The strength of the Royal Artillery ordered to embark for Egypt under General Lawson was as follows:— 1 Field Officer, 7 Captains, 12 Subalterns, 3 Surgeons, 54 Non-Commissioned Officers, 7 Lance N.-C. Officers, 450 Gunners, 9 Drummers, making a total of 543, besides 38 women and 7 children. The civil branch of the Ordnance was represented by 1 paymaster, 1 paymaster’s clerk, 1 commissary of stores, 1 assistant commissary and 4 clerks, 6 conductors of stores, and 19 artificers.
The names of the officers named at first were Colonel Lawson, Captains Thomson, Lemoine, Evans, Meredith, and Miller; Captains-Lieutenant Newhouse and Boger; Lieutenants Raynsford, Munro, Lawson, F. Campbell, Fauquier, Cleaveland, Armstrong, Michell, and Trelawny; and 2nd Lieutenants Kirby, Rook, and Nutt. This force was augmented in the Mediterranean from Minorca and Malta, and received a contingent, which will presently be mentioned, from Lisbon; certain changes, also, were made in it by Report to D. A. Gen. from Gen. Lawson. landing at Gibraltar a company of the 6th Battalion, receiving one of the 5th Battalion in exchange. The battalions actually represented in Egypt were the 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 5th, and the companies, which were present are detailed in the first volume of this work. The 3rd Battalion was at this time mainly stationed in the West Indies.
On the 5th May, 1800, General Lawson reached Portsmouth to take command of the Artillery of the Expedition, which he had been informed was on the point of sailing. He had also been informed that all necessary particulars had been communicated to him by the authorities; but in neither respect was his information correct, and the official fountain of his knowledge was found to have poured forth a somewhat muddy stream. Three weeks elapsed before he sailed—three weeks of wild, hopeless confusion—affairs having been complicated by the Government having decided on a secret expedition elsewhere, the Artillery of which was placed under the orders of Colonel Seward, then in command at Portsmouth. An interchange of companies between his force and that of General Lawson was threatened, and mutual drafts were made, as far as officers and a few men were concerned. Another company, under Major Cookson, who distinguished himself subsequently in Egypt, joined General Lawson at Portsmouth—a fact of which the student first becomes aware by finding a joint letter from the subalterns of the company, petitioning the Board, with considerable presence of mind, for an advance of pay, they “being quite out of cash.” It is presumed that their request was granted, for, Colonel Seward to Colonel Macleod, 25 May, 1800. on the morning of the 25th May, Colonel Seward reported the embarkation of this company “between eleven and twelve o’clock in high spirits.” The whole of General Lawson’s force had sailed by the 3rd June, and reached Gibraltar on the 22nd of the same month. The gallant General’s existence had been embittered during the last few days of his stay in England by the masterly silence, profound as the grave, with which all his inquiries for information, reiterated daily, were received by the Board. The subsequent difficulties which he encountered were mainly due to this triumph of official reticence.
Leaving General Lawson’s force at Gibraltar, let the reader return for a moment to that under Colonel Seward, which was to form part of the Secret Expedition. The Royal Artillery employed consisted of 386 of all ranks, besides that marvellous accompaniment of all expeditions in those days, whether secret or open,—22 women and 11 children. The armament consisted of 16 light 6-pounders. Three companies were taken complete, commanded by Major Embarkation Returns, D. A. General’s Correspondence. Borthwick, Captain Salmon, and Brevet-Lieut.-Colonel Bentham; and the following officers accompanied the force: Captains-Lieutenant S. G. Adye and A. MacDonald; 1st Lieutenants W. R. Carey, E. Curry, T. Masson, R. Carthew, S. Maxwell, D. Campbell, W. Holcombe, and L. Carmichael; 2nd Lieutenants W. Norman Ramsay, W. D. Nicolls, J. Rollo, and H. B. Lane. Major Borthwick was appointed by Colonel Seward Brigade-Major to the Artillery. Besides these three companies, drafts from almost every company in England were taken to complete them to their proper establishment, and to man the battalion guns. This heart-breaking system of robbing one company to feed the wants of another prevailed to a great and continual extent during the earlier part of this century, and its evil results show the vast improvement of the depôt system, which clothes the cadres of dwindling batteries abroad, without taking from those at home the men trained in and for themselves.
