1827-1829.
Augmentation—Reinforcement to Bermuda—Companies for Rideau Canal—Reinforcement to the Cape—Monument to the memory of General Wolfe—Increase to the survey companies—Supernumerary promotions—Measurement of Lough Foyle base—Suggestion of sergeant Sim for measuring across the river Roe—Survey companies inspected by Major-General Sir James C. Smyth; opinion of their services by Sir Henry Hardinge—Sergeant-major Townsend—Demolition of the Glacière Bastion at Quebec—Banquet to fifth company by Lord Dalhousie—Service of the sappers at the citadel of Quebec—Notice of sergeants Dunnett and John Smith—Works to be executed by contract—Trial of pontoons, and exertions of corporal James Forbes—Epidemic at Gibraltar—Island of Ascension; corporal Beal—Forage-caps—Company withdrawn from Nova Scotia—Party to Sandhurst College, and usefulness of corporal Forbes.
Great inconvenience was felt in carrying on the public works abroad, from the inadequacy of the strength of the corps to supply the number of workmen for services in which their employment would have been useful and economical; and as very heavy expenses had been incurred, in having recourse to a greater proportion of civil workmen, at high wages, than would otherwise have been necessary, General Gother Mann, in July, 1826, submitted some suggestions on the subject to the Master-General and Board, and obtained their authority to carry out his plans.
In December, consequently, orders were given for the formation of a company of 81 strong, for employment on the works at Bermuda, and for augmenting the company already there from 51 to 70 privates. The company was accordingly formed in January, 1827, and with the reinforcement to complete the other company, sailed from Devonport in the ‘Hebe’ freightship, and landed at Bermuda on the 25th of May. The sappers at the station were then divided between St. George’s and Ireland Island.
A royal warrant, dated 26th March, 1827, confirmed the raising of the company for Bermuda, and ordered a further augmentation of two companies of eighty-one strong each for the works of the Rideau Canal in Canada. The fifteenth and seventeenth companies were appointed for this service under Captains Victor and Savage, R.E. The former landed there from the ‘Southworth’ transport on the 1st of June, and the latter from the ‘Haydon,’ on the 17th of September.[[253]] The establishment of the corps now reached nineteen companies, and counted, of all ranks, 1,262.
The sappers at the Cape of Good Hope were reinforced to thirty of all ranks by the arrival of one sergeant and eleven privates in August. At this period the men were chiefly employed at Cape Town and Graham’s Town. Occasionally, men are traced at Wynberg, Franch Hoek, and Simon’s Town. The detachment rendered essential aid in the execution of the services of the engineer department, and the necessity for maintaining its numerical efficiency was represented by Major General Bourke and Lord Charles Somerset.
The fifth company at Quebec, on the 15th of November, 1827, was present at the laying of the foundation stone of the monument erected to the memory of General Wolfe. All the masonic tools required for the ceremony were made by men of the company, and the stone was lowered into its bed by some selected masons with colour-sergeant Dunnett. The formal laying of the stone was accomplished by the Earl of Dalhousie and Mr. James Thompson, a venerable man in the ninety-fifth year of his age, the only survivor in Canada of the memorable battle of Quebec, in which Wolfe fell. A few days afterwards, the silver trowel used on the occasion was generously presented by his lordship to sergeant Dunnett.
Great interest was taken by the Duke of Wellington in the survey of Ireland, and he was anxious that it should be prosecuted with all possible despatch. Augmenting and completing the three companies being considered the most important means to facilitate that object, his Grace and the Honourable Board, on the 1st January, sanctioned an increase to the survey companies of nineteen privates each, and on the 13th of March, a further addition of thirty privates; both of which augmented the survey force from 186 to 273 of all ranks, and the establishment of the corps from 1,262 to 1,349 officers and men.
At the commencement of the survey, all promotion was suspended for a time, to enable Colonel Colby to select the ablest men for preferment. He found great difficulty in choosing individuals qualified for it; but in less than two years after, so satisfactory was the improvement made in the attainments and efficiency of the companies, that the Colonel felt it essential to create by authority, supernumerary appointments as a reward for past diligence and an incitement to future exertion. This measure was the more necessary, as the most important part of the work was performed by the non-commissioned officers, who were mostly detached in charge of small parties of the corps with an equal number of civil chainmen. Each non-commissioned officer was thus the chief executive of a certain portion of work, and was responsible for its correct and rapid execution to the officers of the divisions. On the 17th of January, the supernumerary appointments were sanctioned by the Duke of Wellington without limit as to number, and Colonel Colby made ample use of the reward. The advantage enjoyed by the supernumeraries extended only to pay, they receiving the rate of the rank to which they were appointed. Service in the supernumerary grades did not reckon for their benefit towards pension.
