(Signed) "Richmond."
All honour to the Duke of Richmond! No Master-General ever penned a more considerate and kindly Warrant, and none ever more fully realized the speciality of the Artillery service. "Without prejudice to their companies:" here is the true Artillery unit officially recognized. No word of battalions: these were mere paper organizations, devoid of all tactical meaning. History in the end always preaches truth; and at the close of a seven years' season of very earnest war, the uppermost thought in the mind of his Grace—the Colonel ex officio of the Royal Artillery—was the welfare of the companies.
The pruning-knife had to be used, for the taxpayers of England were yet staggering and reeling under the burden of wide-spread and continuous hostilities; but it was to be used with all tenderness for the susceptibilities of the true Artillery unit, and of the captains through whom the needs of that unit found expression.
The reductions having been decided upon, the following was the first distribution of the Regiment after the Peace of Versailles:—
First Battalion.—Six companies were ordered to Gibraltar to relieve the five belonging to the Second Battalion, which had been stationed there during the Siege. Four companies went to the West Indies, and one was reduced.
Second Battalion.—The whole ten companies of this battalion were ordered to Woolwich.
Third Battalion.—The companies were directed to be stationed as follows: five at Woolwich; one at the Tower; two at Portsmouth; one at Plymouth; and one at Chatham.
Fourth Battalion.—Three companies of this battalion were stationed in Jamaica, four in Canada, two at Halifax, Nova Scotia, and one in Newfoundland.
Besides various small detachments in Great Britain, the Invalid Battalion had to find the Artillery part of the garrisons of Jersey, Guernsey, Newcastle, and Scotland. It will be observed that Ireland is not mentioned, that country being garrisoned by the Royal Irish Artillery, which still enjoyed a separate existence.