Chapter XVII: Part 17

Much of the time of the men was spent in boat service to Long Island and other places to get tussack, oxen, horses, peat, &c. The last was obtained in large quantities and stacked for winter fuel. Occasionally a few were out on reconnoitring excursions examining portions of the country, and surveying the islands and patches of land of colonial interest. In this service corporal William Richardson, who was a surveyor and mathematician, was the most conspicuous. When opportunity permitted, some were employed quarrying stone, repairing landing-places, making roads, and improving the paths and approaches to the settlement. To add to the diversity of their duties, a few were sometimes occupied in marking out allotments and indicating the passes or routes across bogs and lagoons by means of poles. The first pole was placed on the loftiest hill between Port Louis and Saint Salvador, which his Excellency, in honour of his sergeant, named _Hearnden Hill_. In short the men were compelled to turn their hands to anything, for an abandoned and desolate settlement rendered numerous services essential for the convenience and comfort of the settlers. Sergeant Hearnden was clerk of the works, and also filled with energy and ability a number of other offices of colonial necessity.[408] Frequently he was detached to considerable distances, and his reports upon the aspects and capabilities of particular sites and places were invariably received with approbation and his suggestions carried out.

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Footnote 408:

Such as auctioneer, excise-officer, &c. In carrying on the former
duty, among his many sales, he disposed of the ‘Melville’
schooner, a vessel belonging to four partners, obtaining for it,
from one of the partners, only 720 dollars! This may be taken as a
fair specimen of the wealth of the colonists.

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Sections of the detachment were often sent on duty to Long Island, Green Island, Salvador Bay, Johnson’s Harbour, Port William, &c. Two or three times the men sent to Long Island could not return to the location, as the boats on each occasion were, by a driving gale, dashed back on the beach, and the men exposed through the weary night to the pelting storm. Once under such circumstances the party was without food for twenty-three hours. Two men detached to Jackson’s Harbour, when returning home, were caught in a snow-storm and with great difficulty reached the untenable hut at Fishhouse Creek. There, benumbed and fatigued, they sought shelter for the night, being unable to proceed further or to assist themselves.

To relieve the monotony of their public duties, the men were permitted to follow any sport which their inclination suggested. Boating, hunting,[409] shooting, fishing, and angling, were among the varieties of their diversions. Game was plentiful, and the men usually returned from their excursions laden with rabbits, geese, and birds of different form and plumage. In fishing, the party at one time in a single haul, caught at Fishhouse Creek thirteen hundred weight of mullet. The Governor, too, was ever ready to devise means to promote their amusement and comfort, and on one occasion so pleased was he with their general good conduct and exertions, that he honoured them with an excellent dinner from his own purse and shared himself in the festivities.

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Footnote 409:

All had horses, as travelling on horseback was frequently
necessary. The Governor presented one, with harness complete, to
sergeant Hearnden. The men made themselves very expert in the
management of horses, and throwing aside the rude thongs of raw
hide by which they were controlled, quickly adapted the
draught-horses to the use of artillery harness and collars.

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With the view of verifying the reported peculiarity of the tides at Southampton, Professor Airy, in February, proceeded thither to examine the rise and fall of the water. Some non-commissioned officers and privates were placed by Colonel Colby at his disposal for this purpose, who prepared and fixed the vertical scale of feet and inches, and kept a watch upon the general accuracy of the observed tides. “I was,” says the Professor, “extremely glad to avail myself of this offer, for I believe that a more intelligent and faithful body of men does not exist than the sappers employed on the trigonometrical survey; and I know well the advantage of employing upon a tedious business like this, a set of regular service men stationed on the spot.”[410]

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Footnote 410:

‘Philosophical Transactions,’ i., 1843, p. 45.

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On the 19th March about 150 non-commissioned officers and men of the corps at Woolwich under Lieutenant F. A. Yorke, R.E., were present in the night at a fire, which burnt the ‘Bull’ tavern to the ground.[411] The sappers were the first to render assistance and to secure from destruction much of the property.[412] By the falling of the principal wall of the building eighteen persons were severely crushed and wounded, six of whom were privates of the corps. Private Malcolm Campbell, one of the injured, rescued the landlord, Mr. Boyd, from being burnt to death. The latter in a state of great bewilderment rushed back into the burning tavern, and Campbell dashing after him dragged him through the flames and falling timbers, from a back room of the building, into the street again.[413]

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Footnote 411:

Reference would not have been made to this service only for the
accident which attended it. Often it is the lot of the corps at
the various stations to distinguish themselves at fires, and by
their promptitude and cheerful exertions, to save both lives and
property.

Footnote 412:

An insurance company, in no respect under obligations to the
parties who assisted at the fire, felt interested in the exertions
of the sappers and awarded them 5_l._ As the sum was too small for
distribution, it was well expended in the purchase of a clock for
the barracks at Woolwich.

Footnote 413:

After serving a station in China, died at Woolwich, in July, 1847.

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During the summer a corporal and twenty-three rank and file of the royal sappers and miners, and nine men of the East India Company’s sappers were employed at Spithead under Major-General Pasley, in the removal of the wreck of the ‘Royal George.’ The operations were carried on from the 7th May to the end of October under the executive orders of Lieutenant G. R. Hutchinson, R.E. In all respects the duties, labours, and responsibilities of the sappers were the same as on previous occasions, except that the diving was carried out by the party, and a few of the East India Company’s sappers and miners, without in any one instance needing the help of professional civil divers. On the 2nd November the detachment rejoined the corps at Chatham.

