Chapter VII: To 1803

So many important events will demand detailed notice presently, that this chapter must be confined to a bare statement of facts, necessary to keep the chain of the Regimental history complete. The circumstances, under which the Royal Irish Artillery was incorporated as the 7th [Sidenote: Vol. i. pp. 163 & 417.] Battalion of the Regiment, have already been mentioned. No sooner had the amalgamation taken place, than a questionable step was taken by the authorities at the Ordnance: they ordered the 5th Battalion to proceed to Ireland, and relieve the 7th; and the six companies of the 7th Battalion, which were serving in their native land, were promptly shipped off to the West Indies to relieve the companies of the 1st, 2nd, and 4th Battalions. This instant use of the new battalion to garrison an unpleasant station can hardly have had a conciliatory effect; and doubtless the sudden and unpleasant change of quarters awakened occasional doubts as to the value of the Union--in a military point of view,--if not occasional mental growlings on the subject of “Justice to Ireland,” among those who had to exchange the pleasures of Dublin for the disadvantages of the tropics. Be this as it may, in 1802 the new battalion was ordered to the West Indies.

The arrangements of the Board for the reliefs of the companies at this time reveal a very distinct attempt to secure, as far as possible, that companies of the same battalion should serve on the same station. For example, it was decided that, in 1803, the whole of the companies at Gibraltar should belong to the 6th Battalion; that the 1st and 2nd Battalions should be collected in England; the 5th in Ireland; and that the detached commands, and the wants of Canada should be supplied by the 3rd and 4th Battalions. The scheme was marred by an occasional company of a battalion, which it was hoped to concentrate, being found to be at the Cape of Good Hope, or Ceylon; but the effort was honestly made, and with the best intentions. That it utterly failed during the tempest of war, which was so soon and so long to rage, was not the fault of those who hoped to produce a very different state of affairs; but the result of inevitable causes. The American War had proved the inconvenience of a battalion’s head-quarters being on the scene of hostilities: the lesson was accepted, and the various head-quarters were located at Woolwich; and therefore, the fact having been once admitted that the necessary control could be exercised, at a distance, over an individual company, all ideas of _symmetry_ had to yield to necessity: and whencesoever a company could be most readily obtained, from that station it was taken, irrespective of the battalion to which it belonged. The test of a system frequently does not occur until the system must vanish before it; and this was the case in the wars between 1807 and 1815, which proved most satisfactorily that the official dreams of the Ordnance in 1802 and 1803 were not worth the paper on which they were written. Out of the web which was so honestly spun, the company, in time of war, made its inevitable escape, and asserted yet again its right to be called the Artillery unit.

On the signing of the Treaty of Peace, at Amiens, on the 27th March, 1802, immediate reductions were ordered in the military forces of England. In the Royal Artillery they took the form of reductions in the strength of the companies; and the following was the scheme, approved by the Master General, on the recommendation of Colonel Macleod. The short-lived amity between the French and English Governments did not admit of the reductions being altogether carried out; but it is interesting to see how they were proposed to be conducted.

[Sidenote: Proposal agreed to on 7 Dec. 1801.]

--------------------+------+------+-------+-----+-----+-----------+------
|Serge-|Corp- |Bombar-|Gunn-|Drum-|Non- |Total.
|ants. |orals.|diers. |ers. |ers. |effectives.|
--------------------+------+------+-------+-----+-----+-----------+------
Present strength of | | | | | | |
one Battalion | 40 | 40 | 70 | 980| 30 | 30 |1,190
Proposed strength | 30 | 30 | 60 | 700| 30 | 30 | 880
+------+------+-------+-----+-----+-----------+------
To be reduced | 10 | 10 | 10 | 280| .. | .. | 310
+------+------+-------+-----+-----+-----------+------
Total reduction in }| | | | | | |
seven Battalions }| 70 | 70 | 70 |1,960| .. | .. |2,170
--------------------+------+------+-------+-----+-----+-----------+------

_N.B._ Of the above number of men to be reduced, there were about
680 men from the Militia, who were entitled to their discharge.

This reduction left the proportion of non-commissioned officers to gunners the same as before, viz. 1 to 6. During the American War, it had been as 1 to 5; after the peace of 1783, it fell to 1 to 7; and during the earlier wars of the French Revolution it rose to 1 to 6.

The strength of the Corps of Gunner-drivers in 1802 was as follows: Seven troops, each consisting of--

1 Captain-Commissary.
2 Lieutenants-Commissary.
2 Staff-Sergeants.
4 Sergeants.
6 First Corporals.
6 Second Corporals.
6 Farriers.
3 Smiths.
4 Collar-Makers.
4 Wheelers.
150 Gunner-drivers.
25 Riding Horses.

_Staff._--1 Quartermaster.
1 Veterinary Surgeon.

The gunner-drivers attached to, and doing duty with the Horse Brigade, are not included above, being by a Royal Warrant of 1st September, 1801, mustered and paid with the Troops to which they were attached. These were in number 336. There were also 18 quartermaster-commissaries awaiting absorption, having been struck off the establishment on reduction. The number of horses belonging to the Corps of Gunner-drivers at this time included 2300 draught-horses, and 178 riding-horses.

Colonel Macleod remained Deputy Adjutant-General: General Lloyd was commandant of Woolwich: General Blomefield, Inspector of Artillery: Sir William Congreve, Comptroller of the Laboratory; and General Duncan Drummond, Director-General of Artillery.

Chevrons were put on the arms of non-commissioned officers, according to the rules of the Army generally, instead of epaulettes, in the year 1802. The Royal Artillery Band was increased from 10 to 21 in the same year.

Two allusions to methods of discharging men at this time, which are found in the official correspondence, speak for themselves. The first is an order to discharge a man for his bad conduct, and to _hand him over to the press-gang_: and the second is a reply to a request from Lord Napier, that a man might be discharged, to enable him to support his [Sidenote: Colonel Macleod to Colonel Hadden, 9 Jan. 1802.] family; and is as follows: “Charles Copeland; 5 feet 11 inches in height; a wife and _two_ children. It is observed that he would have been discharged, if he had been lucky enough to have three.”

* * * * *

_Note._--By inadvertence, it was omitted to be noticed in the
first volume of this work, in giving the list of Masters-General
of the Ordnance, that Lord Chatham held that appointment from 18th
June, 1801, to 14th February, 1806, and was _reappointed_ on 4th
April, 1807, the date given in vol. i. as that of his first
appointment. Lord Moira was Master-General from 14th February,
1806, to 4th April, 1807.