History of the Royal Regiment of Artillery, Vol. 1. Duncan Francis

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

      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 y^e aprons, beds, and coynes belonging to their Majesties' Traynes of Artillery at y^e 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 СКАЧАТЬ