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 7,000l.
Six corporals under Captain Robinson, R.E., with Lieutenant Pipon, were attached, under orders from Lord Aberdeen, to the commission of which Lieutenant-Colonel Estcourt was the chief, for tracing the boundary line between the British dominions in North America and the United States, as settled by the Ashburton treaty. Dressed in plain clothes, they embarked at Liverpool on the 19th April, and arriving at Halifax on the 2nd May, proceeded by Boston and New York to the Kennebec road and entered the woods late in the month. In May, 1844, the party was increased to twenty men by the arrival of fourteen non-commissioned officers and privates from the English survey companies. The co-operation of this party was urged as of paramount importance. It enabled the work, so says the official communication, to be carried on over a large portion of country at once with energy and rapidity, and in such a manner as to insure a more vigorous and correct execution of it than if the Commissioners were left to depend on the assistance to be met with on the spot; and which, although greatly inferior in quality, would have entailed more expense on the public than the employment of the military surveyors. Each sapper was selected as being competent to work by himself, and to survey and run lines of levels, besides keeping in constant employment a staff of labourers.
Sergeant-major James Forbes retired from the corps on the 11th of April on a pension of 2s. 2d. a-day. He was succeeded by colour-sergeant George Allan,[[429]] an excellent drill non-commissioned officer, who was appointed to the staff at Chatham, vicê sergeant-major Jenkin Jones, removed to the staff at Woolwich.
The merits of sergeant-major Forbes have been frequently alluded to in these pages, but there still remain some other points in his history to be noticed. To the royal military college at Sandhurst, he presented several models made by himself on military subjects. About two years before his retirement he invented the equilateral pontoon, a vessel of a very ingenious character. Its sides consist of “portions of cylinders, supposed to be applied to three sides of an equilateral triangular prism, each side of the triangle being two feet eight inches long; so that the cylindrical portions meet in three edges parallel to the axis of the pontoon. The sagitta, or versed sine of the curvature being about one-fifth of the side of the triangle, it follows that each side of the pontoon forms, in a transverse section, an arc of nearly 90°. Each end of the pontoon consists of three curved surfaces, corresponding to the sides of the vessel, and meeting in a point, as if formed on the sides of a triangular pyramid.”[[430]] “The form,” says Sir Howard Douglas, “appears to be well adapted for the purposes of a good pontoon; as whichever side is uppermost it presents a boatlike section to the water, and a broad deck for the superstructure. It possesses, also, the advantage of a horizontal section gradually enlarging to the highest point of displacement, by which means stability and steadiness in the water are obtained in a high degree. The area of a transverse section of this pontoon is greater than that of the present cylindrical pontoon; and the greater capacity produces more than a compensation, in buoyancy, to the small excess of weight above that of a cylindrical pontoon.”[[431]] A raft of this form of pontoon was prepared under the eye of the sergeant-major and sent to Chatham for trial, but although it gained much favour for its decided excellences, it was finally set aside on account of “some inconvenience in the management causing a preference to be given to those of a simple cylindrical form”[[432]]—the construction, in fact, established for the service. He was however awarded by the Board of Ordnance, in consideration of his trouble and as a tribute to his skill, the sum of one hundred guineas.
