Major Cookson’s company was the first of General Lawson’s force to leave Portsmouth. The earliest report of its movements is a letter written by Major Cookson from the Island of Houat, where he found 132 of the 6th Battalion, making, with his own company, a total force of Artillery amounting to 227 of all ranks. With characteristic energy, he commenced, after landing his company, to improve and strengthen his position. The reader will be good enough to remember that Major Cookson’s company was one of those, on the equipment of which the Board had expended unusual energy; and had felt such confidence in the omniscience of their civil officials, that they would not even reply to the hints and prayers of the officers of Artillery, who were most deeply interested. Doubtless, then, everything will be found as it should be. Yet let us hear what Major Cookson reports: Major Cookson, from I. of Houat, 24 June, 1800. “I have only a moment to tell you how very much distressed I am; and how much the Service is retarded for want of a Clerk of Stores who understands his duty. There is a man here who calls himself Conductor of Stores, but he is very far from being adequate to the situation, being, in the first place, incapable of writing.... I have 16 pieces of ordnance under my charge (10 6-pounders and 6 howitzers), all of which I had to complete to 100 rounds each, on board of the different vessels they were in, and to mount them ready to land in a chasse-marée, which was cut down and prepared for the purpose, and which I got done in two days; since which I have been obliged to land some here, and to put others from the ‘Diadem’ and ‘Inconstant’ on board the ‘John’ ordnance ship, and into boats. Conceive, then, how much I must have been in want of conductors and clerks of stores! On board the ‘John,’ when in a hurry for completing the ammunition, we were much annoyed to find 12-pounder flannel cartridges for the 5½-inch howitzers, and other like mistakes; however, I set the women to work and got over that difficulty and many others.... All the camp equipage for the officers and men whom I brought out is deficient; do, pray, therefore, send me out the camp equipage for my company ... with a hospital and laboratory tent, as soon as you possibly can; as also camp-kettles, canteens, and haversacks. The whole of the men have been uncommonly harassed for some days past.”
This is a charming picture of official foresight, and one which we shall find painted again and again in the succeeding pages of English story. Blind to the fact that the men, who were to use them, were also the best judges of the things required and— “Being too blind to have desire to see,”
the civil branch of the Ordnance too often reasoned à priori—evolved out of its own consciousness certain ill-defined wants, which the troops might possibly have—and, with many blunders and shortcomings, endeavoured to meet them. And then, with monotonous recurrence, came a pitiful struggle to maintain its own dignity in the face of incessant failure.
Major Cookson, from Houat, 1 August, 1800.
That the response to Major Cookson’s appeal was not wholly satisfactory may be gathered from the following extract from a subsequent letter:—“Conceive,” he wrote, “their sending me a common soldiers’ tent for the sick, and five horsemen’s tents without their poles, which to obtain here would be impossible, as all the men-of-war have expended already every inch of wood that could be spared. You will see by the return that we have 50 men ill, and, I am sorry to say, several of them dangerously so.”
It is a relief to turn, now, to the words of a man eminently capable of removing the difficulties with which he was surrounded.
Brig.-Gen. Lawson, R.A., MSS. Narrative in R. A. Library.
“The Expedition, under the orders of Admiral Lord Keith and General Abercromby, proceeded from the Island of Malta on the 21st December, 1800, arrived at Marmorice Bay, in Asia Minor, on the New Year’s Day following, and remained there, waiting the co-operation of the Turks (being the time of their Ramadan), until the 20th February. During this period every measure was taken the situation admitted of to lessen the numerous difficulties expected to be met with in Egypt,—such as a dangerous shore to land upon—a country destitute of wood, water, or roads—where (as the Commander-in-Chief informed the General Officers, assembled by order) nothing was to be looked for but a wild waste of desert, and obstacles which the most unremitting exertions had only a chance of surmounting, independent of a formidable opposition from the French troops.
“Under these ideas, and the battering train (originally designed against Belleisle only) having joined the army very indifferently provided indeed for such an uncommon, arduous enterprise, no time could be lost. All the artificers were landed, and strong working parties sent into the woods to cut down timber for making additional spars, skids, and various-sized rollers, to form gangways for landing the heavy ordnance upon, assisting them over deep sandy beaches, and in crossing the canals formed for conveying the rising waters of the Nile into the towns and cultivated spots of the country.
“The generally acknowledged difficulty of travelling by wheeled carriages in Egypt induced the trial of a number of contrivances to lessen that evil also, the first of which were a kind of litters,... termed ‘horse-barrows.’ No wood growing in this country proper for such purposes, rendered it necessary to dig saw-pits, in order to cut the pine timber into long scantling (16 feet in length, and about 4 inches square), something near the shape of a common hand-barrow, preserving the grain as entire as possible. Two movable cross-bars, which are secured by two small bolts, keep these shafts at a proper interval, to admit a horse at each end between them. Each horse or mule had a small cart saddle with girth, back-band, breastplate, and crupper, and a halter for leading it by. These barrows were particularly useful for narrow paths and the trenches of an attack, or for conveying any individual weight too heavy for a single horse, such as a small piece of ordnance, standing carriage, large casks of provisions, &c. (The powder and ammunition expended at the attack of Aboukir Castle were mostly conveyed from the landing-place to the batteries in this manner.) Besides these single barrows, a design was formed for double ones, consisting of three shafts, to be carried by four horses in pairs; and also others upon a still larger scale for camels, but neither time nor materials admitted of their being put into immediate execution. A very considerable number of carrying-poles, about 9 feet long each, were formed out of the small-sized trees, to which rope-slings were added, for the soldiers to convey kegs of musket-ball cartridges, ammunition-boxes, or royal mortars with.
“A number of horses were purchased at Constantinople on the part of the English Government, and sent to Marmorice, for remounting the Light Dragoons, and those rejected by them were turned over to the Artillery service. Such poor undersized animals as they were rendered it absolutely necessary not only to take the harness entirely to pieces, in order to bring it anything near fitting them, but also to lay aside all the heavy parts, such as neck-collars, chain-traces, curb-bits, &c., and replace them with light leather breast-collars, rope-traces, and pads formed out of the waggon harness, a great part of which, fortunately, was not likely to be otherwise called for.