Four divers were at first employed. On the 13th May the number was increased to five, and on the 3rd June to six, which force continued at the duty throughout the season. Several other men during the summer had been so employed when casualty or other cause prevented the regular divers descending, and the whole who had distinguished themselves in this work by their activity and success, were classified as follows:—

_First-class divers_:—corporal David Harris: lance-corporals
Richard P. Jones, and John Rae: privates Roderick Cameron,
James Jago, John Williams, and William Crowdy.

_Second-class divers_:—privates Alexander Cleghorn and John
Girvan.

_Third-class divers_:—lance-corporal W. Thompson: privates
William Browning, William Penman, and Edward Barnicoat.[414]

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Footnote 414:

The nine men of the East India Company’s sappers, whose names are
appended, dived more or less as occasion offered. Lance-corporal
Thomas Sherstone, privates James Hewitt, James Beale, George
Taylor, William Brabazon, John Hunt, William England, John McIvor,
and John A. Goodfellow. Hewitt was the best, Sherstone the next,
and Beale and Taylor were very promising.

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Corporal Harris almost entirely by his own diligence removed, in little more than two months, the wreck of the ‘Perdita’ mooring lighter, which was sunk in 1783 in the course of Mr. Tracy’s unsuccessful efforts to weigh the ‘Royal George.’ It was about sixty feet in length, and embedded in mud fifty fathoms south of that vessel. The exposed timbers stood only two feet six inches above the level of the bottom, so that the exertions of Harris in removing the wreck were herculean. Completely overpowered by fatigue, he claimed a respite for a day or two to recruit his energies, and then resumed work with his accustomed assiduity and cheerfulness.

There was a sort of abnegation—an absence of jealousy—in the character of Harris which, as the rivalry among the divers made them somewhat selfish, gave prominency to his kindness. He met Cameron at the bottom, who led him to the spot where he was working. For a considerable time Cameron had fruitlessly laboured in slinging an awkward timber of some magnitude, when Harris readily stood in his place; and in a few minutes, using Cameron’s breast-line to make the necessary signals, sent the mass on deck. It was thus recorded to Cameron’s credit, but the circumstance, on becoming known, was regarded with so much satisfaction, that honourable mention was made of it in the official journal.

Lance-corporal Jones, a sagacious and indefatigable diver, was the most conspicuous for his success at the ‘Royal George.’ In one day besides slinging innumerable fragments, he sent up nearly three tons of pig-iron ballast. The duty of recovering it, which was excessively trying, was confined to him. So painful and enlarged had his hands become in discharging it, he was at last fairly beaten, and for a few days, took an easier area at the bottom. Meanwhile private Hewitt of the East India Company’s sappers, one of the most spirited divers of his party, succeeded him, and led by mark-lines to the spot, commenced his arduous task. Hard indeed did he labour to follow his predecessor even at a remote distance; but on coming up, he declared it was impossible for any one to work there. It appeared for some time, that Jones in his dogged perseverance, had run his adventurous chances in gaps and gullies over his head in mud, and could only feel the ballast by forcing his hands down among the shingle as far as his strength permitted him to reach.

On another day Jones lodged on deck from his slings a crate containing eighty 12-pounder shot. With singular success he laid the remainder of the kelson open for recovery, and then, sinking deeper, drew from the mud in two hauls nearly 35 feet of the keel. He also weighed a small vessel of six tons burden belonging to a Mr. Cussell, which drove, under a strong current, upon one of the lighters. Becoming entangled, the craft soon filled and foundered, grappling in her descent with the ladder of one of the divers. Grounding at a short distance from the interval between the lighters, Jones was selected to try his skill in rescuing her. At once descending he fixed the chains under her stern, and while attempting to hold them in position by passing them round the mast, the tide turned, the vessel swung about, and the mast fell over the side, burying Jones under her sails and rigging. Perilous as was his situation, his fearlessness and presence of mind never for a moment forsook him. Working from under the canvas and carefully extricating himself from the crowd of ropes that ensnared him, he at last found himself free. A thunderstorm now set in, and obedient to a call from above, he repaired to the deck; but as soon as the squall had subsided he again disappeared and cleverly jamming the slings, the boat was hove up; but she had become a complete wreck and was taken on shore.

Nothing was too venturesome for him to undertake, and the trial of enterprising expedients only whetted his wish to be the chief in their execution. It was desired to ascertain how long a diver could exist in his dress without communication with the external air. Jones offering himself for the experiment, remained ten minutes on the deck of the lighter, cased up as if hermetically sealed, without experiencing any inconvenience. A more dangerous trial followed. A clever man had expressed his conviction, that if the air-pipe were to burst on deck and the diver not instantly drawn up, he would be suffocated. Notwithstanding this scientific speculation, Jones descended, and the pump, by signal, ceased. Five minutes he continued unsupplied from above, but a feeling of pressure having then commenced on his chest, he signalled for air. The knowledge thus acquired, proved that a diver had ample time to be hauled up before the air in his dress should become too vitiated to sustain life.

On going down to examine the progress made in the removal of the ‘Perdita,’ Jones encountered a human body which had been drowned about six weeks. It felt round and hard; was nude to the waist but clothed in trowsers to the ankles. Jones was a long time before he could discover what it was that annoyed him. On tracing with his fingers the course of the spinal column, it felt as if the vertebræ were as distinct as the bars of an iron grating. The thought suddenly possessed him that he was handling the remains of a fellow creature. Horror-stricken at the idea, he rushed up the ladder, and it was a few hours before he could sufficiently master his feelings to redescend. When he did so he went to the spot where the body visited him, and removed the timber he had previously secured. He was, however, no more troubled with this submarine apparition nor with a return of his melancholy emotions. Two days after, Corporal Harris had an interview with a strange substance at the foot of his ladder; but not over-nice in his sensations, he struck his pricker into it. When pulled up to the surface, it turned out to be the mutilated remains that molested the sensitive Jones.