On leaving the royal sappers and miners, he was appointed surveyor to a district of the Trent and Mersey canal, at a salary of 215l. a year, with a fine residence and five acres of land attached. He was also allowed forage for two horses, and all his taxes and travelling expenses were paid. Some two years afterwards his salary was increased to 280l. a year, and in 1846, so highly appreciated were his services, that the Directors of the company proposed him to fill the office of engineer to the canal. His integrity however was such, that he would not be tempted by the great increase of salary the promotion promised, and declined it, from a modest feeling that he might not be able to do justice to so important and onerous a charge. Quickly upon this, he received the thanks of the Directors, accompanied by a special donation of 100l. Determining upon other arrangements for the execution of their works, the company disbanded its establishment of workmen and superintendents, retaining only the engineer and Mr. Forbes; and such was his character for alacrity, resolution, and discrimination, that the Directors appointed him to superintend all the works undertaken for the company, both on the canal and the North Staffordshire Railway, which was now incorporated with the Trent and Mersey Canal proprietary. This alteration in the company’s affairs, caused his removal from Middlewich to a commodious residence in Etruria, in Staffordshire, where his energy and influence in the parish soon gained him the post of churchwarden, and the honour of being invited to a public breakfast, at which, while the Bishop of Lichfield held the chair, he had the distinction of filling the vice-chair. Latterly he has appeared before the public as a writer. His pamphlet on the National Defences, proposing a locomotive artillery, addressed to Lord John Russell, was perused by that nobleman and received the attention of Sir John Burgoyne. Frequently he has written in the public journals on pontoons. He has also published a pamphlet on the subject, and another relative to a pontoon-boat, which he has invented.[[433]] The latter is of great interest and may yet receive the attention its ingenious suggestions deserve. On the 6th of May, 1853, he was elected an Associate of the Institution of Civil Engineers, for which honour he was proposed by the great Robert Stephenson and Mr. S. P. Bidder, the two leading civil engineers of this country. Within the last year, he has been advanced to the post of engineer to the company, and he enjoys the perfect satisfaction and confidence of his employers. His salary and emoluments exceed 400l. a year.
The operations against the wreck of the ‘Royal George’ were resumed, for the fifth time, early in May, with a detachment of fifteen royal sappers and miners, eight East India Company’s sappers, and about eighty seamen, riggers, &c., under the direction of Major-General Pasley, with Lieutenant G. R. Hutchinson as the executive officer. At the end of 1842, almost all the floor timbers had been got up and 101 feet of the keel, leaving only about 50 feet more at the bottom; and out of 126 tons of pig-iron ballast, 103 tons had been safely wharfed. There was therefore confident reason to expect the entire removal of the wreck before the close of the season; and such indeed was the success of the enterprise, that Major-General Pasley, on quitting the work in November, declared that the anchorage ground, where the wreck had lain, was as safe and fit for the use of ships as any other part of Spithead. At first four divers went down regularly, and afterwards five or six were at work at every slack tide, generally three times a day.
After a few weeks of unsuccessful effort, the firing of three charges each of 675 lbs. of powder in puncheons, removed a bank of shingle which chiefly interfered with the divers' success. These charges were fixed by corporals Harris and Jones, and private Girvan. In one week afterwards, the divers effected as much as in the five weeks previously, for not only were the keel and bottom planking somewhat bared, but a great deal of the remaining iron ballast was rendered accessible. Six other charges, of 720 lbs. of powder each, and numerous smaller charges, were subsequently fired, with results that gave ample employment for all the divers and the detachment on board.
One or two failures occurred which arose from want of experience in firing conjunct charges at Spithead; but in other respects, the operation, which was exceedingly difficult, was conducted with skill and success, owing to the able arrangements of Lieutenant Hutchinson, assisted by the leading riggers, and by lance-corporal Rae and private Alexander Cleghorn, who had the preparation of the charges and the voltaic batteries. The divers, too, did everything necessary at the bottom, and were well seconded in every department by the sappers and others employed. “In short,” adds the narrative,[[434]] “this operation, including the separation of the two mooring lighters before the explosion and bringing them together afterwards,” could not, in consequence of the severe weather, have possibly succeeded, “if all the men had not, from long experience, known their respective duties well and entered into them with laudable zeal.”
“On the 9th of July private John Girvan slung the largest and most remarkable piece of the wreck that had been met with this season, consisting of the fore foot and part of the stem, connected by two very large horse-shoe copper clamps bolted together; the boxing by which it had been connected with the fore part of the keel was perfect, from which joint six feet of the gripe had extended horizontally, and terminated in the curve of the stem, which was sheathed with lead.—The length of this fragment was sixteen feet, measured obliquely, and its extreme width five feet.”[[435]] At another time he recovered an enormous fish-hook, no less than eight feet nine inches in length from the eye to the bow!
