The sixth company, second battalion, and sixty men of the Maltese sappers at Messina, embarked at Milazzo on the 17th May and landed at Naples on the 27th. On the 2nd July following they re-embarked, and arrived at Genoa on the 11th of that month. There the Maltese sappers were reinforced by the landing of the remainder of the company from Messina on the 18th October. The number of the whole reached 101 men, including the small party which rejoined the company from Corfu in April. Throughout the year, detachments of the sixth company, second battalion, were maintained at Palermo and Faro; and a party of two sergeants and nineteen rank and file, sent on a secret expedition, was afterwards on duty for a few months at Milan and Marseilles.
Under a royal warrant, dated 5th October, the two companies of Maltese sappers stationed at Malta and Gozo, were disbanded; and the war company—retained for general service—was assimilated in all essential respects to the royal sappers and miners. The establishment of the company was fixed at one sub-lieutenant, five sergeants, five corporals, five second-corporals, three drummers, and seventy privates; and its strength was sustained, from time to time, by transfers of Britons, Maltese, Sicilians, and Italians—all properly-qualified artificers—from the regiments serving in the Mediterranean. The designation of the company—“Maltese Sappers and Miners”—assumed in 1813 for the sake of uniformity, was confirmed by the warrant, and the colour of the dress was changed from blue to red.
On the representation of four sub-lieutenants, the regimental allowances of officers of that rank were brought under consideration. On active duty the pay was found to be inadequate to meet the requirements of the service. In the Peninsula, the officers with the army had to endure much hardship, and were continually menaced with pecuniary difficulties and embarrassments. Aware of these facts, Lieutenant-Colonel Burgoyne and Major Rice Jones backed the appeal by forcible recommendations to Lieutenant-General Mann, and on the 9th November the Prince Regent was pleased to increase the pay of the sub-lieutenants from 5s. 7d. to 6s. 7d. a-day.
In January the fourth company, second battalion, moved from Antwerp to Ypres, where they were quartered in the bishop’s palace and adjoining convent, which had been sacrilegiously converted by the French into an engineer establishment. The defences of Ypres had not been repaired since the fortress was taken by the French in 1794. Two considerable breaches were in the body of the place and the various outworks were in a dilapidated condition. The officers of engineers and the company were employed in restoring the works to a state to resist a field attack or a coup-de-main. This last contingency, however, was not calculated upon until Napoleon had regained the capital and the royal family fled to the frontier. The startling intelligence was announced to the resident engineer—Captain Oldfield—at six o’clock one evening, and by the same hour next morning, parties of sappers under two officers of engineers had opened the sluices and covered, with inundations, the two breaches on the Bailleul front. Immediately after, large military parties under the direction of the sappers and the officers of royal engineers commenced the work of strengthening the fortress, and further assisted by labourers of all ages intermixed with stout women and sturdy girls from the town and adjacent villages, the fortress was renewed with singular despatch. Sub-Lieutenant Adam, who was appointed assistant engineer, superintended the restoration of the body of the place near the Lille gate and the outworks in front of the Menin and Dixmude gates; he also attended to the repairs of the communication boats and bridges, barriers, posterns, &c. With the exception of the sappers, the garrison was entirely composed of foreign troops who could not speak a word of English, and as the sappers had only mastered a few elementary snatches of the Flemish language, the duty of superintendence was not accomplished without difficulty.
To the force in Holland was added the fifth company, second battalion, which embarked at Woolwich on the 2nd January, and landed at Antwerp the same month. This company and two others already there, were employed for several months in improving the defences of the frontiers of the Netherlands, particularly at Ypres, Tournay, Mons, Menin, Dendermond, Ath, Namur, Charleroi, and Brussels. The various works were subdivided amongst the non-commissioned officers and privates, each of whom was held responsible for the proper execution of the work intrusted to his superintendence. The peasants and women under the direction of each counted from 20 to 100, and even more, according to circumstances.[[219]] Sergeant John Purcell had from 300 to 400 women under his orders at Ypres; and from some winning peculiarity in his mode of command, obtained from their willing obedience and energies an amount of labour that was almost astonishing. No less than about 1,800 peasants and 2,000 horses were engaged in these works, and, by all accounts, they were conducted with the greatest regularity and despatch. Sir Charles Pasley attributes no inconsiderable credit to the sappers for their assistance in the general services of the frontier;[[220]] and the Master-General, the Earl of Mulgrave, in a letter dated 4th April, expressed his “warm approbation of their zeal and exertions.” The Duke of Wellington also on visiting the frontier, awarded similar praise to the officers and sappers, particularly for their efficient labours at Ypres.
Meanwhile Napoleon, breaking his captivity in Elba, reappeared in France, and wherever he journeyed, was enthusiastically welcomed by his former legions. As by a spell, the army gathered under the wings of his eagles, and again lifted him into the imperial seat from which he had been so recently expelled. Europe was once more thrown into commotion by the event, and to crush the lofty hopes and pretensions of an intolerable ambition, war was at once declared by the Allies against the usurper.
At the instance of the Duke of Wellington,[[221]] who requested “the whole corps of sappers and miners” to be sent to Brussels to join his Grace’s force, seven companies of the corps, instructed in their art, were hurried off to Ostend between the 24th March and 10th June, and distributed with all possible haste to those frontier posts and fortresses in the Netherlands that most required their services. Those companies were the
Third and sixth of the first battalion;
Second and eighth of the second battalion;
First and seventh of the third battalion; and