To carry out the reorganization of the regiment, adverted to in a former page, in November, the 8th company to each European battalion was added; a draught of 100 men from the European regiment was taken for this purpose. Two companies of golundaz (11th and 12th[A]) and five companies (41st to 45th[[77]]) of gun lascars were reduced. The driver companies were reduced to nineteen, two for the horse, and seventeen for the bullock batteries; nine were reduced (2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 9th, 10th, and 12th), and transferred to the commissariat; each company was fixed at four sirdars and eighty-six drivers, and the batteries consisted of eight pieces. The lascar companies were strengthened by the addition of one havildar and fourteen privates to each company, with European battalions, and by one havildar with the companies attached to the 4th battalion.
The field-train establishments, which in 1809 were placed entirely under the control and care of commanding officers of artillery at Agra and Cawnpoor, were now transferred to the magazines, and kept in order by the commissaries under the general control of the commanding officer of artillery.
The horse field-batteries were increased to three, and considered part of the permanent establishment, making the number, fourteen bullock and three horse-batteries. Another bullock-battery was shortly added, on Mhow becoming a Bengal station.
The Governor-General, adverting to the important, responsible, and laborious duty which the recent signal alterations in the constitution of the artillery have imposed on the commandant, and considering the staff salary at present allowed to him, when not a general officer, to bear no proportion to the extent and variety of his command, was pleased to sanction a personal allowance, in addition, of Rs. 500 per mensem; and also, on the same principle, the commanding officer of artillery in the field was allowed to draw 600, and all field commanding divisions, 300. The major of brigade was raised to an assistant adjutant-general of the regiment, and a brigade-major permanently sanctioned in the field.
A model department was formed at Dum-Dum under Captain Parlby, and the establishment for bouching guns and preparing tangent-scales was attached to it. In this department a very valuable collection of models was made up, and which, on the breaking up of the establishment in 1829, were transferred to the expense magazine, and thence to the regimental mess in 1839, the regiment having added a room for their reception.
A permanent select committee was formed, consisting of certain regimental and staff officers of artillery, at Dum-Dum and in the neighbourhood, to whom every question involving change in the matériel equipment of the department was to be submitted in the first instance, and their opinion was to be forwarded to assist Government in coming to a decision, and they were soon fully occupied with the important questions of windage, brass ordnance, and patterns of light field-carriages.
In August the lascars of the regiment were very much reduced; the use of drag-ropes as a means of moving guns, except for trifling distances, or out of a difficulty, was given up, and with that, the necessity of such strong bodies of lascars with artillery companies ceased. They were reduced to a detail of one havildar, two naiks, and twenty-four privates, to each troop and European company, and taken away entirely from the native battalions; the men thus struck off from the regiment were formed into sixteen companies of store lascars, each consisting of one subahdar, one jemadar, four havildars, four naiks, and eighty privates, and were posted to the different magazines. But this arrangement was not found to answer, and the lascar companies were, on the war breaking out in 1824, increased to forty privates, partly, perhaps, from the insufficiency of Europeans to keep the companies up to their proper strength.
An interpreter was allowed to the regiment at head-quarters, and attached to the golundaz companies at Dum-Dum.
Lieutenant-Colonel A. MacLeod was appointed commandant on Major-General Hardwicke’s sailing for Europe in December, and with Colonel MacLeod the command of the artillery in the field ceased; the brigade-majorship was also abolished, and Captain Tennant, who held it, was appointed assistant secretary to the Military Board.
In February five companies were added to the golundaz battalion, raising its number to twenty companies, to meet the exigency of the war with Ava. In June, to meet the deficiency of Europeans, three additional companies of lascars of eighty-four men each were raised; four privates were added to each golundaz company, and the lascar companies increased, as above mentioned, to forty men each, those who had been transferred to the store lascars being taken back again.