By corporal Jones, on the 17th following, was slung a large iron bolt, ten feet long; which, on being brought on deck, was observed by him to exhibit marks of having been in contact with brass. He therefore rightly conjectured there must be a brass gun at the spot, and descending again recovered a brass 24-pounder, nine and a half feet long, of the year 1748.[[436]]
“On the 31st of July, private Girvan discovered a gun buried under the mud, but it was not till the 3rd of August that he succeeded in slinging it, assisted by corporal Jones, with whom he generally worked in concert this season;”[[437]] and shortly after, the latter diver recovered the last remnant of the keel, measuring nearly twenty-two feet in length, corporal Harris having previously sent up portions of it in the early part of the summer amounting in length to thirty-six feet,[[438]] and private Girvan, six feet.
The only money got up this season was a guinea of 1775, found on a plank sent up by Jones.
Increased exertions were now made to recover the guns, which were embedded some depth in the mud, and the divers cleared the way by sending up everything they could meet with, until nothing but insignificant fragments could be found. To assist them, two frigate anchors and the half anchor creepers with some auxiliary instruments, drawn backwards and forwards as well as transversely over the site of the wreck, were made to do effectual work. The East India Company’s sappers had been removed before these labours began;[[439]] the whole of the subsequent diving, therefore, was exclusively carried on by the royal sappers and miners,[[440]] and to their vigilance of observation and unceasing zeal, was attributed the recovery of thirteen guns late in the season. Of these, corporal Harris got up three iron and six brass guns, corporal Jones three brass, and private Girvan one iron.
Here it should be explained “how much more successful than his comrades corporal Harris was towards the close of the season, in recovering guns, though the other divers, corporal Jones and privates Girvan and Trevail, had been equally successful in all the previous operations. Corporal Harris fell in with a nest of guns, and it was a rule agreed upon, that each first-class diver should have his own district at the bottom, with which the others were not to interfere.”[[441]]
Jones, though satisfied with the arrangement as a general rule, was a little disposed to feel aggrieved when, by contrast, the odds were against him. He was curious to know by what means Harris turned up the guns with such teasing rapidity, and going down with the secret intention of making the discovery, tumbled over a gun with its muzzle sticking out of the mud. This piece of ordnance legitimately belonged to Harris, for it was in his beat; but, as Jones enthusiastically expressed it, seeming to invite the favour of instant removal, he could not resist the temptation to have its recovery registered to his credit. He therefore securely slung it, and rubbing his hands with delight at the richness of the trick, gave the signal to haul up. Harris, suspecting that his territory had been invaded, dashed down the ladder and just reached the spot in time to feel the breech of the gun slipping through his fingers. Jones, meanwhile, pushed on deck, and was pleased to see that the plundered relic was a 12-pounder brass gun of the year 1739. Jones a second time applied to the district over which Harris walked with so much success, and filched from the nest a brass 12-pounder gun—the last one recovered this season.
After the removal of the ‘Royal George’ had been effected, but while the search for the guns was going on, Major-General Pasley detached to the wreck of the ‘Edgar,’[[442]] the ‘Drake’ lighter, with thirteen petty officers and seamen of Her Majesty’s ship ‘Excellent,’ to learn the art of diving. Corporal Jones was attached to the party to instruct them. Violent gales prevailed at this period, “which repeatedly drove the ‘Drake’ from her moorings, not without damage, and at other times caused her to drift in such a manner that guns, discovered by a diver late in a slack, could not be found when the weather permitted his subsequent descent.” Hence only five iron guns of this wreck were got up during the season, with a piece of the keel and a floor timber. These were all recovered by corporal Jones, who had also been engaged one tide in finding an anchor that had been lost.[[443]] So anxious was he to add to the magnitude of his acquisition, that on one occasion he remained below as long as four hours, but his exertions were unattended with the hoped-for return.
