In the early days of the Ordnance Board, its relations with the navy were more intimate than in later years. The gunners of the ships were under its control, and had to answer to it for the expenditure of their stores. In this particular, as in most details of checking and audit, the Board was stern to a degree, and not unfrequently unreasonable. In 1712, the captain of a man-of-war, sent to Newfoundland in charge of a convoy, found the English inhabitants of the Island in a state of great danger and uneasiness, and almost unprotected. At their urgent request, he left with them much of his ordnance and stores before he returned to England. With the promptitude which characterized the Board's action towards any one who dared to think for himself, it refused to pass the captain's or gunner's accounts, nor would it authorize them to draw their pay. Remonstrance was useless; explanations were unattended to: the lesson had to be taught to its subordinates, however harshly and idiotically, that freewill did not belong to them, and that to assume any responsibility was to commit a grievous sin. It actually required a petition to the Queen and the Treasury before the unhappy men could get a hearing, and, as a natural consequence, an approval and confirmation of their conduct. The arming of all men-of-war belonged to the Ordnance; indeed, the office was created for the Navy, although, in course of time, Army details almost entirely monopolized it. Although obliged to act on the requisitions of the Lord High Admiral, their control in their own details, and over the gunners of the ship as regarded their stores, was unfettered. The repairing of the ships, and to a considerable extent their internal fittings, were part of the Board's duties; but it is to be hoped that the technical knowledge of some of their officials exceeded that possessed by the Masters-General. A letter is extant from one of these distinguished individuals, written on board the 'Katherine' yacht, in 1682, to his loving friends, the principal officers of the Ordnance. "I desire" he wrote, "you would give Mr. Young notice to proceed no further in making y^e hangings for y^e great bedstead in y^e lower room in y^e Katherine yacht, till ye have directions from me." But the Naval branch of the Board's duties is beyond the province of the present work. Of the Military branch much will be better described in the chapters concerning the old Artillery trains, the Royal Military Academy, and in the general narrative of the Royal Artillery's existence as a regiment. A few words, however, may be said here with reference to their civil duties, once of vast importance, but, with the naval branch, swallowed up, like the fat kine of Pharaoh's dream, by the military demands which were constantly on the increase, and were fostered by the military predilections of the Masters and Lieutenants-General.