders on this subject, and the Master-General seemed to write as many letters to his loving friends at the Tower about a birthday salute, about which no mistake could well occur, as he did about a salute of another kind, albeit a birthday one, when on the 10th June, 1688, "it pleased Almighty God, about ten o'clock of the morning, to bless his Majesty and his Royal Consort, the Queen, with the birth of a hopefull son, and his Majesty's kingdom and dominions with a Prince: for which inestimable blessing" public rejoicing was invited. It was a false tale which the guns rang out from the Tower: – only a few months, and the hopeful babe was a fugitive with its ill-fated father, and remained an exile for his life.

"He was indeed the most unfortunate of Princes, destined to seventy-seven years of exile and wandering, of vain projects, of honours more galling than insults, and hopes such as make the heart sick."⁶

At this time, Woolwich was gradually increasing in importance as an Artillery Depôt, and in 1672 the beginning of the Laboratory was laid, 70 feet long, "for receiving fireworks."

In 1682 Lord Dartmouth was appointed Master-General, and from this date until the Revolution the student of the Ordnance MSS. recognizes the existence of a master-spirit, and a clear-headed man of business. In 1683 he obtained authority from the King to reorganize the whole department, and define the duties of every official – a task which he performed so well that his work remained as the standard rule for the Board until it ceased to exist. His physical activity was as great as his mental: not a garrison in the kingdom was safe from his personal inspection; and the results of his examination were so eminently unsatisfactory as to call forth orders which, while calculated to prevent, had the effect also of revealing to posterity abuses of the grossest description. Not merely was neglect discovered among the storekeepers and gunners of the various garrisons – not merely ignorance and incapacity – but it was ascertained to be not unusual for a Master-Gunner to omit reporting the death of his subordinates, while continuing however to draw their pay. Lord Dartmouth's measures comprised the weeding out of the incapable gunners; the issue of stern warnings to all; the bringing the Storekeepers (who had hitherto held their appointments by letters patent from the Exchequer) under the immediate jurisdiction of the Board of Ordnance; the increase of the more educated element among the few Artillerymen on the permanent establishment, by the appointment of Gentlemen of the Ordnance, "lest the ready effects of our Artillery in any respect may perhaps be wanting when occasion shall be offered;" the appointment of Engineers to superintend the fortifications, with salaries of 100l. a year, under a Chief Engineer, Sir Bernard de Gomme; the encouragement of foreign travel and study; and the creation of discipline among the gunners at the Tower. Among the various causes of regret which affected Lord Dartmouth after the Revolution, probably none were more felt than the sorrow that he had been unable to complete the reformation in the Ordnance which he had so thoroughly and ably commenced.

As a specimen of a train of Lord Dartmouth's time may be taken the one ordered to march on 21st June, 1685, to join Lord Feversham's force at Chippenham, and to proceed against the rebels. It consisted of

The guns used were brass Falcons and iron 3-pounders.

On examining the comparative pay of the various ranks, the Provost-Marshal seems to be well paid, ranking as he does in that respect with the Surgeon, and the Captain of the Pioneers. But if we may judge of the discipline of his train from one incident which has survived, his office can have been no sinecure. We find on the 23rd December, 1685, the King and Privy Council assembled at Whitehall, discussing gravely some conduct of certain members of the train, which had formed matter of complaint and petition from his Majesty's lieges. Four unhappy farmers had had a yoke of oxen pressed from each – the day after the rebels had been defeated – to bring off the carriages of the King's train of Artillery (then immovable, as might have been expected), and the animals had been made to travel as far as Devizes, forty miles from their home. One of the farmers, William Pope by name, had accompanied the train, in order that he might bring the oxen back. On applying for them at the end of the journey, the conductor "did abuse William Pope, one of the petitioners, by threatening to hang him for a rebel, as in the petition is more at large set forth." So the farmers now prayed to have their oxen, with the yokes and furniture, or their value, restored to them.

As the King in Council was graciously pleased to refer the complaint to Lord Dartmouth, with a view to justice being done, the reader need not doubt that the petitioners went away satisfied.

The details, contained in the Ordnance books, of the camp ordered by the King in 1686 to be formed at Hounslow, give the first intimation of that distribution of the Artillery of an Army, known as Battalion guns, a system which lasted in principle until 1871, although the guns ceased to be subdivided in such small divisions a good many years before. As, however, until 1871, the batteries had to accommodate themselves to the movements of the battalions near them, it may be said with truth that until then they were really Battalion guns. James II. ordered fourteen regiments to encamp at Hounslow with a view to overawing the disaffected part of the populace; but the effect was to reveal instead the unmistakable sympathy which existed between the troops and the people; so the camp was abruptly broken up. The Battalion guns were brass 3-pounders, under Gentlemen of the Ordnance, with a few other attendants, and escorted to their places by the Grenadiers of the various Regiments. Two demi-culverins of 10 feet in length, and six small mortar pieces, were also sent from the Tower to the camp.

In 1687, uneasiness was felt about Ireland, and large quantities of stores were assembled at Chester, for ready transit to that country if required. A large issue of mortars for that service was also made, the calibres being 14¼, 10, and 7 inches, and the diameters of the shells being respectively a quarter of an inch less. Among other guns which occur by name in the Ordnance lists of this year, and which have not yet been mentioned, are culverin drakes of 8 feet in length; saker-drakes of the same; and saker square guns also 8 feet long.

In the spring of 1688, his fatal year, King James was advised by Lord Dartmouth to send a young Gentleman of the Ordnance to Hungary to the Emperor's camp to improve himself in the art military, "to observe and take notice of their method of marching, encamping, embattling, exercising, ordering their trains of Artillery, their manner of approaching, besieging, or attacking any town, their mines, Batteries, lines of circumvallation and contravallation, their way of fortification, their foundries, instruments of war, engines, and what else may occur observable; and for his encouragement herein he was allowed the salary of 1l. per diem, besides such advance as was considered reasonable."

A long and difficult lesson was this which Richard Burton had to learn, and ere it should be mastered the Sovereign who encouraged him should be gone from Whitehall.

It was on the 15th of October, 1688, that undoubted advice reached the King that "a great and sudden invasion, with "an armed force of foreigners, was about to be made, in a hostile manner, upon his kingdom;" and although it is not contemplated to describe the campaigns of the pre-regimental days, a description of the train of Artillery with which he proposed to meet the invasion, and which was prepared for the purpose, cannot fail to be interesting. It is the most largely officered train which we have as yet met; and it was announced that, should the King accompany it at any time himself, it should be further increased by the presence of the Lieutenant-General of the Ordnance, the Comptroller-General, the Principal Engineer, the Master-Gunner of England and his Clerks, the Chief Firemaster and his Mate, the Keepers and Makers of the Royal Tents and their Assistants. Exclusive of these, whose presence was conditional, the following was the personnel of

James II.'s Artillery Train to Resist the Invasion of 1688

The reader will observe that in this train the Master-General is not included, even in the contingency of the King's accompanying it himself. Lord Dartmouth had another duty to perform. He had been appointed Admiral of the Fleet which was to engage, if possible, the immense number of vessels which accompanied William to England. The winds fought against Dartmouth. First, he was kept at the mouth of the Thames by the same east winds that wafted the enemy to their landing-place at Torbay; and when, at last, able with a fair wind to follow down the Channel in pursuit, just as he reached Portsmouth, the wind changed: he had to run into that harbour, and his opportunity was lost – an opportunity, too, which might have reversed the whole story of the Revolution, for there was more loyalty to the King in the navy than in the army, – a loyalty which was whetted, as Macaulay well points out, by old grudges between the English and Dutch seamen; and there was in James's Admiral an ability and an integrity which cannot be doubted. Had the engagement taken place, and the King's fleet been successful, it does not require much experience of the world's history to say that the Revolution would have been postponed for years, if not for ever, for it is marvellous how loyal waverers become to the side which has the first success. Nor is this the first or only case on which a kingdom, or something equally valuable, has hung upon a change of wind. How history would have to be re-written had James Watt but lived two centuries earlier than he did!

The Lieutenant-General who was to command the train was Sir Henry Shore, who had been appointed an Assistant and Deputy at the Board to Sir Henry Tichborne. The latter was, doubtless, the Lieutenant-General, whose presence would also have been required had the King in person accompanied the train.

A List of the proper Persons, Ministers, and Attendants, of the Trayne of Artillery, viz. —

(Signed) Dartmouth.

The reader will observe that the position of the medical officers of a train was still a very degraded one, relatively speaking, in point of pay. The surgeon ranked with the ladle-maker, the chief artificers, and the messenger; while his assistant received the same remuneration for his services as did the servants of the master wheelwright and master cooper. The presence, in this train, of an Adjutant and a Battery Master, is worthy of note, and also the intimation that then, as now, on service, the Artillery had to take their share in the transport of the small-arm ammunition of the Army.

