No history of a Regiment like the Royal Artillery could be compressed into any reasonable dimensions, if every campaign in which it was engaged were described in detail. It must suffice to sketch the campaigns, but to paint in body colours the Artillery's share. The gradual increase of the proportion of this arm; the occasions on which it more particularly distinguished itself; the changes in dress and equipment; and the officers whose services in the successive campaigns were most conspicuous; these are the details which will form the foreground of the Regiment's History. But even these are so numerous that most careful sifting will be required to prevent the story from becoming wearisome. The same year, then, which saw the warrant issued for the foundation of the Royal Military Academy saw also the despatch to the West Indies of one of the most formidable expeditions, both in a naval and a military sense, which had ever left the shores of England. The squadron consisted of 115 vessels, well armed and manned, and the troops were in number over 12,000. The Royal Artillery was commanded by Colonel Jonas Watson—a brave and experienced officer, who did not live to return to England, being killed at the bombardment of Carthagena,—and was divided into trains for service on shore, and detachments for service on board the numerous bomb-vessels which formed part of the squadron. The troops were to have been commanded by Lord Cathcart, but unfortunately this officer died of fever, on the arrival of the expedition at Dominica, and his successor, General Wentworth, was totally unfit for the duties which devolved upon him. To this circumstance, and the want of harmony between him and the naval commander, Admiral Vernon, the ultimate failure of the expedition was due. Notwithstanding additional reinforcements from England, so reduced was this force in two years by disaster and disease, that not a tenth part returned to England; "and thus ended in shame, disappointment, and loss, the most important, most expensive, and the best concerted expedition that Great Britain was ever engaged in, leaving this melancholy proof, that if dissension is the misfortune of a State, it is the ruin of any military undertaking."[11] In reading the accounts of this expedition, more especially of the attack on Carthagena, there is a positive relief in turning from the passages relating to the quarrels between the naval and military commanders to those painful but proud episodes, in which the obedience and bravery of the troops and seamen were so gloriously manifested; and although the first service of the Royal Artillery on the Western side of the Atlantic was neither profitable nor pleasant, it can be studied with satisfaction, as far as their performance of their duties and endurance of hardship are concerned. As for the blunders which were committed by the commanders, the blame must lie with them, not with the executive.