Adepts in natural history, from a few fossil bones and teeth, are able to delineate the animal to which they belonged, and from comparing the analogy of the parts, to clothe their skeleton with appropriate covering, thus making, as it were, the animal kingdom of by-gone ages pass in review before the present generation.
A similar talent would be necessary, effectively to rake up the early history of a regiment. Old records preserved in public offices form the fossil bones; and the “fleshy tenement” with which these are to be clothed must be culled from many a quarter ere the “animal” can be completed; and when this is done, there still remains the difficult task of giving him life and spirit, or, to drop the metaphor, of rendering the record useful and entertaining.
Much difficulty besets the undertaking; and, though we are conscious of our want of ability to do full justice to the present task, yet, as we believe that a good deal of information not generally known, and collected from sources inaccessible to the majority, is contained in the following pages, and which will be acceptable for its own sake, without reference to the form in which it appears, we have been induced to give publicity to our rough notes.
The first company of Bengal Artillery was raised in 1749; the orders were received, it is believed, from Bombay, then the chief presidency. A company was ordered, at the same time, at each presidency, in the Court of Directors’ general letter of 17th June, 1748. A copy of the warrant for that at Madras will be found in the “Artillery Records” for October, 1843, and for Bombay in one of a series of papers entitled “Three Years’ Gleanings,” which appeared in the E. I. United Service Journal in 1838, and some extracts from which are made hereafter in these pages: the entire warrants are too voluminous for insertion. A similar one was most probably sent to Bengal, but all records perished when Calcutta was taken.
Admiral Boscawen was requested to supply such aid in raising the companies as he could spare from the fleet, for gunners; and the master gunner was appointed to the Bombay company. The companies were to be completed as early as possible, and all the gun-room’s crew, who were qualified, were to be included.
The “gun-room’s crew” appears to have been the denomination given to a certain number of men set apart for the duties of the artillery; their officers were called gunners, gunners’ mates, &c., and combined the magazine duties with the more properly-called duties of artillerymen.
The new company was to consist of one captain, one second captain, one captain-lieutenant, and three lieutenant-fireworkers; four serjeants, four corporals, three drummers, and one hundred gunners; the established pay was as noted below:—
| Captain and chief engineer | £200 per annum. |
| 2nd captain and 2nd engineer | 150 per annum. |
| Captain-lieutenant, and director of laboratory | 100 per annum. |
| 1st lieutenant fireworker | 75 per annum. |
| 2nd lieutenant fireworker | 60 per annum. |
| 3rd lieutenant fireworker | 50[[2]] per annum. |
| Serjeant | 2s. per diem. |
| Corporal | 1s. 6d. per diem. |
| Gunner | 1s. per diem. |
The want of artillery during the wars on the coast from 1746 to 1754, and the impossibility of forming a sufficient number on the spot, induced the Court of Directors to obtain and send out two companies of Royal Artillery to Bombay; and, when the war broke out in 1756, three companies more were sent, with the reinforcements under Clive, to Bombay, and were afterwards distributed among the presidencies.
With Colonel Aldercron’s regiment (39th Foot,—“primus in Indis”) at Madras, there were also forty artillerymen, on its arrival in 1754; these he considered part of his regiment, and they were most probably borne on its rolls, and allotted to the duties of the field-pieces attached.