History moved rapidly now. After James's flight and a brief interregnum, the Ordnance Office moves on again with spirit under the new Master-General, the Duke de Schomberg. Judging from the vigorous conduct displayed by him during his brief career at the Board, one cannot but regret that it was so soon cut short. One little anecdote reveals the energy of the man's character, and enlists the sympathy of that part of posterity – and the name is Legion! – which has suffered from red tape and routine. There was naturally a strong feeling in Scotland against the new King. Presbyterianism itself could not dull the beating of the national heart, which was moved by the memories of the old line of Monarchs which had been given to England, whose gracious ways almost condoned their offences, and whose offences were easily forgotten in this their hour of tribulation.

Men, guns, ammunition, and transport were all required for Edinburgh and Berwick; but between the demand and the supply stood that national buffer which seems to be England's old man of the sea – a public department. For transport the Master-General had to consult the Admiralty, who, being consulted, began to coil the red tape round the Master's neck, and nothing more. He entreats, implores, and prays for even one ship to carry special engineers and messages to the Forth; but the Admiralty quietly pigeon-holes his prayers in a style worthy of two centuries later. The Duke will have none of it: he writes to the Board to give up this useless correspondence with a wooden-headed Department; to take his own private yacht, and carry out the King's service, without delay. Would that, to every wearied postulant, there were a private yacht to waft him out of the stagnant pool which officialism considers the perfection of Departmental Management, and in which he might drift away from the very memory of pigeon-holes and precedents!

As might be expected, volumes of warrants, at this time, reveal the changes made among the officials of the Ordnance. The preparing of a warrant implied a fee; it is not to be wondered at, therefore, that they were many. No office under the Ordnance was too low to escape the necessity of a warrant. There were chimney-sweeps to the Ordnance who have been made immortal by this necessity, paviours, druggists, messengers, and labourers. All must be made public characters, because all must pay. Sex is no protection. Candidates for Ordnance appointments who belong to the fair sex cannot plead shyness and modesty in bar of their warrants. So that Mary Pickering, who was reappointed cooper at the Fort of Upnor, near Chatham, and Mary Braybrooke, appointed turner at the same time, have come down to posterity for the fee of ten shillings, when fairer and nobler maidens have been forgotten.

There are many Dutch, German, and even French names among the new officials appointed for the Board's service. But reappointments are, by no means, rare, if the old incumbents would but change their allegiance. Among the changes introduced by the Duke de Schomberg was one by which not merely were there gentlemen of the Ordnance for the Tower and the various trains, but also "for the out parts: " and if there were no heavier duties for them to perform than those specified in their warrants, they must have had a very easy time of it, and earned their forty pounds a year without much labour. According to their warrants, their duty was to see that "all ye aprons, beds, and coynes belonging to their Majesties' Traynes of Artillery at ye outposts do remain upon the guns and carriages." If this were really all they had to do, the old gunners of garrisons might have done it quite as well for half the money.

The difficulty of getting arms for the troops which were being raised for service in Ireland alarmed the Board greatly. Very strong measures had to be taken: penalties were threatened on every one who kept arms concealed, or failed to bring them to the Board; and a house-to-house search was authorized. Gunsmiths were forbidden to sell to private individuals, and commanded to devote all their energies to manufacturing arms for the Board, and yet the need was sore. Horses, also, had to be bought, and could with difficulty be obtained; and such as were procured could not bear the test of examination. So bad were they, that at last the Master-General inspected in person not merely the horses bought for the Artillery, but also the persons who bought them. At his first inspection he found them all faulty – rejecting some because they were too slight, some because they were lame, and one because it was an old coach-horse. With the difficulty of getting horses came also the difficulty of procuring forage. The contract for the horses of the Traynes for Chester and Ireland reached the unprecedented sum of fifteen pence per horse for each day.

To add to the other troubles of the new Board, the Chief Firemaster and Engineer (Sir Martin Beckman), with all the keenness and zeal of a renegade, kept worrying it about the state of the various Forts and Barracks; whose defects, he assured the Board, he had repeatedly urged on the two preceding monarchs, but without avail, on account of the deficiency of funds. "Berwick," he begged to assure the Board, "is getting more defenceless every year, and will take 31,000l. to be spent at once to prevent the place from being safely insulted." For six years past he assured the Board that Hull had been going to ruin: the earthworks had been abused by the garrison, who had suffered all sorts of animals to tread down the facings, and had, in the night-time, driven in cattle, and made the people pay money before they released them; and when they turned the cattle and horses out, they drove them through the embrasures and portholes, and so destroyed the facings, that, without speedy repair and care, his Majesty would certainly be obliged to make new ones.

The bomb-vessels also occupied the attention of the Board. More practical Artillerymen were required than could be granted without greatly increasing the permanent establishment. So a compromise was made; and a number of men were hired and appointed practitioner bombardiers, at the same rate of pay as others of the same rank, viz. 2s. per diem, but with the condition that the moment their services were no longer required they would be dispensed with.

There were calls, also, from the West Indies on the sore-pressed Board. A train of brass Ordnance was sent there, to which were attached the following, among other officials: – A Firemaster, at 10s. a day; a Master-Gunner, at 5s.; Engineers, at various rates, but generally 10s., who were ordered to send home frequent reports and sketches; Bombardiers, at 2s. 6d.; and a proportion of Gunners and Matrosses, at 2s. and 1s. 6d. per diem respectively, whose employment was guaranteed to them for six months at least.

As if the Admiralty, the horsedealers, the West Indies, Scotland, Ireland, and unseasonable zeal were not enough, there must come upon the scene of the Board's deliberations that irrepressible being, the "old soldier." The first Board of William and Mary was generous in its dealings with its officials almost to a fault. This is a failing which soon reaches ears, however distant. Several miners absent in Scotland, hoping that in the confusion the vouchers had been mislaid, complained that they were in arrears of their pay, "whereby," said the scoundrels, "they were discouraged from performing their duties on this expedition." Enquiries were made by the Board, and in the emphatic language of their minute, it was found "that they lied, having been fully paid up."

When the time came for the Duke to shake off the immediate worries of the office, as he proceeded to Chester and to Ireland, his relief must have been great. With him he took the chief waggon-master to assist in the organization of the train in Ireland, leaving his deputy at the Tower to perform his duties. The suite of the Master-General on his ride to Chester included six sumpter mules with six sumpter men, clad in large grey coats, the sleeves faced with orange, and "the coats to be paid for out of their pay."

Only two more remarks remain to be made. The proportion of drivers to the horses of William's train of Artillery in Ireland may be gathered from an order still preserved directing a fresh lot of horses and men to be raised in the following proportions: one hundred and eighty horses; thirty-six carters, and thirty-six boys.

Next, the dress of the train can be learned from the following warrant, ordering: —

"That the gunners, matrosses, and tradesmen have coates of blew, with Brass Buttons, and lyned with orange bass, and hats with orange silk Galoome. The carters, grey coates lyned with the same. That order be given for the making of these cloaths forthwith, and the money to be deducted by equal proportions out of their paye by the Treasurer of the Trayne."

(Signed) "Schomberg."

From a marginal note, we learn that the number of gunners and matrosses with the train was 147, and of carters, 200; these being the numbers of suits of clothes respectively ordered.

It was with this train to Ireland that we find the first notice of the kettledrums and drummers ever taking the field.⁷

CHAPTER IV.
Landmarks

In the chaotic sea of warrants, correspondence, and orders which represents the old MSS. of the Board of Ordnance prior to the formation of the Royal Regiment of Artillery, there are two documents which stand out like landmarks, pointing to the gradual realization of the fact that a train of Artillery formed when wanted for service, and disbanded at the end of the campaign, was not the best way of making use of this arm; and that the science of gunnery, and the technical details attending the movement of Artillery in the field, were not to be acquired intuitively, nor without careful study and practice during time of peace.

The first relates to the company of a hundred fee'd gunners at the Tower of London, whose knowledge of artillery has already been described as most inadequate, and whose discipline was a sham. By a Royal Warrant dated 22nd August, 1682, this company was reduced to sixty in number by weeding out the most incapable; the pay, which had up to this time averaged sixpence a day to each man, was increased to twelve-pence; but in return for this augmentation, strict military discipline was to be enforced; in addition to their ordinary duties at the Tower, they were to be constantly exercised once a week in winter, and twice a week in summer by the Master-Gunner of England; they were to be dismissed if at any time found unfit for their duties; and a blow was struck at the custom of men holding these appointments, and also working at their trades near the Tower, by its being distinctly laid down that they were liable for duty not merely in that Fortress, but also "in whatever other place or places our Master-General of the Ordnance shall think fit."