An interesting fact with respect to the power of water to convey sound was ascertained on the 6th October. A small waterproof bursting charge containing 18 lbs. of gunpowder was fired at the bottom. Corporal Jones who happened at the time to be working at the ‘Edgar’—nearly half-a-mile distant—hearing a loud report like the explosion of a cannon, imagined that a large charge had been fired over the ‘Royal George.’ To those on deck immediately over the place, the report was scarcely perceptible.
Private Girvan relieved corporal Jones at the ‘Edgar’ on the 16th October, and got up the breech part of an iron 32-pounder, which had been cut in two a little in front of the trunnions.[[444]]
The only mishap this summer occurred to private Girvan. Just as he appeared above the water the explosion of a charge took place, from which he sustained a slight shock and a wrench in the back producing a sensation of pain. Though eager to go down again his wish was overruled, and he remained on board for the day. Sergeant Lindsay fired the charge, and the accident was attributed to a nervous slip of his hand when ready to apply the wires to the battery.
On the 4th November the divers descended for the last time, as the water had become so cold that their hands—the only part exposed—were completely benumbed, so that they could no longer work to advantage; and then, the operations ceasing from necessity, the detachment of the corps rejoined their companies at Woolwich.
Major-General Pasley in according his praises to the various individuals and parties employed at Spithead, spoke highly of sergeant George Lindsay in subordinate charge, and the whole detachment; but more particularly of the intelligent and enterprising men to whom the important task of preparing all the charges fired by the voltaic battery was confided. The charges were numerous and of various quantities, amounting in all to 19,193 lbs. of powder, or nearly 214 barrels. The soldiers alluded to were lance-corporal John Rae and private Alexander Cleghorn who were promoted for their services. The still more arduous duty of diving gave the General every satisfaction. Frequently the duty was embarrassing and dangerous, and carried on under circumstances calculated to test most severely their courage and resources; and so indefatigable were their exertions, and so successful their services, that the military divers gained the character of being “second to none in the world.”[[445]] Most of the party this season attempted to dive, but, from the oppression felt under water by some, only two or three beyond the regular divers could persevere in the duty.
Upon the report made by Major-General Pasley of the conduct of the detachment engaged in the operations, Sir George Murray, the Master-General, was pleased thus to remark: “It has given me no less pleasure to be made acquainted with the very commendable conduct of the non-commissioned officers and privates of the sappers and miners who have been employed under Major-General Pasley, and have rendered so much useful service in the important undertaking conducted under his management.”
From June to September about eight men under Lieutenant Gosset, R.E., assisted in the undertaking for determining the longitude of Valentia by the transmission of chronometers. Thirty chronometers were conveyed in every transmission; and to privates Robert Penton and John M‘Fadden was entrusted the service of bearing the chronometers, and winding them up at stated times and places. On receiving the chronometers from Liverpool the reciprocations took place repeatedly between Kingston and Valentia Island; one private being responsible for their safe transit a portion of the route, and the other for the remaining distance to and from the station at Feagh Main. Professor Sheepshanks and Lieutenant Gosset carried out the scientific purposes of the service, while the sappers not engaged with the chronometers attended to the duties of the camp and observatory at Feagh Main, under the subordinate superintendence of corporal B. Keen Spencer. The professor instructed this non-commissioned officer in the mode of taking observations with the transit instrument; and further, in testimony of his satisfaction, gave generous gratuities to privates Penton and M‘Fadden. Professor Airy, in speaking of the former, alludes to the perfect reliance he placed on his care, “and in winding the chronometers,” adds, “he has no doubt the service was most correctly performed.”[[446]] The duty was one in which extreme caution and care were required, to prevent accident or derangement to the instruments.
