[352]. ‘South Australian Register,’ August 24, 1844.
[353]. ‘Limerick Chronicle,’ 25th May, 1839.
[354]. ‘United Service Journal,’ ii. 1839, p. 420.
[355]. Several of those who quitted obtained ready employment on these surveys, and their maps in all cases were of the first class. Mr. Chadwick, in his report to the Poor-Law Commissioners, compared the “non-efficiency of persons appointed to make surveys under the Tithe Commutation and Parochial Assessment Acts, with those executed by privates and non-commissioned officers of the sappers and miners. Out of 1,700 first-class maps, not more than one-half displayed qualifications for the execution of public surveys without superintendence. Amongst the most satisfactory surveys were those executed by a retired sergeant of the corps”—Alexander Doull.—‘British Almanac and Companion,’ 1843, p. 38.
[356]. In December, 1834, James M‘Kay was appointed acting quartermaster-sergeant with the pay of the rank. Entrusted with the care and issue of the engravings of the survey, more than 180,000 passed through his hands, amounting in value to 35,500l., the accounts for which, rendered half-yearly to the Irish Government, were never found to contain a single error. So extensive a responsibility rarely falls to a non-commissioned officer. Upwards of forty years he served in the corps, and, for his merits, received a gratuity and medal. He was discharged in July, 1844, with a pension of 2s. 4d. a-day, and afterwards obtained a quiet unpretending situation at Birmingham, where his business habits made him of essential service in the promotion of a scheme for a loan society on liberal principles.
[357]. The above detail does not exhibit a true exposition of the acquirements and usefulness of the survey companies, as many of those not advanced to the classes, had been reduced from the higher to the lower rates for irregularity; and others, on the higher rates, were not advanced as soon as their qualifications merited, it being a principle with the Colonel, not to exhaust the limited power he possessed of awarding working pay, because he wisely considered nothing was more discouraging to human exertions than the knowledge, that those whose duty it was to reward, had no further power to grant them encouragement.
[358]. ‘United Service Journal,’ i, 1840, p. 74.
[359]. Ibid., 1840, p. 74.
[360]. ‘United Service Journal,’ i. 1840, p. 76. “The sergeant-major’s composition was simply pitch softened by bees'-wax and tallow. He had tried a great number of experiments for ascertaining the best sort of waterproof composition for bags of gunpowder in 1832, when Bickford’s fuses were first used by the corps at Chatham. He also at the same period discovered the means for imitating Bickford’s fuses in an efficient manner. His imitation fuses, however, were not precisely the same, as Bickford’s fuses were evidently made by machinery.”—‘United Service Journal,’ ii. 1839, p. 192-193.
[361]. By this catastrophe, Admiral Kempenfeldt and a crew of many hundreds of seamen, with nearly 100 women and 200 Jews, then on board, perished.—‘Haydn’s Dates.’