From the 6th of September, 1827, to the 20th of November, 1828, with occasional intervals of cessation, a detachment varying from two sergeants and twenty-three rank and file, to two sergeants and six rank and file, were employed on the measurement of Lough Foyle base in the county of Londonderry. A strong detachment of the royal artillery was also employed on this service. The duties of the sappers did not extend to the scientific and more precise details of the operation, but were limited to those subsidiary services which were essential to the rigid execution of the former. Their attention, in fact, was confined to the labours of the camp, the placement of the triangular frames, pickets, trestles, and such other incidental services as were indispensable to obtain an exact level alignment for the application of the measuring bars. A non-commissioned officer invariably attended to the adjusting screws; another frequently registered the observations, another attended to the set of the rollers and the regulation of the plates; and a fourth, with a few men, erected the base tents, moved them forward to the succeeding series of bars, and looked to the security of the apparatus for the night.[[254]] All these duties, though of a subordinate nature, nevertheless required the exercise of intelligence, and much careful attention on the part of those employed.
In connexion with the base operations, the name of sergeant Thomas Sim of the corps, is noticed with credit. Carrying the measurement across the river Roe, about 450 feet broad, was, through his ingenuity, found a more simple matter than had been expected. After giving a good deal of consideration to the subject, the sergeant proposed a plan, which enabled the measurement to be completed in one day and verified the next. This was accomplished, by driving, with the assistance of a small pile engine, stout pickets to the depth of about six feet into the sand and clay, in the exact line of the base, then placing on the heads of the pickets, by means of a mortice, a stretcher perfectly horizontal, and finally, laying upon the upper surfaces of the stretchers, a simple rectangular frame, with two cross pieces to support the feet of the camels or tripods.[[255]]
By the month of August, the force of the sappers in Ireland amounted to 26 non-commissioned officers, 227 privates, 6 buglers and 11 boys, total 270. In September, the survey companies were inspected by Major-General Sir James Carmichael Smyth, royal engineers, and in his report he stated, “when the detached nature of the duty is considered, and how the soldier is necessarily left to himself, the appearance of the men under arms, as well as the zeal and goodwill they evince in the performance of a duty so new and so laborious, are very much to their credit.” In March previously, Sir Henry Hardinge, in his evidence before the Select Committee on Public Income and Expenditure, spoke of the services of the corps on the survey, as being cheap and successful. To put the question fairly at issue, certain districts of the same nature were conducted, some by engineers with sappers and miners; others, with engineer officers and civil persons and it was satisfactorily proved, that the progress made by the sappers under military authority, was greater than that made by the civil surveyors, and the cheapness commensurate.[[256]]
On the 24th of January, sergeant-major Thomas Townsend was removed from the corps as second lieutenant and adjutant to the second battalion, 60th royal rifles, through the intercession of Lieutenant-Colonel Fitzgerald who commanded that regiment, and in the lapse of years became a captain. In 1844, he retired from the regiment by the sale of his commission, and obtained a barrack-mastership under the Ordnance.
To proceed with the formation of a new citadel at Quebec, it became necessary to remove a portion of the old French works called the Glacière Bastion, comprising the face and flank, about 260 feet in length and 25 feet in height, to give place to a new counterguard intended to cover the escarp of both faces of Dalhousie Bastion from the high ground on the plains of Abraham. This was done by mining, in which service the fifth company of the corps was employed. The whole operations being completed with the desired efficiency by the 19th of February, the Earl of Dalhousie, then Governor-General, accompanied by his staff and a vast assemblage of civil and military persons, attended to witness the demolition. The mines were to have been fired at three points to insure the entire mass coming down at once, but the sapper[[257]] stationed at the third mine, without waiting for the necessary signals, applied his match to the charge, and the whole of the mines, twenty in number, were simultaneously exploded, crumbling the escarp to pieces, without projecting a stone fifty feet from its original position, and levelling at one crash the whole of the work. The effect produced far surpassed the expectations of the officers employed. Of the services of the company, the commanding royal engineer, in his orders of the day, thus expressed himself: “To colour-sergeant Dunnett, sergeant Young, acting-sergeant Smith, and the non-commissioned officers and privates of the fifth company, Colonel Durnford begs that Captain Melhuish will convey his high approbation of the zeal and ability with which they have performed this portion of practical duty, and to assure them, that a report of it shall be made to the Inspector-General of Fortifications, in order that the success of the operations may be recorded to the credit of the fifth company.”[[258]] To mark his sense of the services of the sappers on the occasion, the Earl of Dalhousie, in a style of rare munificence, entertained them with a ball and supper on the evening of the 7th of March, in the casemated barracks erected by themselves in the citadel. All the wives, families, and friends of the company attended. Sir Noel and Lady Hill, the Honourable Colonel and Mrs. Gore, Captain Maule, aide-de-camp to his Excellency, the officers of royal engineers and artillery, and several officers of the garrison were present. After supper, the officers of the company and gentlemen visitors took their stations at the head of the table, and at the call of Captain Melhuish, the usual toasts were disposed of. After due honour had been paid to the toast for the health of the Earl of Dalhousie, Captain Maule then rose and spoke as follows:—
“Sergeant Dunnett and soldiers of the fifth company of royal sappers and miners, nothing will be more agreeable to me, than the duty of reporting to his lordship, the Commander of the Forces, the manner in which you have drunk his health. The trait in a soldier’s character, which above all others, recommends him to the notice of his General, is a cordial co-operation on his part, heart and hand, in the undertaking of his officers more immediately placed over him. The fifth company of royal sappers and miners have ever eminently displayed this feeling, but on no occasion more conspicuously than lately in the demolition of the old fortifications. The skill with which this work was devised, the zeal and rapidity with which it was executed, and the magnificent result, will long remain a memorial of all employed in it; and if I may judge from the manner in which you have done honour to his lordship’s health, this mark of his approbation has not been bestowed on men who will soon forget it. I beg all present will join me in drinking the health of Captain Melhuish, the officers, non-commissioned officers, and privates of the fifth company of royal sappers and miners.”