Agitation for a repeal of the union, headed by O’Connell, was now the great excitement of Ireland, and a rising of the masses to enforce it was daily expected. With the reinforcement of troops sent there to preserve order was the first company of sappers, which was despatched by rapid conveyances, viâ Liverpool to Dublin, where it arrived on the 26th July. The company consisted of ninety men of all ranks, and their duties embraced repairs to the barracks and the planting of stockades in the rear of the castle, to prevent the ingress, in case of revolt, of the rebels.[[447]] They also prepared several thousands of sand-bags for breastworks. Detachments of one sergeant and twenty rank and file were sent to Limerick and Athlone in November, where they strengthened the barracks and loopholed the outside walls for musketry. The store-rooms of the artillery barracks were also loopholed. Effectually, however, was the anticipated outbreak suppressed, and, under the authority of Sir James Graham, the Home Secretary, the company was recalled to England and arrived at Woolwich on the 22nd August, 1844.
The yellow fever broke out at Bermuda in August, and continued with unabated virulence and fatality until the middle of September. In that brief period, out of a strength of 165 men, it carried off no less than thirty-three men of the eighth company and four men of the fourth, besides Captain Robert Fenwick, R.E., in command of the latter, and Lieutenant James Jenkin, the Adjutant.[[448]] The two companies were distributed to St. George’s and Ireland Island; at the former, where the fever chiefly raged, was the eighth company, about ninety strong, and at the latter the fourth. Eighty-eight men had been seized with the malady, of whom twenty-four were admitted with relapses, and four had suffered three seizures, none of whom died. Dr. Hunter, a civil physician, attended the cases in the absence of a military medical officer. With the civil population his practice was remarkably successful; for out of 101 natives who took the fever only one died. He therefore concluded that the artillery, who lost nine men, and the sappers thirty-seven, fell easy victims to the epidemic from their intemperate habits. No comparison, however, was justifiable between coloured people, upon whom the fever had but little effect, and Europeans; but an analysis of the cases, as far as the sappers were concerned, confirmed the doctor’s views to the extent of sixteen men. The remainder, twenty-one, were men of sobriety and general good conduct.
Lance-corporal Frederick Hibling being the only non-commissioned officer not attacked, performed the whole duties of the eighth company, and for his exertions and exemplary conduct was promoted to the rank of second-corporal. Seven widows and twenty-two orphans were left destitute by this calamity, among whom a subscription (quickly made through the corps, assisted by many officers of royal engineers, nearly amounting to 200l.) was distributed, in proportion to their necessities—one woman with six children receiving as much as 33l. The lowest gift was 14l. to a widow without children. A monument of chaste and beautiful design, consisting of a fluted column surmounted by an exploded bomb, resting on a neat and finely proportioned pedestal, was erected in the military burial-ground at St. George’s, in mournful commemoration of the victims. On three panels of the pedestal were inscribed their names, and on the fourth was sculptured the royal arms and supporters. The work was executed by the surviving stonemasons of the company, and the royal arms were cut by private Walter Aitchison.
On the 26th August, in the evening, the ‘Missouri,’ United States' steamer, Captain Newton, took fire in the bay of Gibraltar, and a detachment of the corps at the Rock was sent out by Sir Robert Wilson, the Governor, in charge of two engines under Captain A. Gordon, R.E., to assist in extinguishing the flames; but all their diligence and intrepidity were unavailing, for the vessel was soon afterwards burnt to the water’s edge. During the service the men were in much danger from falling masts and spars, and from the explosion of a powder-magazine on board. The Governor, in orders, thanked Captain Gordon and other officers of royal engineers, and the non-commissioned officers and privates of royal sappers and miners, for the creditable and useful zeal displayed by them on the occasion; and added, “that the marines, military, and boatmen of Gibraltar have the consoling reflection that nothing was left undone to save the vessel, and that the gallant crew was preserved by their united labour and devotedness.” To each sapper employed at the fire was issued a pint of wine by his Excellency’s order.
