1798-1799.
Contribution of corps to the State—Detachment with expedition to maritime Flanders—Destruction of the Bruges canal—Battle near Ostend—Draft to West Indies—Capture of Surinam—St. Domingo evacuated—Expedition to Minorca—Conduct of detachment while serving there—Composition of detachments for foreign service—Parties to Sevenoaks and Harwich—Mission to Turkey—Its movements and services—Special detachment to Gibraltar to construct a cistern for the Navy—Detachment with the expedition to Holland—Its services—Origin of the Royal Staff Corps.
France, having but little occupation for her armies, turned her attention to England and matured arrangements on a scale of surpassing magnitude for its invasion. In this country all ranks and orders of men were affected by the threat; and such was the spirit of military ardour it induced, that corps of volunteers were rapidly embodied to meet the exigency of the times. Throughout the kingdom the wealthy contributed largely to assist the measures for defence; and the army, influenced by the popular feeling, joined in the demonstration and tendered subscriptions to the Government to aid in the realization of its purposes. The corps of military artificers also, prompted as well by a desire to relieve the general burden of the nation as from gratitude to the King for the recent addition to their pay, gave, in February, a contribution of three days' pay to the Treasury, to be applied as should be considered best for the defence of the state.[[106]] In acknowledging the letter conveying the gift, General Morse, the Colonel-Commandant, writes under date of 13th February, “their loyal and laudable offer has afforded me great satisfaction.”
An expedition under Major-General Coote was fitted out in May, at Margate, for service against maritime Flanders. The design of the enterprise was to destroy the works and sluices of the Bruges canal near Ostend, and to cripple the internal navigation. To effect these services a detachment of the corps, experienced in mining, from the Chatham and Plymouth companies,[[107]] under Lieutenant Brownrigg, royal engineers, was attached to the force and sailed from Margate on the 14th May on board H.M.S. ‘Expedition,’ in which was General Coote himself.
The force disembarked in three divisions on the 19th May, and the artificers, who had been instructed on board ship by Lieutenant Brownrigg in the duties required of them, accompanied the first division, provided with intrenching tools, wooden petards, &c. On landing, the troops took possession of the forts that protected the sluices, in order that the intended work of destruction might be carried on successfully. The artificers, with a company from the 23rd regiment and a detachment of royal artillery, commenced the appointed work, and in about four hours laid the locks, gates, and sluices in ruins, burned several gun-boats, and effected an explosion in the basin of the canal that almost demolished it, and drained it dry. In this service the exertions and efficiency of the party may be inferred from the praises bestowed by General Coote upon Lieutenant Brownrigg.[[108]]
Having thus accomplished the object of the expedition the troops were ordered to re-embark. At the appointed hour the weather had become boisterous, and the violence of the surf rendered it impracticable to reach the shipping. A position was, therefore, taken up on the sand-hills before Ostend, which was strengthened in the night by the military artificers with intrenchments suitable to the occasion; but on the 20th, the British, hemmed in by a much stronger force, were compelled, after an obstinate contest, to surrender themselves prisoners of war. The casualties in the detachment were—killed, two; wounded, five; and thirteen, including the wounded, taken prisoners.[[109]] The survivors returned to England, and rejoined their companies in March, 1799.
In the West Indies the Caribbean company was reduced at the end of the previous year by fever to thirty-three men, who were distributed in ones and twos through different districts of the conquered islands. None could be spared for active duty without detriment to other services equally important; and several expeditions were, therefore, undertaken without a military artificer accompanying them. In some measure to supply the numerous vacancies that had occurred, one corporal and twenty-nine privates embarked in February on board the ‘Union’ transport under Lieutenant T. R. I’Ans, R.E.; and on their arrival the company was increased to fifty-seven non-commissioned officers and men.
On the 20th August, the expedition under Lieut.-General Trigge, which included three corporals and eleven men of Lieutenant-Colonel Shipley’s company, captured the Dutch settlement of Surinam, which surrendered without resistance. One artificer, John Nancarrow, mason, was accidentally drowned on this service; and this was the only casualty that occurred to the expedition.