This was the first landmark, proclaiming that a nucleus and a permanent one of a trained and disciplined Artillery force was a necessity. Money was not plentiful at the Ordnance Board under the Stuarts, as has already been stated; so as time went on, and it was found necessary to increase the educated element, – the fireworkers, petardiers, and bombardiers, – it was done first by reducing the number of gunners, and, at last, in 1686, by a grudgingly small increase to the establishment.

In 1697, after the Peace of Ryswick, there was in the English service a considerable number of comparatively trained artillerymen, whose services during the war entitled them to a little consideration. This fact, coupled with the gradual growth in the minds of the military and Ordnance authorities of the sense of the dangers that lay in the spasmodic system, and the desirability of having some proportion of artillerymen always ready and trained for service and emergency, brought about the first – albeit short-lived – permanent establishment, in a regimental form, of artillery in England. The cost of the new regiment amounted to 4482l. 10s. per annum, in addition to the pay which some of them drew as being part of the old Ordnance permanent establishment. But before a year had passed, the regiment was broken up, and a very small provision made for the officers. Some of the engineers, gentlemen of the Ordnance, bombardiers, and gunners were added to the Tower establishment, and seventeen years passed before this premature birth was succeeded by that of the Royal Regiment of Artillery.

But this landmark is a remarkable one; and in a history like the present deserves special notice. Some of the officers afterwards joined the Royal Artillery; most of them fought under Marlborough; and all had served in William's continental campaign either by sea or land. Two of the captains of companies, Jonas Watson and William Bousfield, had served in the train in Flanders in 1694, and Albert Borgard, its adjutant, was afterwards the first Colonel of the Royal Artillery.

The staff of the little regiment consisted of a Colonel, Jacob Richards, a Lieutenant-Colonel, George Browne, a Major, John Sigismund Schmidt, an Adjutant, Albert Borgard, and a Comptroller: of these the first four had been serving on active service in Flanders. There were four companies, very weak, certainly, and containing men paid both on the old and new establishments. Each contained 1 captain, 1 first-lieutenant, 1 second-lieutenant, 2 gentlemen of the Ordnance, 2 sergeants, and 30 gunners. Of these the gentlemen of the Ordnance and 15 gunners per company were on the old Tower establishment. The names of the captains not mentioned above were Edward Gibbon, and Edmund Williamson.

There were also in the Regiment six engineers, four sub-engineers, two firemasters, twelve fireworkers, and twelve bombardiers.

When the regiment was reduced, the captains received 60l. per annum, the first and second lieutenants 50l. and 40l. per annum, the firemasters 60l., and the fireworkers 40l. These officers were described as belonging to the new establishment, in contradistinction to the old.

The time had now come when there was to be an establishment of Artillery in addition to these, whose school and arena were the campaigns of a great master of war, one who was to be the means, after a victorious career, of placing the stamp of permanence on what had as yet had but an ephemeral existence, – the regimental character as applied to Artillery forces in England.

CHAPTER V.
Marlborough's Trains

Although the description of campaigns which occurred before the regimental birth of the Royal Artillery is beyond the purpose and province of this history, yet so many of the officers and men who fought under the great Duke of Marlborough, or served in the various trains equipped by his orders for Gibraltar, Minorca, and Nova Scotia, afterwards were embodied in the regiment, that the reader must greet with pleasure any notice of the constitution of these Trains, as being in all probability typical of what the early companies of the Regiment would be when attached to Ordnance for service in the field.

The Duke of Marlborough was appointed Master-General of the Ordnance almost immediately after the accession of Queen Anne, and until the day of his death he evinced the warmest and most intelligent interest in everything connected with the Artillery Service.

The reader will remember that one of the first acts of Queen Anne was to declare war against France, with her allies the Emperor of Germany and the States-General. The declaration of war was not formally made until the 4th May, 1702, but preparations had been going on for a couple of months before with a view to commencing hostilities. On the 14th March, 1702, the warrant for the Train of Artillery required for the opening campaign was issued to the Earl of Romney, then Master-General. The number of pieces of Ordnance required was fixed at 34, including 14 sakers, 16 3-pounders, and 4 howitzers: and the personnel considered adequate to the management of these guns consisted of two companies of gunners, one of pioneers, and one of pontoon men, in addition to the requisite staff, and a number of artificers. Each company consisted of a captain, a lieutenant, a gentleman of the Ordnance, six non-commissioned officers, twenty-five gunners, and an equal number of matrosses. At this time the fireworkers and bombardiers were not on the strength of the companies as was afterwards the case. Two fireworkers and eight bombardiers accompanied this train.

The pioneers were twenty in number, with two sergeants, and there was the same number of pontoon men, with two corporals, the whole being under a Bridge-master. The staff of the train consisted of a colonel, a lieutenant-colonel, a major, a comptroller, a paymaster with his assistant, an adjutant, a quartermaster, a chaplain, a commissary of horse, a surgeon and assistant-surgeon, and a provost-marshal. The kettledrummer and his coachman accompanied the train. There were also present with this train a commissary of stores with an assistant, two clerks, twelve conductors, eight carpenters, four wheelwrights, three smiths, and two tinmen.

The rates of pay of the various attendants are again worthy of note. The master carpenter, smith, and wheelwright got a shilling daily more than the assistant-surgeon, who had to be happy on 3s. per diem; the provost-marshal and the tinman each got 2s. 6d.; the clerks and the gentlemen of the Ordnance were equally paid 4s.; the chaplain, adjutant, and quartermaster received 6s. each; a lieutenant received the same, and a fireworker 2s. less. The pay of the higher ranks was as follows: – Colonel, 1l. 5s.; lieutenant-colonel and comptroller, each 1l.; major, 15s.; and paymaster, 10s. The gunners received 1s. 6d.; matrosses, pioneers, and pontoon-men, each, 1s..

It was the month of June, 1702, before this train landed in Holland, and on the 30th of that month it joined the Allied Army at Grevenbrouck, having had an addition made to it of four guns before leaving England. The pay of the train amounted to 9289l. 5s. per annum; and the ammunition with which they commenced the campaign consisted of 3600 rounds, of which 3000 were round shot, and 600 canister or case. They also carried 31 boxes of small hand-grenades, and 754 grenades of a larger description. The conduct in the field of this train was admirable. During the whole campaign of 1702, their fire is described as having been carried on with "as much order, despatch, and success as ever before was seen."

And then, in the luxurious way in which war was made in those days, the army went into winter quarters.

For the campaign of 1703, it was decided to augment the train of Artillery, and a warrant to that effect was issued to the Ordnance on the 8th February, 1703. The only difference in the personnel of the train was the addition of five gunners to each company, they now outnumbering the matrosses for the first time. The addition to the guns consisted of six demi-culverins.

In March of this year, the Board of Ordnance was also called upon to fit out two bomb-vessels for service in the Channel; and as the bomb-service remained long after the Regiment existed, it may be interesting to the reader to learn the armament of these vessels. It consisted of three 13-inch brass sea-service mortars, one vessel carrying two. For ammunition they carried 1200 shells and 40 carcasses, – besides 248 barrels of powder. The Artillerymen on board were represented by three fireworkers, six bombardiers, and two artificers; but as provision was made for ten, not eleven, "small flock bedds, bolsters, ruggs, and blankets," it is to be presumed either that one of the number was above the necessity of sleep, or that a certain socialism existed in the matter of beds, which admitted of the individual on duty adjourning to the bed vacated by the man who relieved him.

In a later warrant of the same year, when a larger number of these vessels was ordered to the Mediterranean, a Firemaster at 8s. per diem was placed over the fireworkers, and a few conductors of stores were added.

A further addition was made in 1704 to the train in Holland, showing the increased appreciation of the services of the Artillery. It consisted of six brass culverins and four 3-pounders, with two gentlemen of the Ordnance, sixteen gunners, and sixty of their assistants, the matrosses. Two more artificers were also added.

An idea of the Artillery train under Marlborough's own command can be obtained from the above dry details, and when compared with the proportions of Artillery in the armies of more recent times, Marlborough's train excites a smile. The value of Artillery in the field had not yet been learned, while the cumbrous nature of its equipment was painfully present to every General. Not until Napoleon came on the scene did Artillery assume its proper place in European armies; not until the Franco-German War of 1870 did it assume its proper place in European opinion.

But equally interesting with the details of the train which Marlborough commanded are those of the trains, which, as Master-General of the Ordnance, he prepared for expeditions and services under other commanders, in the stormy time which was hushed to rest by the Peace of Utrecht.

When the expedition to Portugal, ordered in 1703, but which did not take place till the following year, was decided on, the armament selected consisted merely of five brass sakers, and one 5¼-pounder.

