Under the usual purchase system arrangements, a purse was made up to induce Colonel Rice to vacate the command of the regiment, but, hoping for further employment, he exchanged to the half-pay unattached list. Having no son of his own to carry on his name in the 51st, he did his best to make amends by getting two of his three Rice nephews[88] appointed to the regiment, thus prolonging the family connection with it for a further period of twenty-three years. He remained on half pay until 1834, when he was appointed Inspecting Field Officer of the Leeds Recruiting District, an appointment, however, which he held for only a little more than a year, as his health gave way and obliged him to lay down his sword. He died in London on the 7th March 1840, in his sixty-fifth year, leaving a widow and a daughter.[89]
Such was the career of a typical regimental officer of the old school, who served his country throughout, perhaps, the most critical period of its existence, who witnessed the rise and fall of England's inveterate enemy, who shared in the victories which won for England fame, and who never claimed that he had done more than play a very minor part in the epoch-making drama. Still, Samuel Rice was one of those who helped to raise the power and name of England to the loftiest position in Europe—and, indeed, in the world.
[FOOTNOTES:]
[1] An account of the Rice family will be found in 'Some Things we have Remembered,' by Percy Melville Thornton. London: Longman. 1912.
[2] France declared war against Austria 20th April 1792.
[3] Prussia joined Austria on the 26th July, and the Duke of Brunswick held the post of commander-in-chief of the allied armies.
[4] His younger brother Charles Rice was at the time a midshipman on the Circe.
[5] Originally, on active service at any rate, the triangle was formed of halberds, lashed together. Hence the term "brought to the halberds."