These two non-commissioned officers were now equal to the best divers in Europe, and their daring exploits at the bottom of the sea under a great depth of water, with a strong tide, and traversing a space covered with thick mud, embarrassed by iron and shingle ballast, huge timbers, guns, and a thousand other obstacles, were constantly recorded in the newspapers of the day, and filled the public with wonder.

A sort of fixed intention possessed the minds of the divers this season to bring up the leviathan keel at all hazards. Several therefore shared in the honour of recovering a portion of it. Cameron was the first to burrow under it, and he slung a short piece, which was scarfed, connected with six pairs of copper bolts, measuring one foot six inches long, and also the clamps for securing the false keel. Private James Hewitt of the East India Company’s sappers also recovered a short length. Jago, more successful, sent up six feet; Harris sixteen feet; and Jones came in for the lion’s portion, having slung no less than thirty-four feet six inches. Crowdy also added to the registry of his achievements, the recovery of a guinea; and Cleghorn had the good fortune to send up an 18-pounder iron gun, the only one disembowelled from the deep this summer.

A few accidents occurred during the season, only one of which was serious. Corporal Jones, as usual, fell in for his share of them. Slinging, on one occasion, five pigs of ballast, he jumped upon the chains to tighten the load and secure it from slipping. In so doing the weight whirled round and imparted a rotating motion to the bull rope to which the chains were attached. The rope coming in contact with his air-pipe and life-line twined several times round them, and interrupted, in a measure, the channels of communication. To avert the danger which threatened, Jones threw himself on his back, declining the slow process of climbing his ladder; and permitting the air in proper quantity to take vent through the escape valve, passed motionless through the water, except the simple action of his hand occasionally to rectify his balance. His upward flight was something like the downward pitch of a bird, which, laying its wings on the air, descends with scarcely a flutter to the ground. Quickly hauled on board, it was not without much difficulty he was extricated from the entanglement in which his zeal had unwittingly involved him. At another time, being very wet, he was compelled to re-ascend to ascertain the cause of the inconvenience. On examining his helmet, the escape valve was found to be open owing to the presence of a small stone in the aperture, which opposed the true action of the valve and admitted water into his dress in a small but unchecked stream.

Private John Williams early in the season tore his hands very severely in attempting to sling a mass of the wreck with jagged surfaces and broken bolts. After a few days' rest, he re-appeared in his submarine habit and dived as before; but, from excessive pain in the ears, was again _hors-de-combat_ until the 11th July; when, on re-descending, he was grievously injured by the bursting of his air-pipe a few inches above the water. This casualty was indicated by a loud hissing noise on deck. A few seconds elapsed before the rupture could be traced and the opening temporarily stopped. With great alertness he was drawn up; and on being relieved of his helmet presented a frightful appearance. His face and neck were much swollen and very livid, blood was flowing profusely from his mouth and ears, his eyes were closed and protruding, and on being laid on deck, he retched a quantity of clotted gore. Though partially suffocated he possessed sufficient sensibility to speak of the mishap. A sudden shock, it seems, struck him motionless, and then followed a tremendous pressure as if he were being crushed to death. A month in Haslar hospital restored him to health, and on returning to the wreck, he at once re-commenced the laborious occupation of diving. He was quite as venturesome and zealous as before, but was again soon obliged to leave off, having resumed the duty at too early a period of his convalescence.

A dangerous but curious incident occurred this summer between corporal Jones and private Girvan—two rival divers, who in a moment of irritation engaged in a conflict at the bottom of the sea, having both got hold of the same floor timber of the wreck which neither would yield to the other.[415] Jones at length fearful of a collision with Girvan, he being a powerful man, made his bull-rope fast and attempted to escape by it; but before he could do so, Girvan seized him by the legs and tried to draw him down. A scuffle ensued, and Jones succeeding in extricating his legs from the grasp of his antagonist, took a firmer hold of the bull-rope and kicked at Girvan several times with all the strength his suspended position permitted. One of the kicks broke an eye or lens of Girvan’s helmet, and as water instantly rushed into his dress, he was likely to have been drowned, had he not at once been hauled on board. Two or three days in Haslar hospital, however, completely cured him of the injuries he thus sustained, and these two submarine combatants ever afterwards carried on their duties with the greatest cordiality.

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Footnote 415:

‘United Service Journal,’ iii. 1843, p. 139.

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As artificers, lance-corporal Thompson and private Penman were skilful and diligent. Lance-corporal Rae and private Thomas Smith were in charge of the gunpowder and voltaic battery, and made all the mining preparations for explosion. Nearly four tons and a quarter of powder were fired in numerous small charges from 18 to 170 lbs., which will afford some idea of the importance of the duty.[416]

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Footnote 416:

Much of the information given about the wreck of the ‘Royal
George,’ has been gleaned from the ‘Hampshire Telegraph,’ ‘Army
and Navy Register,’ and the ‘Manuscript Journal of the
Operations.’