At St. Domingo the detachment fast wasted away on account of the arduous services of the island and the diseases of the climate; and on the evacuation of the place in September only two of the company, with Lieutenant H. Morshead, of the corps,[[110]] survived to embark with the troops. Of the original company, which numbered forty-seven on its arrival in May, 1796, thirty-six died, seven were invalided, two deserted, and the remaining two[[111]] were sent to do duty at Jamaica.
In November three sergeants, four corporals, fifty-five artificers, three labourers, and one drummer, total, sixty-six, formed from the party employed in Portugal, and from artificers of the companies at Gibraltar, were sent with the force under General Charles Stuart against Minorca. On landing, the Spaniards, without offering any resistance, retired into the town of Citadella, which possessed a sort of fortified enceinte. A battery for a few field-pieces was constructed against it in the night by the artificers under Captain D’Arcy, royal engineers, and after firing a few shots the place surrendered on the 15th November. Soon after the capitulation, the detachment was very much dispersed through the island, employed on various defensive works; and on Sir Charles Stuart quitting it, the military artificers remained to restore the fortifications. In January, 1801, the detachment was denominated the Minorca company; but in August, 1802, it was withdrawn, and being disbanded, the men were distributed among the companies of the corps at home and at Gibraltar.
During their stay in Minorca it seems that their conduct was not above reproach, nor their services on the works as useful as desired. Sir Charles Pasley has recorded that they were found to be very inefficient, and ascribes it to their having been selected for the expedition from the Gibraltar companies, which, from circumstances, were for a number of years the worst in the corps.[[112]] Here, however, it is proper to add, that their inefficiency did not arise from their want of ability and skill as mechanics,[[113]] but from their general irregular behaviour occasioned chiefly by intemperance. Writing of the Gibraltar companies, Sir Augustus de Butts, in a letter dated 11th July, 1848, says:—“I cannot speak so confidently of their general conduct, but on the works, under the eye of their officers, they behaved well, and were very good artificers, particularly the non-commissioned officers.”
On the composition of detachments for foreign duty, Sir Charles Pasley has made some observations which may not inappropriately be introduced here. “When any expedition,” he writes, “was to be undertaken, the number of royal military artificers required were in all cases, selected by small detachments out of the stationary companies; and as the commanding engineers at the several fixed stations were naturally averse to parting with their best men, the detachments thus formed for field service, were generally composed of the stupidest and least trustworthy non-commissioned officers, and of the most ignorant, profligate, and abandoned of the privates.”[[114]] This was, it would appear, the general rule, but exceptions may fairly be taken in favour of the detachments forwarded to Toulon, St. Domingo, Halifax, and Ostend, as well as to some of the reinforcements sent to the Caribbee islands. These detachments were not formed of bad men weeded from the different companies, but of non-commissioned officers and privates whose qualifications and utility as mechanics were unquestionable, and whose conduct was approved.
In April and May a corporal and party of carpenters of the Woolwich company were detached to Sevenoaks, and there built temporary wooden barracks for a company of artillery; a second party was employed in repairing Falmouth Castle from May to November; and in the latter month two carpenters and two masons, all privates, were sent to superintend workmen in the erection of fortifications and temporary defences at different places from Chelmsford to Harwich, in which duty they continued until April 1800.
Napoleon, by a series of successes, had gained a firm footing in Egypt, and the subjugation of India was contemplated by the French Directory. As well to thwart the intention, as to stimulate the Turks, the British Government determined to send a military mission to the dominions of the Sultan, to cooperate with the Ottoman army in their hostile movements against the French. The mission being formed of artillery, engineers, and artificers, in all seventy-six persons, under Brigadier-General Koehler, of the royal artillery, embarked in the ‘New Adventure’ transport in February, but did not sail from England till April. The military artificers, selected by Major Holloway, royal engineers, from the Woolwich company, numbered one sergeant—Edward Watson—two corporals, nineteen artificers, and two labourers; and as Major Holloway had proceeded overland to Constantinople,[[115]] were consequently placed under the orders of Captain Lacy, R.E. On the near approach of the ‘Adventure’ to Gibraltar she was partially wrecked. A quantity of stores and some pontoons were thrown overboard, and private Philip Patterson, whilst exerting himself in casting away the stores, was washed off the deck by a wave into the sea and drowned. On the 14th June the transport arrived at Constantinople, and Major Holloway assumed the command of the artificers.