One sergeant and thirty-three rank and file under Lieutenant T. B. Collinson, R.E., sailed for China in the ‘Mount Stuart Elphinstone,’ and landed at Hong Kong the 7th October. A party of variable strength had been stationed there, employed superintending the Chinese artificers in carrying on the public works until July, 1854, when the sappers were recalled to England. Some of their first services embraced the construction of roads and sewers, the erection of barracks for the troops and quarters for the officers, with various military conveniences, such as stores, guard-houses, &c. A residence was also built for the General in command, and a sea-wall of granite to the cantonment on the north shore of the island. They also directed the Chinese in cutting away a mountain to a plateau, of about eight acres, for a parade-ground, much of which was granite; and the several explosions rendered necessary to dislodge the mass were fired solely by sergeant Joseph Blaik. A company of Madras sappers also assisted in the superintendence of the coolies, who sometimes exceeded a thousand in number. The working pay of the royal sappers and miners was 1s. 6d. a-day each until the removal of the East India Company’s establishment, when the allowance was reduced to the ordinary payment of 1s. each. Before the party was quartered in barracks it was housed for a time in a bamboo hut and afterwards in a bungalow. The smiths and plumbers were invariably employed at their trades, as the Chinese were very incompetent in these branches of handicraft.[[449]]
On the 9th October his Imperial Highness the Grand Duke Michael of Russia inspected the troops at Woolwich, on the common. The royal sappers and miners at the station were also drawn up with them, and marched past. Next day the Grand Duke, accompanied by Lord Bloomfield, visited the sappers' barracks, walked through the rooms, examined the carbine of the corps, and then looked over, with every mark of attention, the small museum of the non-commissioned officers attached to the library. On leaving, he expressed his gratification at what he saw, and of the efforts made by the soldiers to improve themselves.
Royal Sappers & Miners.
Plate XV.
UNIFORM 1843.
Printed by M & N Hanhart.
The percussion carbine and sword-bayonet, were generally adopted in the corps this year, superseding the flint-lock musket and bayonet.[[450]] The length of the musket with bayonet fixed was six feet two inches, but the carbine with sword was constructed an inch shorter. The carbine itself was nine inches and a-half shorter than the musket, but to make up for this reduction, and to enable a soldier to take his place in a charge, the sword-bayonet measured ten inches longer than the rapier-bayonet.[[451]]
The shoulder-belt for the bayonet for all ranks was at this time abolished, and a waist-belt two inches broad, with cap-bag and sliding frog, substituted. This new accoutrement is the same as the present one; and the breast-plate then, as now, bore the royal arms without supporters, within a union wreath, based by the word “Ubique,” and surmounted by a crown. The sword-bayonet was this year worn vertically for the first time, instead of obliquely as formerly.
The pouch-belt was not altered, but the pouch, the same as at present worn, reduced in dimensions, was made to contain thirty instead of sixty rounds of ball ammunition. The brush and pricker were now abolished.
The sergeants' swords were also withdrawn, and their arms and appointments made to correspond with the rank and file, the only difference being the addition of ornaments on the pouch-belt, which, with the waist-plate, were washed with gilt. The ornaments comprised a grenade bearing on the swell of the bomb the royal arms and supporters; detached from this, underneath, was a scroll inscribed “Royal Sappers and Miners,” to which a ring was affixed sustaining a chain united to a whistle, resembling an old round watch tower; the whistle itself forming the battlemented crown, inscribed with the motto “Ubique.”[[452]] These ornaments, the suggestion of Major—now Colonel—Sandham, are still worn by the sergeants.
The buglers' short sword with three guards was replaced this year by one after the pattern of the Ceylon rifles' band. The hilt formed an ornamental Maltese cross with fleury terminations, and on the flat between the horizontal limbs, above the blade, was an exploded grenade. The blade was straight, two feet ten inches long, and the mounting on the scabbard was chased and embellished. The weapon is still worn by the buglers, and is altogether neat, pretty, and convenient.—See Plate [XVII]., 1854.