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General Pasley in his official report, besides highly commending the men above named, wrote in praise of the general good conduct of the entire detachment and of its useful and active services. Corporal Blaik, who assisted in the superintendence of the whole of the workmen in one of the two mooring lighters, the General alluded to as a non-commissioned officer of much merit and strict integrity. His courteous behaviour, too, elicited the respect of every man employed, and attracted the favourable notice of many officers and gentlemen who visited the operations.[417]

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Footnote 417:

Afterwards a sergeant. Was generally employed in duties of
importance far exceeding his rank, at the Cape of Good Hope, Isle
of France, and Hong-Kong. In 1847 he was present in the expedition
to Canton, blew up the Zigzag Fort, and otherwise conspicuously
distinguished himself. He died at Hong-Kong, after five years'
service there, in 1848. Blaik had been brought up at the royal
military asylum, Chelsea.

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Early in September, at the request of the Trinity corporation, Colonel Sir Frederick Smith, director of the royal engineer establishment, undertook to demolish two barges formerly used as the foundations of beacons at Blyth Sand, Sheerness. For this purpose he sent Lieutenant Bourchier, R.E., sergeant-major Jenkin Jones and seven men of the corps to the spot in the ‘Beaconry,’ one of the Trinity steamers. A number of small charges deposited in tin cases were fixed at low water, and fired to shake the wrecks. By the explosion of a large charge on the 3rd September, one barge was completely destroyed and dispersed; and on the 5th, by the firing of a still greater charge, the other barge shared the fate of its consort. Masses of the wreck on the first explosion were projected to a height of about 200 feet, and about 400 feet from the scene of operations, while at the same time a column of water, eighty feet high, was forced into the air. On the second occasion, Sir Thomas Willshire, the commandant of Chatham garrison, and Captain Welbank, chairman of the Trinity corporation, were present, but the effect was less striking, although a much greater quantity of powder was used, in consequence of there being at the moment twenty feet of superincumbent water pressing on the barge. Captain Welbank personally complimented the “indefatigable” sergeant-major for his success, and the corporation of Trinity House afterwards, with the permission of the Master-General, presented him with a silver-gilt snuff-box to commemorate the assistance he rendered in the dispersion of the wrecks.[418]

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Footnote 418:

Four years previously, August, 1838, sergeant-major Jones was
presented with a silver tankard, “by the sergeants of Chatham
garrison, in testimony of their gratitude for the undeviating
attention he evinced in superintending the formation of a military
swimming-bath at that station.”

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1842.

Draft to Canada—Company recalled from thence—Its services and
movements—Its character—Labours of colour-sergeant Lanyon—Increase
to Gibraltar—Reduction in the corps—Irish survey completed; force
employed in its prosecution—Reasons for conducting it under
military rule—Economy of superintendence by sappers—Their
employments—Sergeants West, Doull, Spalding, Keville—Corporals
George Newman, Andrew Duncan—Staff appointments to the survey
companies—Dangers—Hardships—Average strength of sapper force
employed—Casualties—Kindness of the Irish—Gradual transfer of
sappers for the English survey—Distribution; Southampton.

The company in Canada which accompanied the troops to that province on the occasion of the unsettled state of affairs on the American frontier, was increased to a full company by the arrival of thirteen men on the 8th July, 1842.

Scarcely had the party landed before the company itself was recalled, and rejoined the corps at Woolwich on the 31st October, 1842. During its four years' service on the frontier, the total of the company, with its reinforcement, counted ninety-nine of all ranks, and its casualties only amounted to eight men invalided, three discharged, and five deserted. Not a death was reported. From time to time it was stationed at Quebec, Fort Mississaqua near the Falls of Niagara, St. Helen’s Island, St. John’s, and Fort Lennox, Isle aux Noix. These were its several head-quarters, and as the company was removed from one to the other, parties were detached for service to each of the other stations, and also to Amherstburgh. In repairing and improving the defences at Mississaqua and Isle aux Noix they were found of great advantage. At the other stations they were no less usefully occupied in barrack repairs and other contingent services.

From Amherstburgh the detachment rejoined the company in 1840. Whilst the latter was at St. Helen’s and afterwards at St. John’s, the men were exercised during the summer months in pontooning with bridges of Colonel Blanshard’s construction, which had been stored at Chambly until 1840. The pontoons were found to travel well on bad roads, but the breadth of the rivers in Canada did not permit of their being often used as bridges.

After the removal of the company, Colonel Oldfield, the commanding royal engineer, thus wrote of it: “The discipline of the company was not relaxed by its four summers in Canada. It had suffered the inconvenience of several times changing its captain, but it was nevertheless maintained in good order and regular conduct. Lieutenant W. C. Roberts, R.E., however, was constantly with it, to whom and colour-sergeant Lanyon[419] and the non-commissioned officers, much credit is due. The desertions only amounted to six, although the company was on the frontier in daily communication with the United States. Of these six, one returned the following morning; a second would have done so but he feared the jeers of his comrades; and the other four found when too late the falsity of the inducements which had attracted them to the States, and would gladly have come back could they have done so.” And the Colonel then concludes, “The advantages enjoyed by well-behaved men, and the _esprit de corps_ which has always existed in the sappers have been found to render desertion rare, even when exposed to greater temptation than usually falls to the lot of other soldiers.”

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Footnote 419:

Ante, pp. 307-310. At the new barracks built for the dragoons at
Niagara, sergeant Lanyon successfully constructed a circular well,
about thirty feet deep, after two or three contractors had
attempted it and failed. He laboured himself in laying the stones
up to his hips in water, and afforded ample work for a strong
party above in preparing the stones for placement, and pumping up
the water. The service was effected under many difficulties and
hazards, and while the weather was intensely cold. As an instance
of his great strength it may be remarked, that six men complained
to him of the heavy task they were subjected to in removing
timbers about 15 feet long and 12 inches square for constructing a
stockade at Fort Mississaqua. Lanyon made no observation, but
shouldered one of the unwieldy logs, and, to the amazement of the
grumblers, carried it to the spot unassisted.

