Lieut.-Col. Robe to Brig.-Gen. Macleod.
“I now deem it my duty (which were I to neglect I should be highly culpable) to point out to you in the strongest manner the impolicy of sending Artillery to a foreign country without horses. Even the horses we have now, old, blind, and casts from the Cavalry as they are, we find superior to what we can obtain from the country. The latter are good of their kind, but small, and not of sufficient weight for our carriages. Three hundred good horses would have cost the country no more for transport than as many bad ones, and what we shall do for the brigade now to be landed remains to be decided.... I must also mention the proportion of general stores which you, sir, know Artillery cannot do without, and which ought to be sent out with every embarkation. Had I been made acquainted with what was to have been embarked, I should not have gone on board ship till the proper proportion had been furnished. I did everything in my power to obtain the information from the Board, and was referred to Mr. ——, who himself at the time was not furnished with any information. I did at hazard request Mr. Spencer to put on board one hundred sets of horse-shoes and some nails, thinking them an addition to what would be provided for us. These are all I have had for the horses of three brigades; and had I not obtained some more from the Commissary-General, belonging to the horses delivered to us, the horses must have taken the field barefoot. I have made demands for some, and for such things as are most immediately required, and what may be wanted in the meantime must be purchased here.
“I write this to you officially, and must not be considered as individually complaining or making difficulties. My people of all classes exert themselves, and I am determined to get on; but I know that, engaged in a department where much is expected, I am doing my country greater service by pointing out what may render that department as complete as it is supposed to be, than if I were to remain for ever silent on the subject.”
Then followed the battles of Roliça and Vimiera, to be alluded to hereafter, and merely mentioned here to show that before the date of his next letter Colonel Robe had been able to form a very practical opinion of the Board’s shortcomings. Writing after Vimiera, on the night of the Lieut.-Col. Robe to Brigadier Macleod. 21st August, 1808, he says: “My men are staunch, and the admiration of the army; and had they been properly supplied with horses and with stores, as artillery should have embarked from England, Europe would not have produced a more efficient artillery. I shall have occasion to write to you and to the Board on the latter subjects, as soon as I can obtain time; but give me leave to say now that never more will I leave England taking my provision of Artillery upon trust, and coming upon an army burthened with cast horses, or no horses at all, or with brigades unsupplied with any one store to make repair, and scarce a shoe to put on horses when I could beg them. This may be strong; but I have reason to use the expressions after suffering the inconveniences occasioned by the want of these supplies.”
Lieut.-Col. Robe to Colonel Harding.
On the 1st September, 1808, Colonel Robe pointed out to Colonel Harding, who had arrived to take command of the Artillery in Portugal, that “not less than two hundred and fifty horses would be required to render that Artillery efficient for taking the field for a length of service. Those received originally from the Irish Commissariat were old cast horses of Cavalry, and many of them blind. They now fall off very fast.”
The reader will be eager to see how the Board explained its shortcomings, and what reparation it proposed to make to the brave officer, who had gained honour for his Corps in spite of official blunders. For calm, cool assumption, perhaps, Board of Ordnance to Lieut.-Col. Robe. the reply sent by the Board is unsurpassed. It bears date the 6th October, 1808, after the news of the English successes, and the gallantry of the Artillery under Colonel Robe, had reached England, and after Colonel Robe had been twice specially mentioned by Sir A. Wellesley in his despatches. It was written, let the reader remember, on behalf of a Board whose errors were not confined to those quoted above; which had actually sent guns without their ammunition, and ammunition which would have been useless, had not Colonel Robe succeeded in borrowing suitable guns from the navy. It was addressed to an officer who had been straining every nerve, night and day, to remedy the defects due to official ignorance, or to what is much the same, official affectation of omniscience;—to an officer who, in spite of the remonstrances which had been extorted from him by his discovery of the Board’s incapacity, had never attempted to shelter himself behind the faults of others, but had, instead, toiled to remedy them. Let the reader bear these facts in mind, as he attempts to realise the feelings with which Colonel Robe must have perused the following lines:—“In reply to the parts of your public correspondence in which you have so very warmly complained of some omissions and deficiencies, particularly in the Light Brigade of Artillery shipped at Plymouth, I am to say that his Lordship has, upon inquiry, ascertained that there were some irregularities in the embarkation, and that he has, in consequence, expressed his displeasure through the Board to the parties concerned, in a manner to make a lasting impression. His Lordship has, besides, issued such orders, and made such regulations, as must effectually preclude every plea or excuse for irregularity or omission in future.
“The Master-General, in desiring me to give you the above information, has directed me to add that, although he is willing to ascribe much of the style and many of the expressions in the letters to your known zeal for the service, and the anxiety attending an officer during the moments of preparation for the field, yet his Lordship cannot but regret that, instead of forwarding a complaint, which it would be the wish and the interest of the Ordnance to attend to, you should have allowed yourself to arraign, with such improper and unmerited asperity, the conduct of the Ordnance Department in general.”