10 March, a dignified rebuke to the malcontents. On one point, however, he admitted the force of their complaint. The rank of Major had been abolished in the Royal Engineers, its holders being made Lieutenant-Colonels, and thus obtaining a decided advantage over their contemporaries in the Artillery. "This difference," wrote the Master-General, Duke of "and there being no rank of Major, is, I admit, an advan- Richmond, tage in point of rank in favour of the Engineers. The 1788. reason of the rank of Major being suppressed in the Corps "of Engineers was that there were no troops belonging to "them to be commanded in Battalions, and therefore there "could be no use for an officer of that description." In the year 1827, the rank of Regimental Major was abolished in the Royal Artillery, its holders being made LieutenantColonels, but with Majors' pay; and in the year 1872, the rank of Major was substituted for that of First Captain, on account of the responsibility attached to the command of a Battery of Artillery. Miller, It was during this period that a blow was struck at the custom, which had hitherto prevailed, of buying and selling the appointments of Adjutant and Quartermaster. On the 24th February, 1783, the Master-General ordered that no Colonel such appointment should in future be sold, with this excep- Pamph., tion, that any officer who then held an appointment which 1868. he had obtained by purchase would be allowed to sell it when he relinquished it, but must accept 1007. less than he gave for it; and that his successor must also sell for 1007. less than that purchase-money; and so on until the price. should be extinguished. It was ruled, at the same time, that a Captain-Lieutenant, holding an Adjutancy, should vacate it on being promoted to a Company; and that as soon as any "warrant" of a Quartermaster should become vacant without purchase, "some meritorious non-commis"sioned officer should be recommended for the same." A privilege which the Regiment had hitherto enjoyed was abolished, and with good reason, in 1785. Prior to that date no charge was ever made for the subsistence of either officers or men of the Royal Artillery when being conveyed 2 April, 1789. by transports to foreign stations, an exemption whic not accorded to the rest of the army. Doubtless the arose from the fact that the Board of Ordnance, wh one capacity governed the Artillery, in another ca hired the transports; but the case had only to be sta ensure a remedy. On the 27th August, 1785, it was that a "stoppage of 3d. per diem (being the same as is "from the rest of His Majesty's troops) be made fro "officers, non-commissioned officers, and privates o Royal Artillery during the time they shall be on "ship." Doubtless, the same individuals would be g in the year 1873, they could continue to travel on boar at the rate of 3d. per diem. 66 Perhaps of all the letters which the student finds official correspondence of the period, the following most amusing. It ought already to have been ment that when the Captain of a Company retired on his awaiting a vacancy in the Invalid Battalion, his Ca Lieutenant received certain allowances connected wit command of the Company. Apparently, the regulations not very clear on the subject; or, as is very pro decisions had been given in individual cases, which ha been promulgated to the Regiment-a pernicious c which existed in the 18th century, and even since Captain William Houghton had retired in this way from his retirement the following cry of agony reache Commandant of his Battalion :-"Ever since the day goodness was made known to the Regiment in gettin "leave of absence to retire from duty till provided wi "Invalid Company, I have never had a moment's peace my Captains-Lieutenant. Their first claim was for "non-effective-I gave it; the next was for both-I them; and was then told they had a right to th "per annum allowed for stationery-this I gave up They have now demanded my share of the stock p " and the 207. per annum granted by His Majesty's war "27th July, 1772, to the Captains of Artillery, on acc "of the slowness of promotion in the Regiment. H 66 66 66 "known these were to be the hard conditions of a little rest "before death, it would have been all fair; but in that case "I certainly should have remained with my Company, pro"vided I had done duty upon crutches." Only one point remains now to be mentioned before turning to the causes which led to sudden augmentations in the Regiment, combined with the commencement of hostilities. On the 26th August, 1792, volunteers were called for from the Companies at Woolwich, to form part of a guard ordered to attend His Excellency Viscount Macartney, who had been appointed Ambassador to the Court of the Emperor of China, and also to act as instructors in gunnery to the troops of that potentate. The strength of the party was as follows:-One sergeant, 