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In the meantime a second company had been removed to Gibraltar in the ‘Alban’ steamer under Lieutenant Theodosius Webb, R.E., and landed on the 6th July, 1842. This augmentation to the corps at that fortress was occasioned by the difficulty felt in procuring a sufficient number of mechanics for the works; and to meet the emergency, the company in Canada was recalled, as in both provinces works of considerable magnitude had been carried on by civil workmen, who could at all times be more easily engaged in a country receiving continual influxes by immigration, than in a confined fortress like Gibraltar with a limited population.

On the return of the Niger expedition in November, to which eight rank and file had been attached, the establishment of the corps was reduced from 1,298 to 1,290 of all ranks.

The survey of Ireland upon the 6-inch scale was virtually completed in December of this year, terminating with Bantry and the neighbourhood of Skibbereen. The directing force in that great national work was divided into three districts in charge of three captains of royal engineers in the country; and there was also a head-quarter office for the combination and examination of the work, correspondence, engraving, printing, &c., in charge of a fourth captain. To each of these districts the survey companies were attached in relative proportion to the varied requirements and contingencies of the service, and adapted to the many modifications which particular local circumstances frequently rendered imperative. A staff of non-commissioned officers and men was also stationed at the head-quarter office, and discharged duties of trust and importance.

In framing his instructions for the execution of the Irish survey, Colonel Colby had to reject his old opinions formed from circumscribed examples of small surveys, and to encounter all the prejudices which had been fixed in the minds of practical men. The experience of these parties did not extend beyond the surveys of estates of limited space, performed without hurry and with few assistants. Colonel Colby, on the other hand, was to survey rapidly a large country, with much more accuracy. The two modes were therefore so entirely different, that it took less time to train for its performance those who had no prejudice, and who had been brought up by military discipline to obey, than to endeavour to combine a heterogeneous mass of local surveyors fettered by preconceived notions and conceits, deficient in habits of accuracy and subordination, and who could not be obtained in sufficient numbers to form any material proportion of the force. Hence the survey of Ireland became essentially military in its organization and control, the officers of engineers being the directors of large parties, and the non-commissioned officers the subordinate directors of small parties.

In the later years of the Irish survey, however, the superintendence by the sappers became of much consequence and its advantages very appreciable in the reduction of expense. For the year 1827, the outlay for the survey was above 37,000_l._, at which period the sum paid to the officers was more than one-third of the whole amount; but in 1841, when the expenditure was more than doubled, the amount for superintendence had been reduced to a twelfth part of the total expenditure.[420]

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Footnote 420:

‘Second Report Army and Ordnance Expenditure,’ 1849, p. 500. To
such an extent was the diminution in the number of the officers
subsequently carried, that in 1849 the amount of expense incurred
by the superintendence of officers was reduced to one
twenty-second part of the total expenditure; therefore by the more
general employment of sappers in the direction of the work, the
amount of superintendence was reduced from one-third and
one-fourth, to one twenty-second part.

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The general employment of the sappers and miners in this great national work embraced the whole range of the scheme for its accomplishment, and many non-commissioned officers and men trained in this school became superior observers, surveyors, draughtsmen, levellers, contourers, and examiners. Among so many who distinguished themselves it would be almost invidious to name any; but there were a few so conspicuous for energy of character, efficiency of service, and attainments, that to omit them would be a dereliction no scruples could justify. Their names are subjoined:—

Colour-sergeant John West celebrated as an engraver. In 1833, the Master-General, Sir James Kempt, pointed out his name on the engraving of the index map of Londonderry to His Majesty William IV. in terms of commendation; and the Master-General, while West was yet a second-corporal, promoted him to be supernumerary-sergeant, with the pay of the rank. Most of the index maps of the counties of Ireland were executed by him, and a writer in the United Service Journal[421] complimented him by saying that the maps already completed by him were as superior to the famous _Carte des Chasses_ as the latter was to the recondite productions of Kitchen, the geographer. His also was the master hand that executed the city sheet of Dublin, and his name is associated with many other maps of great national importance. The geological map of Ireland, 1839, engraved for the Railway Commissioners, was executed by him; and in all his works, which are many, he has displayed consummate skill, neatness, rigid accuracy, and beauty both of outline and topography. In October, 1846, he was pensioned at 1_s._ 10_d._ a-day, and received the gratuity and medal for his meritorious services. He is now employed at the ordnance survey office, Dublin, and continues to gain admiration for the excellency of his maps.

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Footnote 421:

ii., 1835, p. 154.

