Excuse the stanza. Perhaps the sergeant-major was a tetchy man, obstinate in maintaining his rights, and took this private opportunity of asserting his warranted rank and publishing the military anomaly in imperishable marble.
[2]. The Warrant does not designate the company by such a title. It is there called “The Military Company of Artificers.” How the change took place, does not appear.
[3]. A real is equal to 4½d. English.
[4]. The order upon this subject is given at length, as it touches upon other matters besides the discipline of the company.
Chief Engineer’s Orders, Gibraltar, 31st May, 1772.
“By the Governor’s orders of the 20th May, the company of soldier-artificers now raising and forming under the command of the Chief Engineer as captain, Captain Phipps, Captain-Lieutenant Lefance, and Lieutenant Evelegh, are appointed officers to the said company, and are, therefore, conformable to their respective ranks, henceforth to take under their command the conduct and inspection of the non-commissioned officers and private men of the said company, and to pay all sort of military attentions to their good order and regular behaviour, according to the rules and discipline of war;[[4a]] also to the particular standing orders, as well as to the accustomary regulations of the garrison relative to all the required and expected duties of a soldier and an artificer, both when on, as well as when off, duty. Captain Phipps is also appointed to keep the accounts and to see the company duly paid their full military subsistence. The company to be paid conformable to His Majesty’s Warrant dated March 6th, 1772, upon the same footing as the rest of the troops in garrison, viz., at seventy pence sterling the Mexico or Cobb, agreeable to which, the non-commissioned officers and men are to be paid weekly as follows, the deduction for the surgeon excepted:—
| Sergeant-major | 5 dollars, | 3 reals, | 31⁄7 quarts. |
| Sergeants—each | 2 ” | 5 ” | 93⁄7 ” |
| Corporals—each | 2 ” | 0 ” | 124⁄7 ” |
| Privates and drummer—each. | 1 ” | 4 ” | 0 |
One-halfpenny sterling a-week to be stopped from each private and drummer for the surgeon, and the non-commissioned officers to be stopped in proportion to their respective pays.”
[4a]. No provision was made this year for extending the Mutiny Act to the company; nor, indeed, was it noticed in any subsequent Act till 1788, when its introduction gave rise to much discussion in the House of Commons. The idea of subjecting artificers to martial law was attacked with satirical bitterness by the eloquent Sheridan.
[5]. The more particular duties of the Sergeant-major, as described in the Chief Engineer’s Order of 31st May, 1772, were “to carry all the general orders to the Chief Engineer, and the officers of the company, through the means of the other sergeants; also to make known the general orders to the rest of the non-commissioned officers and private men.” These he was required to attend to, “in lieu of an adjutant.” By the royal warrant, he should have been appointed to that rank, and not designated “sergeant-major.” No reason can be traced for altering the title. The first adjutant was an officer of engineers—Lieutenant Evelegh. He was appointed 15th June, 1773. Bridges enlisted into the 30th regiment in 1751, from which he was transferred to the corps as Sergeant-major, and being reduced during the siege (28th September, 1781), was discharged from the company 10th October, 1781.