For this small battery, a somewhat eccentric detail of attendants was ordered, characterized by the marked absence of Artillery officers. They were as follows: – One commander, styled commander-in-chief, with a daily pay of 1l.; six engineers, with 10s. each; a commissary of stores, five bombardiers, twenty gunners, and ten miners. The absence of matrosses in this detail is also remarkable. The deficiencies in this train soon became apparent, for in 1705 we find it was reinforced by a captain, a lieutenant, a fireworker, a surgeon, and forty-two matrosses, with a proportion of non-commissioned officers. And with the reinforcement came six mountain 3-pounders – guns, which from this time and for many years were familiarly known as grasshoppers.

Among the other musty warrants of this time, calling upon "our entirely-beloved Master-General of the Ordnance, John Duke of Marlborough," to furnish various trains and necessaries, one short one on the 3rd October, 1704, has a peculiar interest. Intelligence had just been received of the capture of Gibraltar by Sir George Rooke, and it became necessary to send, for the better protection of the Rock, a few guns, and some men familiar with their use. In this year, 1872, seven Batteries of Artillery, each numbering 160 men when complete, are considered necessary, the lesson not having yet been forgotten, which was taught by the great siege, when five weak companies were all the Artillery in the garrison, and gunners had to be improvised out of the ranks of the Infantry. But the force during the great siege was lavish compared with that deemed sufficient at first "for the better defence of ye said place." One chief engineer, Talbot Edwards by name, a storekeeper and his clerk, two fireworkers, six bombardiers, and fifty-five gunners, were at first deemed sufficient Artillery force for the defence of a place whose chief means of protection lay in its guns. Half-a-dozen brass 13-inch mortars, and four-and-twenty guns on ship carriages, varying from 6-pounders to 24-pounders, constituted the armament sent from England.

In April of the following year the Master-General was called upon to furnish a train for that romantic expedition to Spain under the brilliant Earl of Peterborough, the services of which afterwards at the capture of Barcelona called forth such commendation. It was a very small one. In a corps of 5000 men the following was the proportion of Artillery: – One colonel, one adjutant, two engineers, a commissary, a paymaster, four conductors, one master-gunner, four sergeants, four corporals, ten gunners, one firemaster, one fireworker, two bombardiers, two carpenters, three wheelwrights, two smiths, and a collar-maker. Mortars on travelling carriages were used by this train, and a considerable number of sets of men-harness which accompanied it suggests the idea that the services of the other troops, or the peasantry, were enlisted, when necessary, to move the train from place to place.

In May, 1706, 11,000 men under the command of Earl Rivers were ordered to sail from Plymouth on a wild and futile scheme for the invasion of France. The following was the proportion of Artillery considered necessary for this force by the Board over which Marlborough presided. The guns were forty-six in number, including twenty 24-pounders, six culverins, four 12-pounders, four demi-culverins, and six sakers. There were also sixty small coehorn mortars.

To man the train, the following was the detail: a colonel, four engineers, two sub-engineers, a paymaster, a surgeon, with an assistant, a captain, a lieutenant, two gentlemen of the Ordnance, three sergeants, three corporals, thirty-two gunners, and sixty-four matrosses, a lieutenant of miners, and seventeen men, a firemaster, three fireworkers, and twelve bombardiers, a commissary, clerk of the stores, twelve conductors, three smiths, three wheelwrights, five carpenters, two coopers, a collar-maker, two farriers, and fifteen carters. In this train the lieutenant of miners and the chief carpenter, received each 4s. a day, while the assistant-surgeon with his 3s. remains ranked with the farriers, cooper's mate, and collar-maker.

The list of stores is too long for reproduction here. But it included 200 sets of single harness for men, and four sets of harness for fifty men to each set. Tumbrils and waggons innumerable were ordered; 400 wheelbarrows, 2000 palisadoes, 1600 horseshoes, tents, single and double beds, and an assortment of artificers' tools such as would enrich a colony. Altogether it was an appalling catalogue. The ammunition for the train included 22,000 round shot, 2400 mortar-bombs, 800 case-shot, and 3000 barrels of powder. For the Infantry 46 tons of musket-shot were carried, and 100,000 flints.

In 1707, it was resolved to reduce the trains formerly under the directions of Lords Galway, Peterborough, and Rivers, into one field train for service in Spain, and as the Board of Ordnance reported that they had no money for the subsistence of the train, the commissioners of the Treasury were ordered to pay the cost out of the 500,000l. voted by Parliament with a view to "strengthening the Army of the Duke of Savoy for making good our alliances with the King of Portugal, and for the more effectual carrying on the war of the recovery of the Spanish monarchy to the house of Austria." Tempora mutantur: what ministerial eloquence would be able to charm money out of a House of Commons now for such a purpose? The following was the detail of the combined train: – one colonel, and one lieutenant-colonel, receiving the same pay, 1l. 5s. per diem; one major, at 15s.; one comptroller, at 1l.; one paymaster, at 8s. and an assistant at 3s. 6d.; an adjutant, quartermaster, commissary of horse, and waggon-master, each at 6s.; a surgeon, at 5s., and two assistants, at 3s.; two captains, two lieutenants, two gentlemen of the Ordnance, six sergeants, six corporals, forty gunners, eighty matrosses, four drummers, ten engineers, a fireworker, two bombardiers, twelve conductors, and twenty-one artificers. There was also a provost-marshal with two assistants.

Only one more train requires to be mentioned. After the legislative union between Scotland and England, it was decided by the Board of Ordnance to establish a small permanent train, called the train for North Britain, at Edinburgh, Stirling, and Fort William. As mentioned in the first chapter of this book, the last-named place did not derive the benefit that was contemplated at the formation of this train. From the nature of the Ordnance sent to Scotland, the absence of conductors and matrosses, and the presence of storekeepers and gunsmiths, it is evident that a field train, in the sense of one for service in the field, was not contemplated. The defence of the fortresses at the three places named was all that was intended, combined with the supervision of the Ordnance Stores which might be deposited in them.

The capture of Minorca during the war involved a small train for Port Mahon in that Island; and another was required for Annapolis in 1710.

After the Peace of Utrecht, the Ordnance Board found that in addition to its small peace establishment in England there were four trains to keep up permanently, whether in peace or war, which were not required before. These were the trains of North Britain, Gibraltar, Port Mahon, and a joint train for service in Placentia and Annapolis.

The raison d'être of the trains at the first three of these places has already been given. To explain the circumstances under which the other places became a charge on the Ordnance will require another chapter.

CHAPTER VI.
Annapolis

On the Nova Scotian side of the Bay of Fundy, immediately opposite the City of St. John, New Brunswick, there is a narrow inlet of the sea, walled by perpendicular and densely wooded hills. A few scattered cottages, belonging to fishermen, speck the deep green of the forest, as the traveller passes up this narrow channel, known by the uneuphonious name of Digby Gut. Digby is a small picturesque village, immediately inside the channel, which here opens out into a wide basin, large enough to float mighty navies, and beyond description beautiful. In the spring of 1604, a French Protestant, M. de Monts, first discovered this harbour of safety, and one of his comrades, Potrincourt by name, was so enchanted by its beauties, that he applied to the French monarch for a grant of the surrounding district. At the end of the basin, furthest from the entrance and at the mouth of a river, now called the Cornwallis river, he built a Fort and a village, to which he gave the name of Port Royal. The history of this little village has been one of marvellous interest; and until the beginning of the eighteenth century, it was written in letters of blood. Since it finally became the property of England, its existence has been a peaceful one; and now, alas, the mouldering ramparts, the tumbling, grass-grown walls of the old fort, and the windowless, stairless barrack, proclaim in unmistakable language the advent of a new colonial epoch, and the retreat of British troops before that new enemy – expense. The train required for its defence, after its final capture, was one of the arguments used in favour of creating a permanent force of Artillery in England; and for more than a century this village of Port Royal, or Annapolis, has been entwined in the history of the Royal Artillery.

If all historical researches were pursued in such beautiful localities, the historian would be the veriest sybarite of literature. By the tumbling fortifications now stands one of the loveliest villages on the face of this world. The river, at whose mouth it is built, wanders through a valley, which, in summer, is like a dream of beauty. Rich intervalle land on either bank, covered with heavy crops of every kind; fields and gardens studded with apple-trees, planted by the old French inhabitants; grapes in heavy clusters growing and ripening in the open air, and clean, white churches and cottages studding the landscape for miles; all unite in forming a picture, like the Utopia which haunts the dreamer's mind. The garden of Canada – an Artilleryman may well rejoice that so lovely a spot had a share in the birth of the corps to which he belongs.

