History of the Royal Regiment of Artillery, Vol. 1: Compiled from the Original RecordsDuncan, Francis
History
History of the Royal Regiment of Artillery, Vol. 1: Compiled from the Original Records
Duncan, Francis
Great Britain. Army. Royal Regiment of Artillery
For this small battery, a somewhat eccentric detail of attendants was
ordered, characterized by the marked absence of Artillery _officers_.
They were as follows:—One commander, styled commander-in-chief, with a
daily pay of 1_l._; six engineers, with 10_s._ each; a commissary of
stores, five bombardiers, twenty gunners, and ten miners. The absence of
matrosses in this detail is also remarkable. The deficiencies in this
train soon became apparent, for in 1705 we find it was reinforced by a
captain, a lieutenant, a fireworker, a surgeon, and forty-two matrosses,
with a proportion of non-commissioned officers. And with the
reinforcement came six mountain 3-pounders—guns, which from this time
and for many years were familiarly known as grasshoppers.
Among the other musty warrants of this time, calling upon "our entirely-
beloved Master-General of the Ordnance, John Duke of Marlborough," to
furnish various trains and necessaries, one short one on the 3rd
October, 1704, has a peculiar interest. Intelligence had just been
received of the capture of Gibraltar by Sir George Rooke, and it became
necessary to send, for the better protection of the Rock, a few guns,
and some men familiar with their use. In this year, 1872, seven
Batteries of Artillery, each numbering 160 men when complete, are
considered necessary, the lesson not having yet been forgotten, which
was taught by the great siege, when five weak companies were all the
Artillery in the garrison, and gunners had to be improvised out of the
ranks of the Infantry. But the force during the great siege was lavish
compared with that deemed sufficient at first "for the better defence of
y^e said place." One chief engineer, Talbot Edwards by name, a
storekeeper and his clerk, two fireworkers, six bombardiers, and fifty-
five gunners, were at first deemed sufficient Artillery force for the
defence of a place whose chief means of protection lay in its guns.
Half-a-dozen brass 13-inch mortars, and four-and-twenty guns on ship
carriages, varying from 6-pounders to 24-pounders, constituted the
armament sent from England.
In April of the following year the Master-General was called upon to
furnish a train for that romantic expedition to Spain under the
brilliant Earl of Peterborough, the services of which afterwards at the
capture of Barcelona called forth such commendation. It was a very small
one. In a corps of 5000 men the following was the proportion of
Artillery:—One colonel, one adjutant, two engineers, a commissary, a
paymaster, four conductors, one master-gunner, four sergeants, four
corporals, ten gunners, one firemaster, one fireworker, two bombardiers,
two carpenters, three wheelwrights, two smiths, and a collar-maker.
Mortars on travelling carriages were used by this train, and a
considerable number of sets of men-harness which accompanied it suggests
the idea that the services of the other troops, or the peasantry, were
enlisted, when necessary, to move the train from place to place.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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