A British army, as it was,--is,--and ought to be

by James Campbell

As soon as he disappeared, and that it was conjectured he had gone over to the enemy, as captain of his company, I was called upon to report upon the circumstances which could have led to so extraordinary an event; and I was at the same time given to understand, that Lord Wellington was uneasy lest he might have conveyed to the French some useful intelligence; but I conclude that an explanatory letter which I addressed to the officers commanding the regiment, set his Lordship's mind at ease; for I unhesitatingly declared him to be totally unfit to make any observations of consequence, as to the positions or state of the army, or upon the country in rear of the lines; and in this opinion, as we were afterwards able to ascertain, I proved to be quite correct, for Marshal Massena finding him useless, he was altogether neglected, and having been left by the French, in their retreat, asleep in a hut, he fell into the hands of some of our light troops. It was intended that he was to have been tried for deserting to the enemy, and I was in consequence ordered to appear as the principal witness against him; but upon his being brought before the General Court-Martial by the Provost Marshal, it was at once ascertained, that he had become deranged during his confinement. Upon this circumstance being made known to Lord Wellington, he, I understood, ordered him to be sent home, and I heard some time afterwards, that the unfortunate man died in a lunatic asylum in Ireland. This was a melancholy instance of the consequences of improper recommendations of persons for commissions in the army, which I regret to say, was but too common in those days; and my chief object in giving the story at all, is, that it may cause some gentlemen in future, to consider what they are about, before they take upon themselves the responsibility of introducing such men as Mr. B. into her Majesty's army.

In the French armies, according to the system they pursue, an officer possessing in many respects power not inferior to what I am so desirous that our officers of military police should be intrusted, takes up his station generally with or near the head-quarters of the army, or close to what is to be the line of march of the following day, and, if possible, within a reasonable distance of where he intends the markets to be held, should the army be stationary even for a few days only, and this enables him either personally to superintend what is going on, or else to send his subordinates to do so. He or some of his people patrole the neighbourhood of the camps, in order to protect all who are coming to the markets with supplies, and, on the spot, he punishes any one guilty of infringing the orders of the army.—Upon the line of march he distributes his police in such a manner as to insure good order amongst the soldiers, bat-men, carters, those attached to the commissariat, sutlers, and even amongst the people bringing supplies to the markets.

As he acts under the orders of the principal officer of the "état-major," or the commander-in-chief, he and his subordinates have the power of inflicting summary punishment, according to the rules of the service; and they are, therefore, even accompanied by executioners, the very sight of whom is conducive to good behaviour on the part of the troops and followers of the army of every description. It is something of this kind, but superior in arrangement, and in the rank of those employed, that the British army so much wants, and what I am anxious to have established upon a most respectable footing; but in all arrangements for this purpose it should be kept in view how beneficial it would be to the public service that a proper provision should be made for the necessities of divisions of the army when acting separately or independently. The French plan seems more particularly adapted to the wants of the head-quarters only, and is therefore so far defective.

In my anxiety to have an intelligent and efficient police established in connexion with the adjutant-general's department, I have been obliged to say more upon the subject than I at first intended, and as everything relating to the discipline of an army comes under that branch of the staff, I must also take the liberty to observe (and in doing so I know that I am coincided with in the opinion I am about to express by many officers,) that our courts-martial which are, even in these quiet times, almost constantly sitting, have brought matters, as the natural consequence of such a plan, into an unprofitable state, and which cannot possibly from want of time, and for other obvious reasons, exist, on service in the field. The strange system now pursued seems as if intended to weaken the power and influence of commanding and other officers in the corps, and which they must possess, if discipline is to be maintained as it ought to be; and this state of things looks as if brought about to suit the notions of men who are always dragging military matters before the public, whilst they show the world that they are quite ignorant of them. All this can, however, scarcely have any other tendency than to prevent officers from duly performing their duties lest they should be hauled over the coals for so doing, and I greatly fear that this must before long seriously injure the discipline of the army, so much so that if even what I have ventured to propose for its good should not be thought worthy of consideration, events alone may compel the legislature to look to the consequences likely to be produced if the present system is adhered to, and the result may most likely be that our military chiefs will have to be intrusted with greater power than they ever before possessed, especially on service; when far too much of the time of officers was always occupied upon courts-martial of all kinds, which might have been employed in looking after their men, and have prevented the crimes from being committed which became the subject for investigation, and as a proof of this the books of general orders issued upon service, are almost filled with parts of their proceedings and the observations of Commanders of the Forces upon them.

It is by no means with the view of inducing any one to follow their example I now mention that, in the French armies, before the Revolution, courts-martial were only assembled for the trial of those guilty of very serious crimes; and in the field, even these were often summarily judged and punished, occasionally upon a simple verbal order. The National Constituent Assembly, however, without knowing what they were about, and from a sheer love of novelty, under the pretext of doing away with arbitrary military proceedings, rendered them, as now with us, most vexatiously frequent and complicated, by requiring courts-martial to be assembled for the investigation of even the most trivial offences, in order to award the most trifling punishments; and which commanding officers, as in our navy, could before have ordered upon their own authority and responsibility. The new laws which they made for this wise purpose had soon to undergo many and endless changes, all tending to occupy the time of officers and to make the proceedings of military tribunals more tedious and annoying; and they are now, after all that has been done, no better than our own, and they have attached to them a court of revision in which the matter, in case of appeal, is re-considered. But to make up for being thus hampered, the French état-major often found it necessary, under the delegated authority of their commander-in-chief, to act in a very arbitrary and summary manner in the field.

Other branches of the service, such as the Post-office, &c., come under the Adjutant-General and his department, but I have already been too minute upon this head; yet I do not see how I can be less so if I am at all to enter upon the Quarter-Master-General's department, and in doing so I must touch upon what is well known to many officers.

All military plans, sketches, &c. especially such as afford information like the following:—

Plan pointing out where are situated, the stone bridges, &c. &c., which exist upon the Ebro, from Reynosa to Tudela.

Stone Bridges.	Wooden Bridges fit for Infantry only, when the river is low.	Ferries.	Fords in Summer.	Fords in Winter.	Observations.
Mirando, Haro, &c. &c.	Pollentes, Rampalais, &c. &c.	Baca, &c. &c.	Porlata, &c. &c.	Vadillo, &c. &c.

Also the arrangements for the movements or marches of an army; its encampments, bivouacs, quarters, in the field fixing upon the general line for out-posts, supplies of almost every description, and the arrangements connected with them, and various other matters come under the Quarter-Master-general and his department; and it is the duty of these officers to furnish the chief of the staff, for the information of the Commander of the Forces, and also generals of divisions, when necessary, with comprehensive returns, according to established forms, which would show at one view the various resources of a country in which war might be carrying on. These returns, of course, according to circumstances, should embrace the cities, towns, villages, hamlets, and the number of inhabitants in each. The number of carts, waggons, or other carriages; the number of horses or mules for draught, burden or saddle; the number of bullocks, cows or sheep; the agricultural productions, such as the usual quantity of wheat, barley, oats, &c.; also of hay, straw or green forage; the returns should likewise show the quantity of each absolutely required for the use of the country, and the supplies, if any, also the number of pairs of boots or shoes fit for soldiers, or shoes for horses, which could be provided in a given time, or any other manufactured articles, which it might be supposed were likely to be required by an army.