Carriages for the ordnance were to be constructed in Fort William by the military storekeeper. No repairs of magnitude involving large contingent bills were to be made in the field, but the articles required supplied on indent.
The establishments for the magazines were furnished by a reduction of the artificers and lascars attached to the artillery; the lascars were reduced to a small number, and the surplus applied to the magazines.
| 2 | Serangs, | } | on the peace establishment; |
| 4 | Tindals, | ||
| 100 | Lascars, | ||
| 7 | Serangs, | } | on the war establishment; |
| 16 | Tindals, | ||
| 400 | Lascars, |
were the number retained with the regiment.
The appointment of this Board appears to have interfered with the control which the commandant of artillery had previously exercised over his department, and Colonel Pearse attributed its formation to a personal motive, on the part of General Clavering, to lower him. In writing to an old friend, after other complaints he goes on to say: “General Clavering instituted a Board of Ordnance, and made me a member of it; took all my authority away, and made me a cipher. I was hurt, and complained, as he had put into the Board a Lieutenant-Colonel Dow, the translator of a miserable history of Hindustan, and the author of two wretched plays. This man is commissary-general, and, as such, controller of military accounts. He uniformly attacked me and my department, and I defended myself and officers. This created disputes, and, as I was wounded, I was warm; and thus, because my opinions were always contrary to Dow’s (and D—— is the general’s tongue, brains, head, and heart), it was as bad as attacking the general himself.”
Of the working of the cumbrous machinery of the Board of Ordnance, in its original formation and in the successive changes which have been made from time to time, in the vain attempts to obtain energy and celerity from a body of men without individual power or responsibility, it will often, in the course of these pages, be necessary to speak, for to the want of arrangement on their part must be attributed, in many instances, the inefficient state of the siege-trains with the armies.
At this time the head-quarters of the regiment were quartered in Fort William, moving out during the cold months to a practice-ground at Sulkeah, nearly opposite the western mouth of the Circular Canal: the powder-works were between the canal and Cossipoor. The dress of the regiment consisted of a blue coat, faced with scarlet, and cut away in the fashion of the time; white cloth waistcoat and breeches, with buckles at the knees; and gaiters, or half-spatterdashes, as they were called; red leathern belt, with swivels; black silk stock; buff gloves, and regimental hat, supposed to be a plain cocked, in the fashion of George the Second’s time. The hair was worn greased, powdered, and tied in a queue, false hair being substituted when the natural was not long enough.
The hours for parades, and, in fact, for every thing, were early: parades were before gun-fire in the cold season; dinners were in the middle of the day, not only in private houses, but on public occasions; and invitations were given on a scale of hospitality only practicable in a small society. The orderly book was the common channel of invitation used by the Governor-General and officer commanding the garrison. Many such entries as the following will be found in it:—“The Honourable the Governor-General requests to be favoured with the company of officers and gentlemen belonging to the army now in the garrison of Fort William and the Chitpoor cantonment and the presidency on Monday next to dinner, at the Court House, and in the evening to a ball and supper. The Governor-General requests that gentlemen will not bring any servants to dinner, nor their hookahs to the ball at night.”
Or, “Lieutenant-Colonel Wilding presents his compliments to all the officers in Fort William, staff of the garrison, and surgeons, and requests their company to breakfast, and dinner at half-past two o’clock.”
A good account of the manners and habits of the people at this period would be interesting, and probably materials for the purpose could be found, were a qualified person to undertake the task:[[15]] they are only noticed above incidentally, as likely to affect the discipline of the regiment. The early dinner was too much followed by a long sederunt over the bottle, and the absence of ladies’ society gave a tone of grossness to the habits, which are happily much improved in modern days.