The early history of the place may be summed up in a few words. In 1606, an addition to the little colony was made of more French emigrants; cultivation of the soil, and the breeding of cattle occupied the peaceful inhabitants; and they lived in perfect amity with the surrounding Indians. Difficulties having arisen about the original charter, Potrincourt went to France, and secured from the King the grant of the territory: subject, however, to a distasteful condition, that he should take two Jesuit priests with him on his return. He did so; but made them as uncomfortable as he could, and in 1613, they left him to join a settlement, also near the Bay of Fundy, vowing vengeance against him in their hearts. Although England and France were at peace, a sea rover from Virginia, named Argoll, came with his ship, and pillaged the Jesuits' new home, killing one, and making the other prisoner. Fired by his success, and urged and guided by the revengeful priest, he next fitted out an expedition against Port Royal, and succeeded in destroying the fort, and scattering the settlers, some of whom joined the neighbouring Indian tribes. During the next few years, more French immigrants settled in a scattered, unmethodical way, over the province of Nova Scotia, or Acadia, as it was called; and some coming to Port Royal, the little colony commenced to revive.

But in 1627, Kirke's fleet sailed from England to destroy the French settlements in Nova Scotia; and among others, he ravaged unhappy Port Royal. And from this time dates the struggle in America between France and England, which lasted a hundred years. In 1629, it may be said, that we had added Nova Scotia to our possessions; but in 1632, we gave it back to France; Charles I. having been in treaty with the French King, even while our expedition in America was at work, and having consented to let the French have Quebec and all our recent American conquests back again. In 1655, Cromwell recovered Port Royal, by means of an expedition he sent for that purpose, under one Major Sedgwick. The fort had by this time been strengthened and armed; but it had to surrender to the impetuosity of our troops. Much labour and money was now spent on the fortifications by the English, but all to no purpose, for by the treaty of Breda, Charles II. ceded Nova Scotia to the French again. Certainly, the Stuarts were cruel to our colonies; and it required all the enterprise of our merchants, and all the courage and skill of our seamen and fishermen to resist utter extinction under the treatment they received. The day was to come – and to last for many a year, when a worse evil than the Stuarts was to blight our colonies – the nightmare of the Colonial Office. As the former was the positive, so it was the comparative degree of colonial endurance. Is it true that a superlative degree is coming on them now? Is it true, that in our Statesmen's minds there exists a coldness, an indifference to our colonies, which in time of trial or danger will certainly pass into impatience, and anxiety to be free from colonial appendages?

If it be so, then, indeed, the superlative degree of blundering and misery is approaching; but the misery, like the blundering, will be found this time, not in the colonies, but in England.

For sixteen years after the treaty of Breda, Port Royal was left comparatively undisturbed; the French population reaching, in the year 1671, 361 souls; 364 acres having been brought under cultivation, and nearly 1000 sheep and cattle being owned by the settlers.

In 1680, however, the English again, for the fifth time, obtained possession of it; and again lost it. After its recapture, and before 1686, considerable additions had been made to the fortifications by the French; and in the treaty of that year between France and England, it was resolved – a resolution which was never kept – that although the mother countries might quarrel, their respective American subjects might continue to maintain mutual peaceable relations. After the Revolution of 1688, war broke out in Europe once more between France and England, and their American children followed suit. Port Royal being the head-quarters for the French ships attracted the attention of Sir William Phipps, who after capturing and pillaging it abandoned it again to the French.

And the treaty of Ryswick again officially announced that the whole of Nova Scotia was French territory.

In 1699, and again in 1701, considerable labour was devoted by the French to strengthening the works of Port Royal; an increase to the garrison was made from France, and the militia in the surrounding settlements were carefully trained and armed.

Every difficulty was interposed by the French governors between the settlers and the New England merchants, who were mutually eager for trade. Exasperated by prohibitory duties on their wares, the latter first tried smuggling, and then hostile expeditions. One such was made from Boston in 1704; and although Port Royal made a successful resistance, much damage was done to the surrounding country.

In 1707, two expeditions were made from New England, and a large force of militia accompanied them. They were convoyed by a man-of-war, and would undoubtedly have captured the place, had it not been for the personal energy of Subercase, the French governor, who rallied the neighbouring inhabitants, and drove back the English, thoroughly dispirited. On the second occasion, the English attempted to float their artillery up the river with the tide by night, and attack the fort from the land side. The rise and fall of the tide in the Bay of Fundy and its inlets are very great, often reaching sixty feet. The French governor, seeing the enemy's design, lit large fires along the banks of the river, and exposed the drifting boats with the English guns on board to the view of the artillerymen in the fort, who opened a fire which utterly prevented the English from advancing further, or effecting a landing. By the 1st of September, the New Englanders were utterly foiled and dispirited, the object of the expedition was frustrated, and the fleet weighed anchor and returned to Boston. After these two attempts, rendered unsuccessful by the marvellous tact and energy of one man, Port Royal enjoyed comparative rest, and the leisure of the inhabitants was devoted to strengthening the works during the next two years.

Before describing the circumstances of its final capture, let some explanation be given of the incessant war which went on for so many years between the French and English colonists in North America. It was not a burning interest in the European questions agitating the parent countries that animated their Western children; the parent quarrels were an excuse, but not a reason, for their mutual aggression; and the absence of such excuse did not ensure peace in America. The cause lay in the two feelings which prompt most wars: thirst for revenge and love of trade. The way in which the last acted has already been hinted at. There was undoubtedly a market among the French colonists, which was all the New England merchants could desire; and so ready were the French peasants to trade, that no prohibitory action of their rulers could conceal their desire, although in a great measure it might prevent its gratification. The knowledge of this made the New Englanders frantic. They were men of immense energy, as they are now; they were of magnificent physique, made for war and hardship; and they rebelled against any obstacle to what they deemed their legitimate wishes. Their anger became intolerance; their intolerance became aggressive; and the result was first smuggling, then privateering, and finally war.

But another motive was thirst for revenge. And why? Was there not room on this vast continent for both nations to plant any wandering or surplus children, without the vile passions seeking place, which thrive in the hot-bed of crowded, neighbouring, and rival states? Here the old poet's words come in most truly: "Cœlum, non animum, mutant, qui trans mare currunt."

National jealousies were reproduced: the French allied themselves in Canada with the Indians, and incessant incursions were made thence by them on the English colonies. Hardly a child grew up in New England who did not know of some hideous tragedy in the domestic life of his immediate neighbours, if not in his own family; from infancy one of the articles of his creed was detestation of the French; and this feeling found ready and revengeful expression whenever opportunity offered. But revenge is not always true in its aim, is indeed often wofully blind; and too often when maddened with thoughts of cruelty and outrage on his wife or sisters – and what thoughts stir the Anglo-Saxon more fiercely? – he would avenge himself wildly and recklessly on victims who mayhap were innocent. And so the ghastly vendetta crossed from hand to hand, from one side to the other, and hardly a year passed without its existence being attested by tales of horror and of blood!

But the end for Port Royal was approaching, an end which was to mean defeat, but was to ensure a lasting peace. In 1709, news reached the Governor of an intended attack on a large scale in the ensuing spring by the English; and as his garrison had recently been much reduced by disease, he wrote, strongly urging its reinforcement either from France, or from the French post at Placentia, in Newfoundland. Apparently, his request was not complied with; and after a gallant, and almost heroic resistance, Port Royal capitulated in the following year to the expeditionary forces under the command of Colonel Nicholson, comprising regular troops from England, militia from New York, and a strong train of Artillery, – the whole being supported by a powerful fleet. On the 2nd October, 1710, the capitulation was signed; and, out of compliment to the Queen, the name of the village was changed to Annapolis.

A fortnight after the expedition left England for New York and Boston, en route to Port Royal, a Royal Warrant was issued establishing a Train of Artillery to garrison Annapolis. It will thus be seen that so confident was the English Government of the success of the expedition, that the new name for Port Royal had already been fixed, and arrangements made for a permanent garrison. The acquisition of Newfoundland followed; the French garrison of Placentia were allowed with many of the inhabitants to go to the Island of Cape Breton, where they fortified a place which will occupy a prominent part in this volume, Louisbourg; and the year 1713 saw, by the Treaty of Utrecht, Acadia or Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland formally surrendered to the English.

The train of Artillery formed to garrison Annapolis, and its adjunct ordered three years later for Placentia, were two of the permanent trains used as arguments in 1716 for establishing a fixed Artillery Regiment which could feed these foreign garrisons – arguments which in that year brought into existence the Royal Regiment of Artillery.

The Artillery garrison ordered for Annapolis in 1710, comprised a captain, a lieutenant, a surgeon, 4 non-commissioned officers, 11 gunners, 40 matrosses, an engineer, a storekeeper, 3 bombardiers, and 2 armourers.

That for Placentia was smaller and differently constituted. It consisted of an engineer, a master-gunner, 20 gunners, a mason, a smith, a carpenter, and an armourer.