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Sergeant Alexander Doull was enlisted in 1813. After serving a station in the West Indies, he was removed to Chatham. There on the plan of ‘Cobbett’s Grammar,’ he commenced publishing letters to his son on “Geometry,” but after the second number appeared, he relinquished the undertaking. In 1825 he joined the survey companies, and was the chief non-commissioned officer at the base of Magilligan. He was a superior mathematical surveyor and draughtsman, and his advice in difficult survey questions was frequently followed and never without success. Between 1828 and 1833 he had charge of a 12-inch theodolite, observing for the secondary and minor triangulation of one of the districts, and was the first non-commissioned officer of sappers, it is believed, who used the instrument bearing that designation. In July, 1834, while employed in the revision of the work in the neighbourhood of Rathmelton, he introduced a system of surveying similar to traverse-sailing in navigation, which effected a considerable saving of time in the progress of the work, and elicited the approbation of Colonel Colby. While on the duty he invented a plotting-scale,[422] and subsequently a reflecting instrument,[423] both simple and ingenious in construction. After a service of twenty-three years, he was discharged in January, 1838. When the tithe commutation survey was thrown into the hands of contractors, Doull got portions of the work to perform, and his maps were referred to in terms of high commendation by Edwin Chadwick, Esq.[424] Among several towns that he surveyed, one was Woolwich, the map of which, dedicated to Lord Bloomfield, was published by him in 1843. In the proposed North Kent Railway, Mr. Doull was assistant-engineer to Mr. Vignoles, and he planned a bridge of three arches, having a roadway at one side and a double line of rails at the other, with an ornamental screened passage between, to span the Medway where the new bridge recently constructed, connects Strood and Rochester; which plan, had the proposed railway not been superseded by a rival line, would have secured an enduring fame for the designer. This was the opinion of Mr. Vignoles and Sir Charles Pasley. Afterwards when the competing companies were preparing their respective projects, Mr. Doull represented the engineering difficulties of the opposing scheme in a pamphlet under the signature of “Calculus.” In this his military knowledge and experience were well exhibited, inasmuch as he showed how the fortifications at Chatham would be injured by the adoption of that line; and the railway consequently, on account of this and other influences, has never been prolonged so as to interfere with the defences. A few years afterwards he published a small work entitled, “Railway Hints and Railway Legislation,” which obtained for him, from the South-Eastern Railway Company—the one he so perseveringly opposed—the situation of assistant-engineer to the line. More recently he issued a pamphlet on the subject of a railway in America,[425] which for its boldness and lucidity gained for him the praise of a rising literary genius in the royal engineers.[426] His last pamphlet on the subject of opening a north-west passage between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, a distance of 2,500 miles, is more daring, and evinces more pretension and merit than any of his previous literary efforts. Mr. Doull is also known as the inventor of several improvements of the permanent way of railways,[427] and is a member both of the Society of Civil Engineers and the Society of Arts.

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Footnote 422:

Frome’s ‘Surveying,’ 1840, p. 40. Simms' ‘Math. Inst.,’ 1st edit.

Footnote 423:

Frome’s ‘Surveying,’ 1840, p. 44.

Footnote 424:

‘British Companion and Almanack,’ 1843, p. 38.

Footnote 425:

First published in a series of letters to the ‘Morning Chronicle,’
and then collected, with additional matter, in a pamphlet.

Footnote 426:

Synges’s ‘Great Britain—one Empire.’

Footnote 427:

These he patented in November, 1851. A description of the
improvements, with sixteen illustrations, is given in the ‘Civil
Engineer and Architects’ Journal,' xv., pp. 164, 165.

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Serjeant Robert Spalding was for many years employed on the survey of Ireland, from which, on account of his acquirements, he was removed to Chatham to be instructor of surveying to the young sappers. To assist him in the duty he published a small manual for the use of the students. It was not an elaborate effort, but one which detailed with freedom and simplicity the principles of the science. In 1834 he was appointed clerk of works at the Gambia, where his vigorous intellect and robust health singled him out for varied colonial employment, and his merits and exertions frequently made him the subject of official encomium. Five years he spent in that baneful and exhausting climate, and in 1840, just as he was about to sail for England, the fever seized him, and in a few days he died. In his early career as a bugler he was present in much active service, and was engaged at Vittoria, San Sebastian, Bidassoa, Nivelle, Nive, Orthes, and Toulouse.

Sergeant Edward Keville was a very fair and diligent artist. He engraved the index map of the county of Louth, and assisted in the general engraving work at the ordnance survey office in Dublin. In January, 1846, he was pensioned at 1_s._ 10½_d._ a day, and obtained re-employment in the same office in which he had spent the greatest part of his military career.

Second-corporal George Newman was eminent as a draughtsman, and the unerring fineness and truthfulness of his lines and points were the more remarkable, as he was an unusually large man of great bodily weight. He died at Killarney in 1841.

Lance-corporal Andrew Duncan was a skilful and ingenious artificer. His simple contrivance for making the chains, known by the name of “Gunter’s chains,” is one proof of his success as an inventor. Those delicate measures, in which the greatest accuracy is required, have by Duncan’s process been made for the last twelve years by a labourer unused to any mechanical occupation, with an exactitude that admits of no question. The apparatus is in daily use in the survey department at Southampton, and the chains required for the service can be made by its application with great facility and rapidity. He was discharged at Dublin in September, 1843, and is now working as a superior artizan in the proof department of the royal arsenal.

Equally distinguished were sergeants William Young, William Campbell, and Andrew Bay, and privates Charles Holland and Patrick Hogan, but as their names and qualifications will be found connected with particular duties in the following pages, further allusion to them in this place is unnecessary.

Colonel Colby in his closing official report, spoke of the valuable aid which he had received from the royal sappers and miners in carrying on the survey, and as a mark of consideration for their merits, and with the view of retaining in confidential situations the non-commissioned officers who by their integrity and talents had rendered themselves so useful and essential, he recommended the permanent appointment of quartermaster-sergeant to be awarded to the survey companies; but this honour so ably urged was, from economical reasons, not conceded.

Seventeen years had the sappers and miners been employed on the general survey and had travelled all over Ireland. They were alike in cities and in wastes, on mountain heights and in wild ravines, had traversed arid land and marshy soil, wading through streams and tracts of quagmire in the prosecution of their duties. To every vicissitude of weather they were exposed, and in storms at high altitudes subjected to personal disaster and peril. Frequently they were placed in positions of imminent danger in surveying bogs and moors, precipitous mountain faces, and craggy rocks and coasts. Boating excursions too were not without their difficulties and hazards in gaining islands almost unapproachable, and bluff isolated rocks and islets, often through quicksand and the low channels of broad sandy bays and inlets of the sea, where the tide from its strength and rapidity precluded escape unless by the exercise of extreme caution and vigilance, or by the aid of boats.

