[240]. The orders issued for the infliction of this discipline were as follows:—
“Head Quarters, Cambray, 25th June, 1818. In consequence of the circumstances connected with the murder of Alexander Milne, of Captain Peake’s company, which have appeared upon the proceedings of a court of enquiry, the Field Marshal has directed that the rolls of the royal sappers and miners may be called, until further orders, in their several cantonments every hour from 4 in the morning until 10 at night, all the officers being present; and that a daily report thereof may be made to head-quarters.”
“Head-Quarters, Cambray, 18th July, 1818. In consequence of orders from His Grace the Commander of the Forces, the rolls of the several companies of royal sappers and miners will be called every two hours from 4 in the morning until 10 at night, in place of every hour as directed in the C. E. orders of the 25th ultimo.”
[241]. The companies at Newfoundland and at Halifax, Nova Scotia, returned to England late in 1819. To the former company belonged sergeant Thomas Brown, who was discharged from the corps in November, 1819, after a service of twelve years. In 1821 the late Sir William Congreve appointed him modeller at the royal military repository, Woolwich, which situation he has held for thirty-six years with great credit. In that period he has made 125 models, chiefly of field artillery, pontoons, bridges, and miscellaneous military subjects. The greatest number are deposited for exhibition in the Rotunda, and the remainder in the rooms of instruction for the officers and non-commissioned officers. Many others also, which were defective or out of repair he has renewed or remade. His principal works, considered with regard to the skill and artistic excellence displayed in their construction, are the model of a fortified half octagon, showing the approaches and plan of attack, on a scale of 22½ feet to an inch, and a model of St. James’s Park as it was at the celebration of the peace in 1814.
[242]. To this company belonged private James Gordon, who lost an eye by accident in mining for the foundation of the palace, and was discharged at Woolwich 30th September, 1820, with a pension of 9d. a-day. Throughout his service of nine years he was a zealous and exemplary soldier, and bore about him the stamp and evidences of a loftier origin than his humble station gave reason to expect. Singular events in life sometimes occur that make contrasts at times appear almost fabulous. “The soldier turned peer,” has hitherto been the player’s jest, but it has at last become a veritable reality, for in September, 1848, this James Gordon, the private soldier, succeeded, as heir to his grandfather, to the titles of Viscount Kenmure and Lord Lochinvar.
[243]. Was an excellent clerk, and became in time a quartermaster-sergeant. After his discharge from the corps in 1843, he filled, for about ten years, important offices under the Surveyor-General of Prisons, and died while steward of Dartmoor Prison, in February, 1853, from a cold caught in that bleak quarter. The season was a peculiarly bitter and stormy one, during which three soldiers of the line, on escort duty, in crossing Dartmoor Heath, perished in the snow.
[244]. Captain Kater, in his account of the operations published in the ‘Philosophical Transactions,’ 1828, p. 153, notices, by mistake, this party as belonging to the royal artillery. There were, it is true, two gunners of the regiment present, but they were employed as servants to the officers.
[245]. Such was the sense entertained of his services, that Sir Frederick Adam, the Lord High Commissioner, after the detachment had reached Malta, recalled him to Corfu to superintend the civil works on the island. His position thus became anomalous, and, as far as military law and usage are concerned, unexampled for privilege and emolument. Besides his regimental pay, he received an allowance of 3s. 3d. a-day working pay, (afterwards increased to 4s. 3d. a-day,) with a fine residence and free rations for his wife, family, and a servant. He had also a horse and boats at his command, was relieved from the performance of regimental duty, and was permitted at all times to wear plain clothes. Throughout the building of the palace, the Villa of Cardachio, and other important civil buildings, he was the clerk of the works, and Sir Frederic Adam took every occasion of applauding his talents and exertions. In April, 1834, after removal to Woolwich, sergeant Lawson was appointed clerk of works at Sierra Leone, where, after a brief period of service, during which he was bereaved of his wife, he died, leaving nine orphans to lament his loss. His eldest son was nominated to the appointment as the fittest person in the colony to discharge its professional duties, but the youth fell a sacrifice to the climate four days after his father’s decease. The eight remaining orphans were generously cared for by Sir Frederic Mulcaster, the inspector-general of fortifications and the executive of the corps at the Ordnance Office, who obtained from the officers of royal engineers and the civil gentlemen of the department sufficient means to free them from that distress, to which the absence of this benevolent support would have inevitably reduced them.
[246]. The remains of all were interred with unusual respectability, and the spots where they lie have been marked by neat tomb-stones—a graceful tribute from the survivors to the memory of the departed.
[247]. Smith, afterwards a sergeant, was a first-rate mason and foreman, and during his service of thirty two years, twenty-five of which were abroad, his abilities, experience, and precision were found of great benefit to the department. At Corfu, Vido, and Zante, he was entrusted with very important duties. Subsequently to his discharge in 1842 on a pension of 2s. 3½d. a-day, he superintended, on the part of the Admiralty, the building of the royal marine barracks at Woolwich by contract, and his vigilance prevented the employment of any of those artifices so commonly resorted to by contractors. He afterwards superintended for the Duke of Buckingham the building of a circular redoubt, partly of stone, for six guns, at his Grace’s ducal residence at Stowe: and in the inscription on one of the piers, his name is thus associated with the work:—