The cost of the Annapolis train was 1964l. 18s. 4d. per annum: that of the Placentia train was 1259l. 5s. After the Regiment was created, these two trains or garrisons were generally furnished by the same company, and mutually met each other's deficiencies or demands. For many years, these places appeared in the Ordnance estimates, not merely as items in the expense of maintaining the Artillery and Engineers, but also as requiring considerable sums for fortifications. Occasionally the number of men was reduced, as in 1725, when at Placentia there were only 1 lieutenant and 8 gunners; and at Annapolis, 1 lieutenant, 2 bombardiers, 4 gunners, and 7 matrosses. But the amount spent on the fortifications remained for years very considerable. Up to the year 1759, the average spent on this item annually at the two places was 3000l. and 1000l.; but in 1747 and 1748, evidently exceptional years, the expenditure rose to 10,000l. and 6000l. respectively. In 1759, a large sum appears to have been spent in transporting to Nova Scotia the guns and stores taken from the French at Louisbourg. After 1759, Annapolis gradually dwindles down as a military station, being dwarfed by Halifax, whose Artillery expenses in that year alone amounted to nearly 40,000l.

For a century longer, Annapolis retained the special distinction of giving the title of Governor, with a considerable income, to the officer commanding the troops in the maritime provinces of British North America. But its martial glory has now altogether faded; gradually diminishing in numbers, its garrison at length consisted of the solitary barrack sergeant, who is the "last man" of every military epic; and now even he has departed. The old Fort is a ruin, the barracks crumbling and unsightly; but, in spite of the pain one feels at first witnessing this modern indifference to ancient story, – this forgetfulness of the memories which in stately procession troop through the student's mind, – this feeling is soon obliterated as one turns to gaze on happy homesteads and blooming gardens, and on contented faces which meet one at every turn as one wanders over the fertile country, away even to that "Bloody Creek," where, in one of their many engagements, some thirty Englishmen met a cruel death, by an unexpected attack made by some Indians.

Where are the Indians now? A few drunken, demoralized creatures hang about some of the towns; two or three only have retained their love and instinct for the chase; and before many years shall have passed away, Acadia shall know the Mic-mac no more!

CHAPTER VII.
The Birth of the Regiment

The hour had come, – and the man! The Duke of Marlborough was again at the head of the Ordnance, and was both capable himself of detecting the faults of the existing system, and of critically comprehending any suggestions for its improvement which the Board might lay before him.

Never had the old system so completely broken down as during the rebellion in Scotland in 1715. The best practical Artilleryman in the pay of the Ordnance had been sent in command of the train – Albert Borgard; but two years' rust since the peace of Utrecht had so tarnished any brightness which Artillery details in England had gained in the friction of the preceding campaigns, that Borgard's task was a hopeless one. Suspicions have been cast upon the loyalty of the Duke of Argyle, who commanded the King's forces in Scotland, and certainly, at first sight, his contradictory orders to the Artillery excite astonishment. But it is more probable that the key to his management of this arm lay in the impossible task of creating order out of what Borgard himself described as "such confusion as cannot be expressed." In the month of December, the train was ordered to Scotland; it was February before they anchored in the Firth of Forth. The first orders received by Borgard from Argyle, were to send his ships and guns away to Innerkithen, and march his officers and "artillery people" to Stirling. On arriving there, he was ordered to take command of a very confused train of field-pieces, which had been ordered up from the Castle of Edinburgh. Part of this train he succeeded in getting as far as Dundee, where orders were sent him to take the whole back again to Edinburgh by water. In the following March, his enforced idleness was brought to an end by orders he received to send back his vessels with the guns, which had never been unshipped, to London. He and his men were then to be available for other service.

Such a gross case of inability to furnish, within any reasonable time, Artillery for service in the field, followed by such uselessness and confusion, could not be overlooked, nor allowed to pass without an effort at improvement for the future. Public admission of defects in a Department cannot be expected; and when consciousness of their existence is present in the minds of the officials, their manner is to suggest a remedy, but to evolve the evil, which the remedy is to cure, either from other sources, or from their own imaginations. The student, who turns from the ghastly tale of incompetence and blundering in 1715, to see what steps the Ordnance Board took to prevent its recurrence, need not, therefore, be surprised to find a very slight allusion to their own blunders, and a gushing catalogue of the benefits which will result from the adoption of their new suggestions. In fact, in their letter of 10th January, 1716, to the Master-General, the members of the Board use language of virtuous and indignant protest; and instead of alluding to the recent failures, they talk of the hardships which the existing system had wrought upon their office. It is, perhaps, ungracious to criticise too closely the language used when suggesting a really important and valuable innovation; but when we find the foreign establishments of Annapolis and Placentia, of Gibraltar and Port Mahon, quoted as the arguments in chief for a change, which would probably never have been suggested but for the conspicuous failure of the preceding year, the temptation is irresistible to draw the mask from the face of complacent officialism.

Summing the case up in a few words, it may be said that the annual cost of that part of the military branch of the office of the Ordnance which the Board proposed gradually to abolish at this time, including the foreign establishments at the places above mentioned, amounted to 16,829l. The Regimental establishment, which it was now proposed to substitute by degrees, consisting of four companies with an adequate staff, would, on the Board's calculation, cost only 15,539l.

The main reduction was to be obtained by allowing the North Britain establishment, which cost annually 1200l., gradually to become extinct, the duties to be performed by the new companies. The foreign establishments were also to be supplied in the same way. Of course, it was not pretended that all this could be done at once. But as vacancies occurred in the existing establishment, the money would go to furnish men for the cadres of the new companies, which it was proposed at once to create. And by removing the Artillery officers and the 120 gunners now on the old establishment to the rolls of the new companies, the skeletons would have a little flesh and blood from the commencement.

The details of the other economies suggested by the Board, and the list of officials whose places it was not proposed to fill when vacant, naturally excite the curiosity of the student. Surely, this time at least, a little self-denial will be practised by the Honourable Board; some superfluous clerks and secretaries will be lopped off; and after their protest against those members of the military branch who never go on duty without having heavy travelling charges and extra pay, surely we shall find some economy practised by the Honourable Board, whose members revel in these very items. Alas! no. Tradition is too strong; and self-preservation is their first instinct. There are storekeepers in Edinburgh and Fort William, whom distance will prevent from personal remonstrance; a percentage of their wretched income can safely be taken. And as for those whose offices are ultimately to be extinguished, they themselves can have no personal grievance, and posterity can look after itself. So, engineers, and firemasters, and petardiers, are marked for destruction; and the Board's sacrilegious hand is raised against the Master-Gunner of England himself!

It was on the 26th day of May, 1716, that the Regimental Baby was born. It was smaller than had been expected; but it has proved a healthy and long-lived child, and, as its nurse might have said, it has grown out of all knowledge. Only two companies – without any staff – were given at first, at an annual cost of 4891l. But, in Colonel Miller's clear language, "considering that these two companies were never reduced, and that the remaining two, as well as the field-officers, were added within a few years, there can be no hesitation about taking this as the starting-point for any Regimental Records of the Royal Artillery."

In December, 1716, the Board was able to inform the Master-General of the success of the scheme: the two companies were nearly complete; but the dream of feeding the foreign establishments could not be realized, from the fact that only half its proposal had, as yet, been carried into effect. So it was obliged to request, that arrangements for these should be made for the present, elsewhere than from the two companies at home. Ere many years had passed, the whole of the scheme recommended by the Duke of Marlborough was at work; in 1722, a Colonel was given to the Regiment; and in 1727, we find a Lieutenant-Colonel and a Major, as well as four complete companies; but in the years of comparative quiet which followed, no further augmentation took place. It was not until the year 1740, that we find two more companies were added to the Regiment.

The name of the Lieutenant-Colonel in 1727, one we have already met with, and who had seen much service, was Jonas Watson. That of the Major was James Petit. He also had seen considerable service; but neither of them in that respect could approach the brave and experienced officer to whom the command of the Regiment was given by George I., in 1722, and emphatically renewed by George II., in 1727, the celebrated Albert Borgard.

CHAPTER VIII.
Albert Borgard

Not a statesman, not over-refined, and no scholar, a mere soldier of fortune – yet brave, and honest, and true – Albert Borgard deserves more than a passing notice in a history of the Regiment which he was the first to command.

He was by birth a Dane. Born in 1659, he commenced his life as a soldier when sixteen years of age, and until the day of his death, on the 7th February, 1751, at the age of ninety-two years, he never had a thought beyond his profession and his duty. The diary appended to this chapter gives in his own words the best summary of his career which can be written. For naïveté and modesty, it can hardly be surpassed. The compression into two or three lines, of events on which most men would enlarge with effusion; and the simple narrative of wounds and hardships, as if such were the ordinary circumstances of war, and unworthy of special comment, cannot fail to strike the most superficial reader. The only sentence that gives us pain is the plaintive allusion to one who supplanted him with the Board of Ordnance, as Consulting Artilleryman and Engineer. He was so devoted to his profession, that anything which looked like putting him on one side hurt him beyond expression. There is a time in the lives of many active men, when they realize painfully that others are growing up who can outstrip them in work, or who have modern ideas and appliances which it is now too late for them to learn. The pain of such a discovery is, perhaps, the most acute that a man can feel.