Two melancholy instances of drowning occurred in these services: both were privates,—William Bennie and Joseph Maxwell; the former by the upsetting of a boat while he was employed in surveying the islands of Loch Strangford, and the latter at Valentia Island. This island consisted of projecting rocks very difficult of access, and when private Maxwell was engaged in the very last act of finishing the survey a surf swept him off the rock. A lad named Conway, his labourer, was borne away by the same wave. The devoted private had been immersed in a previous wave by which his note-book was lost, and while stooping with anxiety, to see if he could recover it, another furious wave dashed up the point and carried him into the sea.[428]

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Footnote 428:

In consideration of this event, the Board of Ordnance granted his
widow a donation of 20_l._; and she was, moreover, assisted by a
very handsome subscription from the officers and men of the
district in which her husband had served.

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Hardship and toil were the common incidents of their everyday routine, for on mountain duty theirs was a career of trial and vicissitude. Comforts they had none, and what with the want of accommodation and amusement in a wild country, on a dizzy height, theirs was not an enviable situation. Covered only by a canvas tent or marquee they were barely closed in from the biting cold and the raging storm; and repeatedly tents, stores, and all, have been swept away by the wind or consumed by fire, while the hardy tenants, left on the bleak hill top, or the open heath, have remained for days together half naked and unsheltered. Such was their discipline and such their spirit, they continued to labour protected only by their great coats—if haply they escaped destruction—till, renewed with tents or huts, they pitched again their solitary dwellings far away on the height or the moor.

Even on the less exposed employments of the survey, the men were subjected to many discomforts and fatigues. The marching was harassing; miles to and from work were daily tramped, frequently in a drenching rain; and in this kind of weather soaked to the skin, they barely permitted their work to be interrupted. Night after night for two or three weeks together, have these men returned to their quarters dripping wet; and when, in frosty weather, their clothes have frozen on their backs, the removal of boots and trousers have only been accomplished by immersing the legs in warm water.

The average strength of the three companies set apart for the survey, for each year from 1825 to 1842, is subjoined:—

Least Greatest Average for each
Strength. Strength. 12 Months.
1825 61 109 86
1826 106 134 115
1827 129 220 177
1828 232 259 248
1829 234 257 242
1830 233 258 247
1831 248 268 255
1832 230 256 242
1833 211 231 220
1834 204 215 209
1835 199 204 201
1836 195 198 196
1837 191 213 199
1838 208 217 213
1839 199 220 208
1840 183 213 197
1841 87 179 142
1842 31 74 50

During the above period the casualties by death in Ireland only amounted to twenty-nine of all ranks, proving the general healthiness of their occupation. Of these, three were untimely: two by drowning as shown in a preceding paragraph, and one killed—private John Crockett—by falling from a car while proceeding on duty from Leixlip to Chapelizod.

Here it should be noted that the sappers, in the prosecution of their duty, necessarily mixed with all descriptions of society, and were invariably treated with respect, civility, and hospitality. The spirit of agrarianism, the bigotry of religion, or the natural irritable temperament of the people, were seldom evinced against the companies in abuse or conflict.

As the work was drawing to a close the sappers by rapid removals augmented the force employed in the survey of Great Britain, so that at the termination of 1841 there were no less than 143 men chiefly in the northern counties of England, and thirty-four carrying on the triangulation of Scotland, leaving for the residual work of the Irish survey only eighty-seven men of all ranks.

In June, 1842, the payment of the companies in England commenced on a system of consolidating the detachments into a series of vouchers prepared for their respective companies. At that time the force in Ireland, left for the revisionary survey of Dublin and the northern counties and for the engraving office at Mountjoy, reached a total of six sergeants and forty-one rank and file; while the absorbing work of the survey of Great Britain had on its rolls a strength of 217 of all ranks. Southampton, in consequence of the destruction of the map office at the Tower of London by fire, was established as the head-quarters of the survey companies; and in the institution formerly known as the royal military asylum for the orphan daughters of soldiers, are now carried on those scientific and extensive duties which regulate with such beautiful accuracy and order, the whole system of the national survey.

1843.

Falkland Islands; services of the detachment there—Exploration
trips—Seat of government changed—Turner’s stream—Bull
fight—Round Down Cliff, near Dover—Boundary line in North
America—Sergeant-major Forbes—Operations for removing the wreck of
the ‘Royal George’—Exertions of the party—Private Girvan—Sagacity
of corporal Jones—Success of the divers—Exertions to recover the
missing guns—Harris’s nest—His district pardonably invaded—Wreck
of the ‘Edgar,’ and corporal Jones—Power of water to convey
sound—Girvan at the ‘Edgar’—An accident—Cessation of the
work—Conduct of the detachment employed in it—Sir George
Murray’s commendation—Longitude of Valentia—Rebellion in
Ireland—Colour-sergeant Lanyon explores the passages under Dublin
Castle—Fever at Bermuda—Burning of the ‘Missouri’ steamer at
Gibraltar—Hong-Kong—Inspection at Woolwich by the Grand Duke
Michael of Russia—Percussion carbine and accoutrements.