3 corporals or bombardiers, 1 drummer, and 15 gunners, under the command of Lieutenant Parish. An advance was made to the detachment of a year's subsistence to purchase necessaries, and a second suit of clothing was given to the non-commissioned officers and men. It has been difficult to confine this chapter to these purely domestic, although necessary, details, because, after 1787, the whole firmament of history has been lurid with the events in France, which were ripening into a state of things such as has never been seen before, or since. In 1792 it became apparent that war between England and France was inevitable. Recruiting had been brisk since 1787; in 1790 a free pardon had been offered to all deserters, who should return to their Regiments; in the first month of 1793 an augmentation to the Artillery was authorized, which will form the subject of the next chapter; and in October 1793, the following increase to the establishment was ordered, viz. : 30 Gentlemen Cadets. To each of the 40 march- 1 Sergeant. 2 Bombardiers. 10 Second Gunners. 1 Sergeant Conductor on Sergeant's pay. 10 Drivers upon Second Gunner's pay. marching) 1 Surgeon's Mate. To each of the 4 marching) Every officer, without exception, had been ordered to jo 1792; and, although it was not until the beginning of that the French Ambassador was dismissed from the C of St. James's, it was evident that a sufficient casus belli been found in the operations of the French army in the Countries, and the menace to England implied in Fr obtaining the control of the River Scheldt. A sufficient casus belli, it has been said; but the stude history must indeed be blind who fails to see that this but a secondary reason. A panic had seized upon the stable European governments, a dread lest the revolutio principles which animated the French people should sp beyond the confines of France. Nor was their fear wit reason. Even England had been penetrated by Republican societies were formed, ostensibly for Parliamentary Ref and under the title of Friends of the People, which des undoubtedly the overthrow of the monarchy. An English the author of The Rights of Man,' had been electe member of the Assembly in Paris, on account of his adva political opinions; and, after his trial for sedition in E land, an English mob showed their sympathy by taking horses out of his advocate's carriage, and drawing it th selves to his residence. That unfailing barometer of polit disturbance-the funds-told also a tale of great uneasin The Three per Cents., which stood in January 1792 93, fell before December in the same year to 74; and other Government securities were at a corresponding count. The state of France was, indeed, enough to appal most indifferent. In the powerful language of the chroni of the French Revolution, France, roused by many cau faced the world "in that terrible strength of Nature wh "no man has measured;" and "whatever was cruel in "panic-frenzy of twenty-five million men-whatsoever "great in the simultaneous death-defiance of twenty"million men-stood there in abrupt contrast, near by "another." France was now "seeking its wild way thro "the New, Chaotic-where Force is not yet distinguis "into Bidden and Forbidden-but Crime and Virtue welter unseparated, in that domain of what is called the Passions." "The Gospel of Man's Rights was preached abroad with "the fearfullest Devil's Message of man's weaknesses and "sins;" and a whole nation was drunk with revenge, and terror, and blood. Penetrating with different effect into every class of men in England, the tale of the French Revolution penetrated even the recesses of the Ordnance. Raising their eyes from ledgers, and gazing across the Channel, even the members of the Honourable Board were moved; and on the first day of the New Year they resolved on a step, which should bring Field Artillery more into accord with the era in the history of war which was now to commence. Nor was it an hour too soon; for in three weeks' time, on the 21st January, 1793, 66 "there was in the streets of Paris a silence as of the Carlyle. grave-eighty thousand armed men stood ranked, like "armed statues of men; cannons bristled, cannoneers with "match burning, but no word or movement; it was as a city enchanted into silence and stone: one carriage, with "its escort, slowly rumbling towards the Place de la Révolution, the only sound." The last of the dragon's teeth was about to be sown, and a crime to be committed which should bind the governments of Europe together against France, as one man: to whom France should answer, "The coalesced Kings threaten us: we hurl at their feet, as Danton. "the gage of battle, the Head of a King." Of a truth, the Honourable Board had not moved a day too soon. Let us trace in our next chapter the development of that portion of the Corps which dates its origin from that terrible month of January 1793. |