A military dictionary

by William Duane

Military Department.

One first clerk, one second clerk, one third clerk, salaries not specified.

One chamber keeper, one messenger, one necessary woman, salaries not specified.

Office of ordnance, or board of ordnance in the British service.—It belongs to the office of ordnance to supply all military stores for the army and navy; to defray the expence of the corps of artillery, corps of engineers, and other military corps attached to the ordnance service; and also the charge of repairing and building fortifications at home and abroad; excepting field works abroad, and excepting also those fortifications which commanders in chief may deem it expedient to erect without previous instructions from home; in which two cases the bills are paid by the treasury, and placed to account in the extraordinaries of the army. All contingent expences, attending ordnance stores, as well as camp equipage for the artillery, and the article of tents for the privates of the whole army, included in the payments of the ordnance.

The hire of vessels for the transportation of ordnance for foreign service, has, since the establishment of the transport board, been transferred to that office: and the building of barracks belongs now to the barrack department, except when barracks are ordered to be built within a fortification.

The master general, who, in his military character, is commander in chief over the artillery and engineers, has, in his civil capacity, the entire control over the whole ordnance department: he can alone do any act, which can otherwise, if he does not interpose, be done by the board. He can order the issue of money, but that order must be executed in the usual mode, by three board officers.

The lieutenant general, who is second in command over the artillery and engineers, is, in his civil capacity, the first in rank among the members of the board; which comprehends four other principal officers; the surveyor general, the clerk of the ordnance, the store-keeper, and the clerk of deliveries. During the absence of the master general, or the vacancy of the office, the whole executive power devolves on the board; and it belongs to them, though they are subject to the interposition of the master general, to make contracts for stores, and for performance of services, and to direct the issue of stores and of money. The signatures of three members of the board, of whom the clerk of the ordnance must be one, are necessary for the payment of money.

Fortifications are erected by the commanding engineer, pursuant to an order from the master general, for carrying a project into execution, according to an approved plan and estimate. The estimate is usually formed in the first place by the engineer, who is afterwards to execute the work; and its accuracy is examined into by a committee of engineers at home, the expediency of the measure being submitted to the master general. All fortifications, works, and repairs are carried on by measurement and by contract, except where the soldiers of the corps of royal military artificers have been employed; and even in such cases the materials worked up by the soldiers are usually supplied by contract.

The sums voted for the ordnance, consist of the three following heads:—1st. The ordinary, which comprehends the provision for the ordinary establishment, civil and military, for the year ensuing, 2dly; The extraordinary, which comprehends every service known before hand, of a temporary and contingent nature, being a provision for the ensuing year also; and 3dly, the services unprovided for, consisting of services which either have been actually paid in the past year, as is generally the case, or which are supposed to have been paid, but which were not foreseen when the estimate for the past year was made up. Among these unforeseen expences are included various exceedings, which have happened in the individual services voted in the past year’s ordnance estimates; to which are added, such sums as may be necessary to make up the deficiency of the sum directed to the ordnance use from the naval service.

OFFICERS belonging to the military branch of the ordnance.