On the removal of the mission to Levant Chiflick, five of the detachment were detained with the officers at Buyukdere, and the remainder were occupied in various services at the former place and Kaithana, where they erected a furnace for heating shot. Shortly afterwards experiments with red-hot shot were carried on in the presence of the Sultan, who, at the close of the practice, having reviewed the mission, presented each person with a gift suitable to his rank. Whilst building the furnace, the artificers, exposed to marsh miasma, were early attacked with fever. At first the cases were slight, but relapses following with malignity, three of the detachment died. To preserve the mission, therefore, it was removed in October to the Dardanelles. Previously to the embarkation, the artificers constructed a handsome model of the upper castle at Chennekalleh, on the Asiatic side of the Dardanelles, with Major Holloway’s improvements, which model was presented by that officer to Hadgi Ibrahim Effendi, Secretary at War for the Ottoman Porte. Subsequently, at the Dardanelles,[[116]] they were employed in effecting various alterations and additions to the castle until the 2nd December, when the mission was suddenly recalled to Constantinople; and landing on the 4th, awaited orders to proceed on more active service.[[117]]
At the instance of the Admiralty, a detachment of one sergeant, one corporal, and forty privates, chiefly masons and bricklayers, able-bodied men and good artificers, under Lieutenant C. Mann, royal engineers, sailed for Gibraltar in May on board the ‘Fortitude,’ and landed there the following month. The party was specially employed in constructing a cistern for naval purposes, under the military foremanship of sergeant Joseph Woodhead; and in October, 1800, it was incorporated with the Gibraltar companies.
England and Russia having concluded a treaty to send an army to Holland to reinstate the Stadtholder, a corps of 12,000 men, under Sir Ralph Abercrombie, embarked for the Helder and landed on the 27th August. Attached to this expedition was a party of military artificers, consisting of one sergeant, two corporals, thirty-five artificers—seventeen of whom were carpenters—and one drummer, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Hay, R.E. The detachment embarked on board the ‘Amphitrite,’ and disembarking with the second division, were present in the action of that day.
After forming the engineer park near the Helder, about ten men were left to repair the fort; and the remainder, divided into brigades of four to each brigade, followed the troops in their forward movement in charge of the intrenching equipment of the expedition, which was conveyed in waggons. Early in September, the detachment constructed several batteries for guns and mortars to defend the post at Zuyp; as also, subsequently, at Hoorn and Egmont-op-Zee; and to facilitate the march of the army to the latter place, they assisted in the formation of three flying bridges over canals that intersected the route. In the retreat, they were continually employed in throwing small bridges across the canals by means of planking, felled trees, and other chance materials. At Alkmaer they constructed several defensive works; and on retiring from thence, where three roads met, they raised, in an incredibly short time, a mound of earth about twelve feet high, across the junction, with the view of impeding the enemy in their pursuit of the British. None of the military artificers were killed or wounded on this service. On the evacuation of Holland in November the detachment rejoined the companies.
Here, perhaps, it would be proper to allude, in a general remark, to the practice of providing detachments for foreign service. It will already have been observed, that whenever any expedition was undertaken, resort was invariably had to the royal military artificers for a selection of men to accompany it, suitable to the work upon which it was contemplated they would be employed; but the numbers furnished were always insufficient for the purpose, and no representations or remonstrances could avail in altering a custom, which, from causes not easily surmised, seems to have been pertinaciously persevered in.
This remark is fully borne out by the statement of a highly distinguished officer;[[118]] and is moreover corroborated by the fact, that about this time, the particular attention of the Commander-in-Chief was drawn to the subject, without, however, accomplishing what the interests of the service greatly needed. It is said, that when the Duke of York was preparing his expedition for Holland, he demanded efficient assistance from the royal engineers and royal military artificers, which, for some reason, the Ordnance authorities reluctantly met with an inadequate provision. Annoyed by the limited number tendered, his Royal Highness determined to establish a corps competent to discharge the duties usually devolving upon the royal engineers, “which should be absolutely at the disposal of the Horse Guards; and as his Royal Highness held office in times when the thoughts of statesmen were bent rather to render the means of the country’s defence complete, and to aid other nations in opposing the aggressions of an arrogant and unscrupulous power, than to effect savings in the public expenditure, he found no difficulty in consummating his wishes, and hence arose the royal staff corps.”[[119]]
1800.
Mortality in the West Indies—Blockade of Malta—Capture of a transport on passage from Nova Scotia—Movements and services of detachments in Turkey; attacked with fever—Anecdote of private Thomas Taylor at Constantinople—Cruise of expedition to Cadiz—Attack on the city abandoned—Subsequent movements of the expedition; Malta; and re-embarkation for Egypt—Statistics of companies at Gibraltar.
From the diminished state of the company in the West Indies, and the impracticability of filling up the constantly-recurring vacancies by drafts from England, authority was given to the Commanding Engineer in the Leeward Islands, to obtain on the spot, men for the company properly qualified and climatized, either by enlistment or transfer from other corps. This led to an immediate incorporation, in April, of one sergeant, twenty privates, and two drummers, from the 43rd and other regiments; and though the plan was attended with considerable success, the still greater mortality from fever always kept the company greatly below its establishment.
In addition to the repeated allusion made to the military artificers in the West Indies, the following statistics of mortality, as far as the same can now be ascertained, affording a tolerably correct idea of the unhealthiness of the climate, and the sufferings to which the men must have been subjected, may here not be misplaced.