Thanks being returned for the company by Captain Melhuish, sergeant Dunnett, in a most soldierlike manner, gave the health of the ladies and gentlemen who had honoured the company with their presence. Soon after, the company retired to the ball-room, accompanied by the officers and their ladies, and the festive entertainment was kept up with spirit and propriety until five o’clock the next morning.[[259]]
In the erection of the citadel at Quebec, the sappers were constantly engaged, and some of its chief work was executed by them. The superintendence was carried on by the non-commissioned officers—colour-sergeant Dunnett[[260]] and acting-sergeant John Smith[[261]] being the principal foremen. Soon after the arrival of the company, Mr. Hare,[[262]] the foreman of works at Quebec, died; and on the completion of the works at Kingston, the master mason there was sent to Quebec; but so efficiently had the masons' and bricklayers' work been executed under military supervision, that Colonel Durnford, the commanding royal engineer, ordered the recently-arrived master mason to attend to the repairs of the old fortifications and buildings, and not to interfere with the superintendents at the new citadel. The company quitted Quebec in October, 1831, with an excellent character, both as workmen and soldiers. Only five men had deserted during the period of the station, two of whom were recovered to the service and pardoned by the Earl of Dalhousie. This was another proof of his lordship’s high estimation of the services and conduct of the company.
A select committee on public income and expenditure sat early this year to scrutinize the Ordnance estimates. By this committee the duties and services of the corps were considered. In the report upon the evidence adduced, the committee strongly recommended that all work which admitted of being measured should be done by contract, and that the sappers and miners employed on buildings at day-work should be diminished.[[263]] The effect of this measure was simply to confine the labours of the corps to the repairs and fortifications, and occasionally to building, without reducing its numerical establishment.
Another trial of pontoons took place at Chatham in July, and the exertions of the detachment employed on the occasion under Captain J. S. Macauley, R.E., were warmly acknowledged by Sir James Colleton, one of the competitors. Captain White of the royal staff corps, who was engaged on the part of Sir James, thus wrote of the sappers:—“During my long acquaintance with military men, I never witnessed in any troops a greater determination to perform to the utmost of their power the duty on which they were placed. Where all have done their duty with such energy, I cannot make any distinction in conveying to you my good wishes towards them, except in the conduct of corporal James Forbes, who appears to me to be a first-rate non-commissioned officer, and who has on this occasion done his duty in a manner highly creditable to himself.”[[264]]
An epidemic fever of nearly equal severity to the one of 1804 raged at Gibraltar in September and October. The greater part of the sappers at the Rock were seized with the complaint and nineteen died. Being quartered in the barracks near the unhealthy district and in the vicinity of the line of drains, the companies furnished the first victims to the disease;[[265]] and to lessen the mortality which this circumstance was likely to induce, they were, for a time, encamped on a rocky flat below Windmill Hill. The deaths at the fortress during the prevalence of the fever were 507 military and 1,700 civilians.[[266]]
Lieutenant H. R. Brandreth, R.E., early in 1829 proceeded to Ascension, and having made a survey of the island, returned to England and reported on its capabilities for defence and eligibility for an Admiralty station. Lance-corporal William Beal was attached to that officer and employed under him from March to September. His duty was chiefly that of a clerk, but he also assisted in making the measurements of the survey, and in collecting geological specimens to illustrate the character of the strata. In the discharge of these services, his zeal and intelligence were found very useful, and on his return he was deservedly promoted to be second-corporal.
In June the forage caps were somewhat altered. The yellow band was abolished, and hoops and stiffening were forbidden. The cap was now of plain blue web, with leather peak and chin strap. The sergeants' caps were of plain blue cloth, hooped and stiffened, with three chevrons of gold lace in front over the peak. The staff-sergeants retained the gold bands.
Nova Scotia, which ceased to be a station for the corps in 1819, was again opened for a company this year, which landed from the ‘Sophia’ transport on the 10th June, 1829. A company of the corps has ever since been employed there in carrying on the ordinary works and fortifications, and in the erection of the citadel.
Twelve privates under corporal James Forbes, were, in September, for the first time, sent to Sandhurst to afford practical instruction in sapping, mining, &c., to the gentlemen cadets at the Royal Military College. The term extended over September and October, and the party returned to Chatham with the highest character. Much praise was awarded to corporal Forbes for his exertions and attainments, and his promotion to the rank of sergeant followed in consequence. From that time a detachment has, during each term, been attached to the college for the same useful purpose, and has invariably performed its duties with credit and effect.