[78]. In a letter bearing date 19th March, 1788.
[79]. For every labourer promoted, a guinea was granted to the master artificer, either civil or military, who had the credit of training him, as a compensation for his services and an encouragement to future exertion. This was sanctioned by his Grace in a letter dated 6th December, 1791.
[80]. This agreement was required to be attested by every recruit until about the year 1800, when it seems to have fallen into disuse.
[81]. John Drew was one of the sergeant-majors. He was the first soldier that entered the English corps of military artificers. On May 1st, 1795, he was commissioned to be second lieutenant in the invalid artillery, from which he retired in March, 1819, and died at Woolwich November 9, 1830. One of his daughters married the late Richard Byham, Esq., secretary to the honourable Board of Ordnance. A son—Richard Robinson Drew—attained the rank of Major in the royal artillery, and married Geriloma Barona, daughter of the late Marquis di Montebello. This lady died on the 4th September, 1854, and the Major survived her only four months. Both were interred in the family mausoleum at Messina. Though springing from a stock without any remarkable antecedents, good fortune seems to have attended the career of the offspring of the worthy sergeant-major; and much as his son may have added distinction to his race by his matrimonial alliance with a lady of high birth, it was still more honoured in the person of his granddaughter, who was wedded to the noble Prince di Castelcicala, the late Minister Plenipotentiary for Sicily.
Another of the sergeant-majors was Alexander Spence. He was born in 1726, and enlisted into the 20th Foot, January 16, 1756. After a service of 19 years in that regiment, and 14 as sergeant in the North Hants Militia, he joined the corps at the age of 61!! This is the period when men usually think of retiring from active employment and preparing for the end of life. Not so Spence. He was still a recruit, hale and hearty, and served his country for a further period of 21 years! If nature had taken her course, he might have lived to a great age, but disappointed in his expectation of receiving a sub-lieutenancy in the corps, he committed suicide January 11, 1809, at the age of 83.
[82]. While waiting for the issue of their regimental costume, the men, to appear smart and clean, pipe-clayed their frocks, vests, and pantaloons, and marched on Sundays to church as white as snow, and “stiff as buckram.” Unavoidably rubbing against each other during the service, the wash being thus set free, filled the sanctuary with clouds of white powder, which gave rise to the playful designation, by which they were known for some time, of “Hearts o’pipe-clay.”
[83]. A yellow silk knot was regimental; this the corporals were permitted to dispose of for a gold-fringed knot. In most of the companies the corporals wore knots on each shoulder. In the Woolwich company, one only was worn on the right shoulder.
[84]. ‘Public Advertiser.’ June 11th, 1789.
[85]. There exists two ballads with this title, one justly celebrated in the royal navy, written by Andrew Cherry, and embodied in Dibdin’s “Naval and National Songs,” and the other by a homely mariner, named, it is said, John Williams. Both songs may have taken their origin from the vessel spoken of above. Be this as it may, without doubt, one or the other was written to record the distress and struggles of the ship which conveyed the artificers to Gibraltar.
The incidents of the affair related in the first edition of this history were made to correspond with the seaman’s effusion, as there were reasons at the time for believing it referred to the vessel with the recruits on board; but, as on a closer review, there are doubts about its application, the details given in the former edition are omitted in this, leaving the question to be solved at a future day.