From that date, Borgard devoted himself to his men. Living in the Warren at Woolwich, constantly among them, he was incessant in urging them to master the details of their profession. Being devoted himself to all laboratory work, his order-books are full of instructions to the cadets and young officers, to devote their leisure to practical lessons in that department. And he encouraged any who might succeed in making any good "Firework" to bring it to him for inspection and approval. He was a strict disciplinarian; and some of the punishments he awarded would astonish modern soldiers. But he was essentially honest, incapable of falsehood or meanness, and if every man in this worthy world were, like him, brave and honest and true, what a Paradise it would be!

He commenced his military career in the service of the King of Denmark. He went from that, in 1689, to the King of Prussia's service; served in Hungary in 1691; and was induced by William III. to join the English service in the following year. At the termination of hostilities he and one other foreigner, named Schlunt, whose name appears in the list of officers of the short-lived regiment of 1698, were the only Artillerymen other than English, who were selected to proceed to England for permanent employment.

In 1702, he went as Major in the expedition to Cadiz, and carried on a successful bombardment with the five bomb-vessels under his command. In the following year he volunteered for service under Marlborough, but, after a few months in Flanders, he was recalled to proceed to Spain with the expedition under Sir George Rooke and the Duke de Schomberg, which escorted the Archduke Charles, who had just been proclaimed by his father, King of Spain. Until the year 1710, he was engaged in all the hostilities which were now carried on in Spain, and of which his diary gives a summary. In 1705, at the siege of Valencia, which was taken by the English under Lord Galway, (who had been appointed to the command in place of Schomberg), he lost his left arm; and in 1710, he was wounded in the leg by a round shot, and taken prisoner.

But his first service with the Royal Artillery, after its existence as a regiment, was in 1719, when he went in command of the Artillery of Lord Cobham's force against Spain, and successfully bombarded Vigo. The troops, 4000 in number, embarked in a squadron of five men-of-war under Admiral Mighells, and coasting from Corunna to Vigo, were landed two or three miles from the town. The garrison of Vigo withdrew to the citadel, spiking the guns in the town; but so heavy and well-directed was the fire of the English, that they soon capitulated.

The whole of the Artillery arrangements, both in preparing and handling the train, had been under Colonel Borgard's sole control. Judging from the entry in his diary, he was far more pleased by the success of his inventions and improvements in the matériel of his train, than by the surrender of the enemy.

As this was the first train of Artillery to which the Royal Artillery Companies were attached on active service, it has been considered desirable to give some details as to its constitution.

First, as to personnel: – It was commanded by Colonel Borgard, assisted by a major, a captain, three lieutenants, and four fireworkers. The medical staff, a surgeon and his assistant, received a little more remuneration than in former trains; their daily pay – which to a modern ear has a very legal sound – being respectively 6s. 8d. and 3s. 4d. There were seven non-commissioned officers, twenty gunners, forty matrosses, two drummers, and ten artificers. Engineers, conductors, drivers, and clerks were also present; and on account of the particular nature of the service on which the expeditionary force was to be engaged, ten watermen and a coxswain were included among the attendants of the train.

Next, as to matériel: – Borgard selected for his purpose four 24-pounders, four 9-pounders, and six 1½-pounders, brass guns, all mounted on travelling carriages, with a proportion of spare carriages for the first and last, spare limbers for the second, and spare wheels for all. He also took a number of brass mortars, six ten-inch, and two eight-inch, besides thirty Coehorn and twelve Royal mortars. The ammunition comprised 9800 round shot, 180 grape, 3800 mortar shells, 1000 hand-grenades, and 100 carcasses for the ten-inch mortars. Two bomb-vessels, each carrying a thirteen-inch mortar, and with two fireworkers, four bombardiers, and an artificer on board, accompanied the expedition, and were also under Colonel Borgard's command.

The citadel capitulated on the 10th October, 1719, and a large quantity of guns and stores fell into the hands of the English. The first occasion, therefore, on which the Royal Artillery as a Regiment was represented on active service was completely successful. The expedition returned to England in November.

One more incident remains to be enlarged upon ere we leave the gallant officer to tell the story of his own life. In 1716, when attending an experiment at the Foundry in Windmill Hill, where some brass guns were being recast, he was wounded in four places by an explosion which took place, and by which seventeen of the bystanders lost their lives. The accident had been foretold – so the story goes – by a young Swiss named Schalch, who was thereupon invited, after his prophecy was fulfilled, to assist the Board of Ordnance in selecting a suitable place near London where all the guns required for the service might be cast.

Young Schalch's hands were rather tied in the matter; for he was limited to a radius of twelve miles round London. Had this not been the case, it is hardly probable that he would have named as the Depôt for national Artillery Stores, and as the National Arsenal – both of which he must have foreseen the place of his selection would become – a place so exposed as Woolwich. As it was, however, being limited to so small an area, his selection was a natural one for other than the reasons which would first occur to him, as it already had a special connection with Artillery manufactures, and with that Board under whose orders he was to work.

Few countries, and fewer Boards, have ever had a more faithful servant than he proved. As Superintendent of the Foundries, which were built at his suggestion, he lived for sixty years, "during which time not a single accident "occurred."⁸ The Royal Artillery may well be proud of such a man, who, although not in the Regiment, was so intimately connected with it by the nature of his duties; and as all the management of the various departments in the Arsenal is in the hands of officers of the Regiment now, there is no better model for them to study than this father, so to speak, of Woolwich Arsenal. And the interest which must be felt in him for his own skill and services is increased by the knowledge that no less than six of his descendants have held commissions in the Royal Artillery.

Appended to the chapter will now be found the diary of Borgard, to which allusion has so often been made, copied from a manuscript in the Royal Artillery Regimental Library. In addition to the short account of his services, it contains lists of the various battles and sieges in which he took part, and the dates of his various commissions.

"An Account of the Battels, Sieges, &c., wherein Lieutenant-General Albert Borgard hath served, with what time and station, and in what Prince's service, as also the dates of his commissions during the time of his being in the English service, viz. —

"In the King of Denmark's Service.

1675. "Served as a cadet in the Queen's Regiment of Foot, and was at the siege of Wismar (a town in the territories of Mecklenburg), then belonging to the Sweeds, which was taken by the Danes in the said year in the month of December."

1676. "Was ordered from the Army with a Detachment of Foot on board the Fleet. A battle was fought with the Sweeds near Oeland in the Baltick, the 11th of June, wherein the Danes obtained a compleat victory. With the aforesaid Detachment in the month of July we landed in Schonen, and joyned the Danish Army at the Siege of the Castle at Helsingborg, which place the Danes took from the Sweeds in the said month by capitulation.

"Marched from thence, and was at the Siege of the Town and Castle of Landskroon. One night the Sweeds made a great sally out of the Town with Horse and Foot; the Danes beat them back, and followed them into the town and took it sword in hand. The Castle after some days' bombardment was taken by capitulation.

"In the month of August, we marched from Landskroon to Christianstat, which town was taken from the Sweeds, sword in hand, some days after it was invested, without opening trenches. The Garrison did consist of near 3000 men, which were all cut to pieces. Liberty for three hours' time was granted to the soldiers to plunder the town, where there was found a great deal of riches and treasure.

"In the latter end of August, I was one of the 4000 men of the Army which marched from Christianstat to besiege the Town Halmstat. Upon their march they were intercepted and totally defeated by the Sweeds, of which number not above 700 men made their escape.

"In the month of September, several young men that were well recommended were taken out of the Foot Regiments to be made gunners of ye Artillery, of which I was one of the number, and served as such in the great Battle of Lund (in the month of December) between the Sweeds and the Danes, which continued from sun-rising to sun-setting. This was counted a drawn battle, because both Army's Artillery remained in the field that night.

1677. "I likewise served as a gunner in the Battle fought between the Sweeds and the Danes, near Sierkiobing or Ronneberg, two leagues from Landskroon, in the month of July, where the Sweeds had a compleat victory. In the latter end of the same month I was ordered from Schonen with more gunners to the Siege of Mastraud, in Norway. In the month of July, the Town with a little Fort was attacked and taken sword in hand, and two other Castles near the same place were taken by capitulation. In the latter end of August we marched with a body of the Norwegian Army, and fell in the night-time on the Sweeds at Odewald, beat them, and took from them twelve pieces of cannon, and all their baggage.

1678. "In the month of September, a great Detachment of the Danish Army, where I was one of the number, was ordered in the expedition to the Island of Lauterugen, in the Baltick. We landed on the said Island, though we mett with great opposition from the Sweeds. We beat them and obliged them to retire to Stralsund.

