He commenced his military career in the service of the King of Denmark. He went from that, in 1689, to the King of Prussia's service; served in Hungary in 1691; and was induced by William III. to join the English service in the following year. At the termination of hostilities he and one other foreigner, named Schlunt, whose name appears in the list of officers of the short-lived regiment of 1698, were the only Artillerymen other than English, who were selected to proceed to England for permanent employment. In 1702, he went as Major in the expedition to Cadiz, and carried on a successful bombardment with the five bomb-vessels under his command. In the following year he volunteered for service under Marlborough, but, after a few months in Flanders, he was recalled to proceed to Spain with the expedition under Sir George Rooke and the Duke de Schomberg, which escorted the Archduke Charles, who had just been proclaimed by his father, King of Spain. Until the year 1710, he was engaged in all the hostilities which were now carried on in Spain, and of which his diary gives a summary. In 1705, at the siege of Valencia, which was taken by the English under Lord Galway, (who had been appointed to the command in place of Schomberg), he lost his left arm; and in 1710, he was wounded in the leg by a round shot, and taken prisoner. But his first service with the Royal Artillery, after its existence as a regiment, was in 1719, when he went in command of the Artillery of Lord Cobham's force against Spain, and successfully bombarded Vigo. The troops, 4000 in number, embarked in a squadron of five men-of-war under Admiral Mighells, and coasting from Corunna to Vigo, were landed two or three miles from the town. The garrison of Vigo withdrew to the citadel, spiking the guns in the town; but so heavy and well-directed was the fire of the English, that they soon capitulated. The whole of the Artillery arrangements, both in preparing and handling the train, had been under Colonel Borgard's sole control. Judging from the entry in his diary, he was far more pleased by the success of his inventions and improvements in the _matériel_ of his train, than by the surrender of the enemy. As this was the first train of Artillery to which the Royal Artillery Companies were attached on active service, it has been considered desirable to give some details as to its constitution.