The settlement at Port Louis, in the Falkland Islands, was daily growing into importance, and works applicable to every conceivable emergency were executed. This year the old government-house was thoroughly repaired, and a new substantial barrack for the detachment erected. Unlike the other buildings of the colony, the foundation-stone was laid by the Governor with the usual ceremony, and in a chamber was placed a bottle of English coins of the reign of Queen Victoria. There were also built houses for baking, cooking, and to hold boats. A butcher’s shop was likewise run up, and cottages erected for the guachos and their major-domo, as well as a small calf house on Long Island and a large wooden peat-house at Town Moss. To add to the variety of their employment the sappers repaired the pass-house, put the pinnace in fine sailing condition, and constructed a jetty of rough stones for boats. Other services of less note but equally necessary were performed, such as quarrying stone, building a sod-wall to enclose a space for garden purposes, stacking peat for the winter, and removing stores and provisions from the newly-arrived ships, &c.

Parties were detached on exploring services to North Camp and Mare Harbour. In both places wild cattle abounded and troops of horses made no attempt to scamper away. On one excursion sergeant Hearnden and corporal Watts accompanied Mr. Robinson to Port St. Salvador in the face of a snow-storm, opposed by a cutting wind. Several wild horses and a herd of savage bulls were met in the trip; and geese, too, crossed their track in vast numbers, merely waddling out of the way to prevent the horsemen crushing them. Night at length spread over them. To return in such weather was impossible; and looking about they discovered a heap of stones, which turned out to be a sealer’s hut. The ribs of a whale were its rafters and turf and stones served the purpose of tiles. Leashing their horses and fastening them in a grassy district some four miles from the hut, Hearnden at once repaired the roof of the desolate hermitage, and Mr. Robinson with his companions crept into it through a small aperture on their hands and knees. Here they passed a bitter night; and so intense was the cold that four of the five dogs taken with them perished. Next day they returned to the settlement with less appearance of suffering than cheerfulness, and with a heavy supply of brent and upland geese and some wild rabbits.

Notwithstanding the inclement weather, the health of the detachment continued to be robust. Fourteen months they had been at the Falkland Islands without a doctor; but in March one was added to the settlement from the ‘Philomel.’

After having erected comfortable residences for nearly the whole of the official establishment, the seat of government, by orders from the Colonial Office, was removed to Port William. The proclamation for this purpose was read to the inhabitants of Port Louis by sergeant Hearnden on the 18th August, 1843. Jackson’s Harbour was selected by the Lieutenant-Governor for the future settlement. Soon after, the detachment marched overland to the spot, and continued there during the remainder of the year—except when temporary service required their presence at Port Louis—preparing the location for the Governor and the official officers. A sod-hut was soon run up for one of the married families, and the rest were tented on boggy ground about twenty yards from the river. In stormy weather the ground, as if moving on a quicksand, would heave with the fury of the wind; and what with the whistling of the gale through the cordage, the flapping of the tents, and the roaring of the waves, the men at night were scarcely free from the hallucination of fancying themselves at sea.

Their early operations at Jackson’s Harbour were very harassing, much of the material required for building having to be brought from a distance; but before the close of the year a two-roomed wooden cottage was erected with some convenient outhouses for domestic purposes. A portable house for the surveyor was also constructed, and one built in Mare Harbour. A rough jetty of planks, piles, and casks was likewise made, and the high grass for miles about the settlement was burnt down. This service was not accomplished without difficulty, for the continual rains having saturated both grass and ground, prevented the spreading of the flames, and required unceasing efforts for more than a month to insure eventual success.

While out on this duty sergeant Hearnden discovered a good ford for horses about 150 yards from Turner’s Stream, and marked the spot by a pile of stones, the summit of which was on a level with high-water mark. Turner’s Stream was named in compliment to a private of that name, who carried the Governor in his journeys over the shallow waters and lagoons that intersected his track.

Much discomfort and some privation were experienced by the men in the first months of their encampment at Jackson’s Harbour. To get meat they usually travelled to Port Harriet, or some eight or nine miles from the location. The bulls they shot were always cut up on the spot and their several parts deposited under stones till required for use at the camp. In these expeditions the bulls were frequently seen in herds and wild horses in troops, sometimes as many as fifteen in a group. Once the camp was attacked by a number of wild horses and four savage bulls. The party, about four in number, were at breakfast at the time they approached, and, at once seizing their loaded rifles, ran out of the tent to meet them. Two of the bulls only, stood their ground; and though struck by two bullets, rushed on furiously, and forced the party to beat a hasty retreat. A position was rapidly taken up among some barrels and timber, under cover of which the men were reloading; but the onslaught of the bulls was so impetuous that the operation was interrupted and the party driven into the tents. One of the animals now trotted off; but the other, still pursuing, bolted after the men into the marquee. A ball from private Biggs’s rifle fortunately stopped his career, and, turning round, the infuriated animal tore up the tent, committed great havoc through the camp, and made a plunge at private Yates, who dexterously stepped aside, and, firing, shot the bull in the head, and the combat ceased.

Lance-corporal John Rae and private Thomas Smith were employed in January under Lieutenant G. R. Hutchinson, R.E., in the demolition and removal by blasting of a portion of the Round Down Cliff, near Dover, for the purpose of continuing the South Eastern Railway in an open line, supported by a sea-wall, up to the mouth of Shakspeare Tunnel. The summit of the cliff was about 380 feet above high-water mark, and 70 feet above that of Shakspeare Cliff. The two sappers had the executive superintendence of the mines, the placement of the charges, and various duties connected with the management of the voltaic apparatus and wires. No less than 180 barrels of gunpowder were expended in the operation; and the explosion by electric galvanism brought down, in one stupendous fall, a mass of chalk—about 400,000 cubic yards—which covered a space of 15½ acres, varying in depth from 15 to 25 feet, and saved the South Eastern Railway Company the sum of 7,000_l._