Considerable trouble was experienced by Colonel Seward in obtaining the co-operation of commanding officers of regiments in matters relating to the battalion guns; and this expedition acted as another nail, so to speak, in the coffin of that objectionable system. But infinitely greater was the trouble caused by the vacillation and uncertainty of the authorities, who, after the embarkation of the whole force, sent orders for it to disembark and encamp near Southampton, until they could arrive at some decision as to its destination. This afforded an opportunity for clerkdom to run riot. Questions as to ship rations and land rations, ship pay and land pay, poured on the ill-fated captains of companies every day; and seldom did a mail reach them without a disallowance.
At length the expedition set sail (the military part of the force being placed under Sir James Pulteney), and made an attempt on Ferrol, in whose harbour some large men-of-war were lying. The troops landed under a covering fire from the English fleet, and in the skirmish which followed they had Cust’s ‘Annals of the Wars.’ the advantage. But, Sir James Pulteney, becoming alarmed at the strength of the Spanish works, and at the news he received of their preparations, re-embarked the troops the same evening, and sailed for Gibraltar. Here Colonel Seward transferred to Colonel Lawson many of his officers, men, and stores; and with the remainder, and all the sick, he went to Lisbon, whence—pending his return to England—he D. A. General’s Correspondence. wrote the most gloomy letters, that ever crossed the threshold of Colonel Macleod’s office. The transfer of his officers to General Lawson’s command at Gibraltar, and the receipt of others from the companies in garrison, account for the presence in Egypt of many who did not embark with the latter from England, such as Major Sprowle, Captains Duncan and Adye, and Lieutenants D. Campbell, Sturgeon, and Burslem. One of the companies which sailed from B. General Lawson to Colonel Macleod. England with General Lawson was landed at Gibraltar in exchange for Major Sprowle’s; and by this means the glories of Egypt were denied to Captain Meredith and Lieutenants Cleaveland, Michell, and Nutt.
Colonel Cuppage, R.A., to Colonel Macleod, 11 July, 1800.
From Gibraltar General Lawson went to Minorca, which he reached on the 10th July, after a tedious passage of nineteen days. Here he landed his men to await the return of Sir R. Abercromby, who had at first started for Genoa, with all the troops he could collect from Minorca and elsewhere. While on the passage, however, Sir Ralph received a message from the Admiral, Lord Keith, informing him that the Austrians had evacuated Italy. He therefore diverted his course to Leghorn, where he remained a week, and then went on to Malta. When the citadel of Valetta in that island was given up by the French in September, and Malta passed into the hands of the English, General Lawson followed Sir Ralph, and the expedition to Egypt was in that island finally organized.
During this time the English force in the Mediterranean had been increased by the arrival of a body of 4000 men, under Lord Dalhousie, from Belleisle, where they had at first been intended to act. This reinforcement, with others Cust. which followed, brought Sir R. Abercromby’s force up to 17,489 men before it finally left Malta; and an additional force of 6000 men, under Sir David Baird, was expected to meet them from India. The story of the Expedition after leaving Malta will be told in General Lawson’s own words. But, in passing, it may be stated that Minorca was the residence at this time of Colonel Cuppage of the Artillery, whose correspondence with the Deputy Adjutant-General reveals the fact that he was allowed a power over the Royal Artillery in the Mediterranean of a very extensive and unusual description. As a rule, as little power as possible was allowed to commanding officers on out-stations; the movements of officers especially were carefully regulated from England; but Colonel Cuppage evidently had the power, and exercised it, of transferring officers and men from companies, even belonging to different battalions,—of appointing officers to the bomb service in the Mediterranean, and of disembarking others already appointed; and, in a word, of exercising unlimited control over that part of the Regiment which came within the area of his command. This is mentioned because such control, however advisable, was rarely exercised by the Board, which was jealous of anything approaching independence in those under its orders;—and it is impossible to avoid expressing surprise that a system which succeeded so admirably on this occasion did not receive further trial. The fact of Minorca being the residence of the Commanding Officer of Artillery must not be construed as implying that the old Ordnance Establishment and Train, which disappeared with the capitulation of Port Mahon in 1782, had been revived. His residence there was almost accidental, and mainly on account of its convenience,—previous to the capture of Malta,—as a rallying point for the naval and military forces in the Mediterranean.
One instance must be given, before entering upon General Lawson’s narrative, to show how infamously the arrangements of the civil branch of the Ordnance were often conducted, after a campaign had been undertaken, and how scandalously the shortcomings of the civil were left to be expiated by the military branch. These instances will be frequent as this work proceeds, and they are reproduced with a double and deliberate purpose: first, to show under what difficulties our armies obtained their successes; and second, to remind those who are ever ready to criticise the slightest shortcoming of the same description in the present day, that in our older campaigns, whose glories are remembered when their blunders are forgotten, the faults which are deprecated so loudly to-day existed in an appalling degree.