On the removal of the mission to Levant Chiflick, five of the detachment were detained with the officers at Buyukdere, and the remainder were occupied in various services at the former place and Kaithana, where they erected a furnace for heating shot. Shortly afterwards experiments with red-hot shot were carried on in the presence of the Sultan, who, at the close of the practice, having reviewed the mission, presented each person with a gift suitable to his rank. Whilst building the furnace, the artificers, exposed to marsh miasma, were early attacked with fever. At first the cases were slight, but relapses following with malignity, three of the detachment died. To preserve the mission, therefore, it was removed in October to the Dardanelles. Previously to the embarkation, the artificers constructed a handsome model of the upper castle at Chennekalleh, on the Asiatic side of the Dardanelles, with Major Holloway’s improvements, which model was presented by that officer to Hadgi Ibrahim Effendi, Secretary at War for the Ottoman Porte. Subsequently, at the Dardanelles,[[116]] they were employed in effecting various alterations and additions to the castle until the 2nd December, when the mission was suddenly recalled to Constantinople; and landing on the 4th, awaited orders to proceed on more active service.[[117]]
At the instance of the Admiralty, a detachment of one sergeant, one corporal, and forty privates, chiefly masons and bricklayers, able-bodied men and good artificers, under Lieutenant C. Mann, royal engineers, sailed for Gibraltar in May on board the ‘Fortitude,’ and landed there the following month. The party was specially employed in constructing a cistern for naval purposes, under the military foremanship of sergeant Joseph Woodhead; and in October, 1800, it was incorporated with the Gibraltar companies.
England and Russia having concluded a treaty to send an army to Holland to reinstate the Stadtholder, a corps of 12,000 men, under Sir Ralph Abercrombie, embarked for the Helder and landed on the 27th August. Attached to this expedition was a party of military artificers, consisting of one sergeant, two corporals, thirty-five artificers—seventeen of whom were carpenters—and one drummer, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Hay, R.E. The detachment embarked on board the ‘Amphitrite,’ and disembarking with the second division, were present in the action of that day.
After forming the engineer park near the Helder, about ten men were left to repair the fort; and the remainder, divided into brigades of four to each brigade, followed the troops in their forward movement in charge of the intrenching equipment of the expedition, which was conveyed in waggons. Early in September, the detachment constructed several batteries for guns and mortars to defend the post at Zuyp; as also, subsequently, at Hoorn and Egmont-op-Zee; and to facilitate the march of the army to the latter place, they assisted in the formation of three flying bridges over canals that intersected the route. In the retreat, they were continually employed in throwing small bridges across the canals by means of planking, felled trees, and other chance materials. At Alkmaer they constructed several defensive works; and on retiring from thence, where three roads met, they raised, in an incredibly short time, a mound of earth about twelve feet high, across the junction, with the view of impeding the enemy in their pursuit of the British. None of the military artificers were killed or wounded on this service. On the evacuation of Holland in November the detachment rejoined the companies.
Here, perhaps, it would be proper to allude, in a general remark, to the practice of providing detachments for foreign service. It will already have been observed, that whenever any expedition was undertaken, resort was invariably had to the royal military artificers for a selection of men to accompany it, suitable to the work upon which it was contemplated they would be employed; but the numbers furnished were always insufficient for the purpose, and no representations or remonstrances could avail in altering a custom, which, from causes not easily surmised, seems to have been pertinaciously persevered in.
This remark is fully borne out by the statement of a highly distinguished officer;[[118]] and is moreover corroborated by the fact, that about this time, the particular attention of the Commander-in-Chief was drawn to the subject, without, however, accomplishing what the interests of the service greatly needed. It is said, that when the Duke of York was preparing his expedition for Holland, he demanded efficient assistance from the royal engineers and royal military artificers, which, for some reason, the Ordnance authorities reluctantly met with an inadequate provision. Annoyed by the limited number tendered, his Royal Highness determined to establish a corps competent to discharge the duties usually devolving upon the royal engineers, “which should be absolutely at the disposal of the Horse Guards; and as his Royal Highness held office in times when the thoughts of statesmen were bent rather to render the means of the country’s defence complete, and to aid other nations in opposing the aggressions of an arrogant and unscrupulous power, than to effect savings in the public expenditure, he found no difficulty in consummating his wishes, and hence arose the royal staff corps.”[[119]]