It has been said above that the writing of this History has been every year becoming more difficult. The statement requires explanation, as the difficulty is not caused so much by the accumulation—continually going on—of modern records, which might bury the old ones out of sight, as by a change in the organization of the Regiment which took place some years ago, and which sadly dislocated its history, although possibly improving its efficiency. In the year 1859, the old system which divided the Regiment into Companies and Battalions, with permanent Battalion Headquarters at Woolwich, was abolished; and Companies serving in different parts of the Empire were linked together in Brigades, on grounds of Geography, instead of History. Companies of different Battalions serving on the same station were christened Batteries of the same Brigade, and the old Battalion staff at Woolwich became the staff, at various stations, of the Brigades newly created. The old Companies, in donning their new titles, lost their old history and began their life anew. Every year as it passed made the wall which had been built between the present and the past of the Regiment more nearly approach the student's horizon, and the day seemed imminent when it would be impossible to make the existing Batteries know and realize that the glorious History of the old Companies was their own legitimate property. The evil of such a state can hardly be described. The importance of maintaining the _esprit_ of Batteries cannot be overrated. And _esprit_ feeds and flourishes upon history. Nor can Battery _esprit_ be created by a _general_ Regimental history. The _particular_ satisfies the appetite which refuses to be nourished upon the _general_. The memory which will gloat over the stories of Minden, Gibraltar, or Waterloo, will look coldly on the Regimental Motto "Ubique." Therefore, he who would make the influence of history most surely felt by an Artilleryman must spare no labour in tracing the links which connect the Batteries of the present with the Companies of the past. For the Battery is the unit of Artillery: all other organization is accidental. Whether the administrative web, which encloses a number of Batteries, be called a Battalion or a Brigade system, is a matter of secondary importance. It is by Batteries that Artillerymen make War; and it is by Batteries that their history should be traced. With this feeling uppermost in his mind, the author of these pages has endeavoured on every occasion to revive the memories which will be dear to the officers and men of Batteries—memories which ran a risk of being lost with the introduction of a new nomenclature. On such memories an _esprit de corps_, which no legislation can create, will blossom easily and brilliantly; and no weapon for discipline in the hand of a commander will be found more true than the power of appealing to his men to remember the reputation which their predecessors earned with their lives.