The artillery being found numerically insufficient for the duties required from it, in October, 1798, it was increased by an addition of two non-com. officers, two gunners, and[[38]] four matrosses per company, and a detail of golundaz of one jemadar, three havildars, three naiks, and forty privates to each of the eleven companies in Bengal (the other four companies were at Ceylon and Madras, and they were added to these early next year); thus adding upwards of nine hundred men. These were raised by selecting the best-qualified men from age, size, and good conduct, from the lascars, and enlisting in general Mahommedans, “under an express stipulation, on oath, previous to their being enrolled,” of “their engaging to embark on board of ship whenever the service shall require their proceeding by sea;” their age was limited from twenty to twenty-eight years, and their height from five feet seven inches to five feet ten inches. The required number was soon raised, and were so well drilled and disciplined by the following February, that the Commander-in-Chief on inspecting them “expressed his pleasure and surprise at the creditable state into which they had been so rapidly brought.”
This admixture of natives with Europeans was injudicious, for although at first sight it might be supposed that the effect would have been the same on the native artilleryman as on the lascar, and that he would have acquired, from constant contact with Europeans, a portion of their hardness of character, and lost his own prejudices, yet it must be remembered that the lascar was looked upon as an inferior grade, and never took an equal part in the duties of the gun as was intended with the native artillerymen, and therefore the European never felt his own credit or safety entrusted to the former, while with the latter both were intimately connected; distrust and jealousy were the result, and the admixture was found to work so ill, that it was soon discarded; it being found that, valuable as native artillerymen are alone, they became worse than useless when mixed with Europeans.
As the opinion of so practical and experienced a man as the late Sir John Horsford on this point will bear considerable weight, we quote it. “The European saw a native made a constituent part of that detail of the posts of the gun, of which he was one; he viewed this native with jealousy, and diffident of his ability (perhaps without reason) to serve the vent, or manage the portfire, he positively refused to stand between the wheels, as either sponge-man or loader, urging, in spite of reasoning on the matter, that ‘it was hard to be blown away by a black fellow.’ The native, on the other hand, perceiving the European hostile to him, and suspicious of mischief, refused in his turn to take the sponge-staff or be server; declaring that he might be ‘blown away by the design or carelessness of the European.’ Discord, recrimination, and hatred were the consequences.
“But this was not all, the ‘component part’ looked around and saw itself a miserable handful of men isolated, and put down in a company composed of men of different language and country, and dissimilar habits and religion, unsupported by number and marked as an inferior body, by having no rank amongst them higher than that of a jemadar. They saw themselves considered as so many shreds and patches on the coat of a European company, and pointed at by the sipahis as a laughing-stock: lastly, that in the eyes of their own officers they were viewed as unprofitable interlopers, who brought no promotion in return for the trouble of disciplining them.”
The regiment at this time (1799) therefore was constituted as below:—
| per Company. | per Battalion. | Total. | Returns Feb. 1799. | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Colonels. | 1 | 3 | 3 | ||
| Lieut.-Colonels. | 1 | 3 | 3 | ||
| Majors. | 1 | 3 | 3 | ||
| Captains. | 1 | 5 | 15 | 15 | |
| Capt.-Lieutenants. | 1 | 5 | 15 | 15 | |
| Lieutenants. | 2 | 10 | 30 | 29 | |
| Lieut.-Fireworkers. | 1 | 5 | 15 | 13 | |
| Serjeants. | 5 | 25 | 75 | 73 | |
| Corporals. | 5 | 25 | 75 | 73 | |
| Drummers. | 2 | 10 | 30 | 30 | |
| Gunners. | 10 | 50 | 150 | 146 | |
| Matrosses. | 70 | 350 | 1050 | 751 | |
| Golundas. | Jemadars. | 1 | 5 | 15 | 10 |
| Havildars. | 3 | 15 | 45 | 28 | |
| Naicks. | 3 | 15 | 45 | 27 | |
| Golundas. | 40 | 200 | 600 | 358 | |
| Lascars. | Serangs. | 1 | 10 | 30 | 30 |
| 1st Tindals. | 2 | 20 | 60 | 60 | |
| 2nd Tindals. | 2 | 20 | 60 | 60 | |
| Lascars. | 70 | 70 | 2100 | 2055 | |
1,380 Europeans, 705 golundaz, and 2,250 lascars, or a total of 4,335.[[39]] The infantry of the army at this period amounted to 40,000,[[40]] so that the artillery was in the proportion of one to every nine infantry soldiers, a proportion less than that usually considered sufficient in European armies, but considerably greater than has been preserved in the successive changes which have taken place in this regiment, and which we shall remark on as these changes come to be detailed.
In January, 1797, Major-General Duff being expected from England, whose arrival would supersede Colonel Deare in command of the artillery, it was declared this latter officer’s tour for command in the field as colonel of the artillery, and in March (29) General Duff assumed the command of the regiment.
General Duff joined the regiment in September, 1762, and was present at the battle of Buxar, where his conduct elicited the laudatory mention of his name in the Government reply to Major Munro. He does not appear to have been again employed on active service for some years; as a major he was selected to command the battalion of artillery raised for the Nawab of Oude in 1776, and on its reduction he commanded the artillery at Futteygurh. In 1780 he attained his lieutenant-colonelcy, and commanded the regiment during Colonel Pearse’s absence on service in the Carnatic. In 1788, he went to England, and returning in 1791–2, was appointed to command the Bengal Artillery of the army under Lord Cornwallis, in which capacity he was present during the last campaign, and prepared the battering-train against Seringapatam. At the conclusion of the war, he again returned to England, in consequence of the Court of Directors (to whom a reference had been made) refusing to allow him to command a battalion and the brigade of artillery. The refusal may have originated in his rank of colonel, as the promotion, in the place of Lieutenant-Colonel C. R. Deare (killed at Sattimungulum), was delayed until the reply came from home; or from his junior officer Colonel G. Deare having been intermediately appointed. Whatever the cause was, it had ceased to operate in 1797, as he was then appointed to the command. He did not, however, hold it long, for the following month he was appointed to command at the Presidency, and Colonel Hussey succeeded to the regiment.
Major-General Duff was a man of a powerful frame of body; anecdotes of his strength are told to the present day; on one occasion, a leopard sprung suddenly upon him, but seizing the animal by the throat, they rolled over and over, the general never relinquishing his grasp until the animal was fairly powerless, when he was easily put an end to. On another occasion, finding a sentry asleep over the park, he took a 6–pounder[[41]] off its carriage and carried it under his arm (doorbien ke mooafik, as an old native officer, at that time his orderly, described it) “like a telescope.”