1679. "I was made a Fireworker, and ordered on a survey of the Island of Sealand, in Denmark.

1680. "I with another Fireworker was ordered to Berlin in exchange of two Brandenburgher Fireworkers, sent to Denmark to learn the difference of each nation's work relating to all sorts of warlike and pleasaunt Fireworks.

1681. "I was ordered to go from Berlin to Strasburg to perfect myself in all things relating to Fortification.

1682. "I was ordered back again from Strasburg to Gluckstadt, in Holstein, where I was made Ensign in the Queen's Regiment of Foot.

1683. "I was made a Lieutenant in the same Regiment, and ordered with the Duke of Wirtemberg, who went a voluntier to the relief of Vienna, in Austria, where I was in the Battle fought by the Germans and Poles against the Turks the 11th day of September. The Turks were totally defeated with the loss of their Artillery and greatest part of their baggage.

1684. "I was ordered with several other engineers under Colonel Scholten's command to fortifie a place called Farrell, in the County of Oldenburg.

1685. "I was ordered by the aforesaid Duke of Wirtemberg, who went a voluntier to Hungary, and was both of us at the Siege of Niewhausel and the Battle of Grau in the month of August. The Germans beat the Turks, and took twenty-three pieces of cannon, with some of their baggage, and some days after the battle, Niewhausel was taken sword in hand.

1686. "I went as a voluntier to Hungary, and was at the Siege of Buda, and was recommended to Colonel Barner, Commander of the Imperial Artillery, who employ'd me during the Siege, in the Artillery service. The lower town was taken in June without opposition. The upper town and castle were taken sword in hand in the month of September. Here I got so much plunder that paid for all my campaign done in Hungary as a voluntier.

1687. "I was made a Lieutenant in the King of Denmark's Drabenten Guards, and was employed as Engineer in the new Fortifications made at Copenhagen.

1688. "I quitted the Danish Service on account of some injustice done me in my promotion, and went as voluntier to Poland. I was well recommended to his Polish Majesty. I was in the action that happen'd at Budjack, when the Poles beat the Tartars, and killed and took prisoners to the number of 2400. Here I took for my share two Tartars prisoners, which had near cost me my life, by reason I would not deliver them over to a Polish officer.

"In the King of Prussia's Service.

1689. "In the month of January I was made a Lieutenant in the Prussian Guards, and the same year went with my Colonel, Baron Truckis, who made a campaign as voluntier on the Rhine. I was in the month of March in action of Niews, a little town between Keyserwart and Cologne, where the Brandenburghers totally beat the French and took all their baggage. In the month of June I was at the Siege of Keyserwart, which place the Brandenburghers, after some days' bombardment, took from the French by capitulation. In the month of July we marched with the Army from Keyserwart to invest the town of Bonn, which place was without intermission eight nights and days bombarded, and totally destroyed. After the bombardment it was kept blockaded till the month of September. In this bombardment I commanded two mortars ordered me by Colonel Wyller, commander of the Prussian Artillery. In the month of August I went from Bonn to Mentz, a town besieged by the Emperour's and Allies' Army. In the taking of the Counterscarps or Glacies of this place, it cost us near 4000 men, by which means the town was obliged to capitulate. In the month of September the Duke of Lorrain went with 10,000 men from Mentz, to reinforce the Allies' Army at Bonn. By his arrival there the attack was regularly carried on, in which service I was employed as Engineer, under the direction of Colonel Gore, who had the direction of the trenches carried on by the Dutch forces. The Counterscarps or Glacies, with a ravelin and a counterguard, were taken sword in hand with the loss of 3000 men. The enemy was beat into the town, which obliged them in two days' after to capitulate.

1691. "In the month of March 8000 of the Prussian troops were ordered to Hungary. The company to which I belonged was included in this number. We joined the Emperour's Army in the month of June, and we fought a Battle with the Turks at a place called Solankeman, where we beat them totally, and took upwards of 100 pieces of cannon, with a great part of their baggage, in the month of August.

1692. "I quitted the Prussian service, and agreed with Count de Dohna for a Company of Foot, in a Regiment of Foot he was to raise for the service of the Emperour. After some weeks spent in raising men for my company, the capitulation broke off, because the Emperour would not agree to the terms stipulated with the said Count. In the month of April I went from the city of Dantzick to Holland, and from thence in company with some Danish voluntiers to ye Siege of Namur. After the siege I went from Namur to the English and Allies' camp at Melle, and from thence I marched with the Army to the camp at Genap, where in the month of July I entered as Firemaster into the English Artillery, under the command of Colonel Gore.

"In the English Service.

1692. "I marched with the English Artillery to the Battle of Steenkirke, and after the battle was ordered with a Detachment of Fireworkers to joyn at Ostend those Artillery people which came from England under the command of Sir Martin Beckman. From Ostend we marched to Tourney, from thence to Dixmud, and at last to quarter at Ghent.

1693. "I was commanded with a Detachment of Fireworkers and Bombardiers to Liege, and from thence back again to Nearhespe, where we fought the battle of Landen, and where our Army was beat, and sixty-three pieces of English cannon lost. After the battle I was ordered with a detachment of Fireworkers to Sasvangand, in order to embark the great Artillery for a secret expedition; after some days' labour was ordered back again to the Army encamped at Nuioven, from thence into Flanders.

1694. "I went with my Lieutenant-Colonel Browne to the Siege of Huy, which place we took from the French in the month of September, by capitulation.

1695. "I was ordered with some mortars to follow the Duke of Wirtemberg, who commanded a detachment of the Army at Fort Knock invested by the said Duke. From thence I was ordered with a detachment of the Artillery to the Siege of Namur, which place I bombarded with twelve great mortars, and did throw about 4000 bombs (into the town, Cohorn's Work, and Terra Nova), before the siege was over. The town capitulated in August, and Cohorn's Work and Terra Nova in September.

1696. "Nothing material was done this year but making intrenchments, marching, and counter-marching with the Army.

1697. "This year was like the former till we encamped at Brussels, where the cessation of arms was proclaimed… In the month of September the Army marched into quarters, where the greatest part of the Artillery people were ordered to England, foreigners excepted, who were all discharged except myself and one by name Schlunt. I was ordered to embark all the English Artillery remaining in Flanders to be sent to England. I myself went with the last embarkation in the month of February."

1698 to 1701. "I remained in England without being in any action.

1702. "I was made Major to the Artillery in the bomb vessels sent on the expedition to Cadiz, under the command of His Grace the Duke of Ormond and Admiral Rooke. In this expedition I bombarded with five bomb vessels, first, St. Catharina, with such success that it capitulated. I also bombarded with some land mortars the Fort Matagorde. At our arrival at Vigo, I bombarded with three bomb vessels Fort Durand, which was taken sword in hand by the land forces. The Fleet entered and broke the boom which was laid over the entrance of the harbour near the said Fort, took and destroyed all the ships of war, galleons, &c., to the number of thirty-seven.

1703. "Went as voluntier to Flanders. After some months' stay was recalled to England in order to command the English Artillery ordered to Portugall, with this present Emperour, being at that time King of Spain. Two of the transports laden with stores under my command were lost in the great storm in the Downs, where myself then rode, and was afterwards obliged to go to Portsmouth to repair the damage we had received by that storm.

1704. "Nothing material done with the Army but marching and counter-marching.

1705. "I was at the Siege of Valencia d'Alcantra, which the English took from the Spaniards sword in hand. At this siege, in building the Battery, I had my left arm shot to pieces.

1706. "I was at the Siege of Alcantra, which place the English and Allies took by capitulation in the month of April. Here I received a contused wound on my left breast. Marched from thence to Corea and Plazencia. Both towns declared for King Charles, and from thence marched to the Bridge of Almaraz, and so back to Corea and to Ciudad Rodrigo, which place we besieged and took by capitulation in the month of May. Marched from thence to the Town Salamanca, which place declared for King Charles: from thence to Madrid, which likewise declared for King Charles, where we encamped ten days. From Madrid we marched to Guadalaxara; from thence to Guadraka, where I cannonaded in the month of August for two days together the Duke of Berwick's Army; from thence marched back to Guadalaxara, and so on to St. Jonne, from which place we retreated into the kingdom of Valencia, where the enemy followed us close till we had got over the pass at Raguina.

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1

Clode.

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2

This table is reproduced from the MSS. of the late Colonel Cleaveland.

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3

Feurutter, according to Colonel Miller.

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4

Fourutter, according to Colonel Cleaveland.

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5

The brass 18½-in. mortars were used at the Siege of Limerick in 1689, and in the porch of the cathedral in that city one of the shells is still to be seen. An interesting account of Artillery details at that siege is to be found in Story's 'History of the Wars in Ireland.'

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6

Macaulay.

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7

Miller.

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8

Browne's 'England's Artillerymen.'

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