The large number of junior officers and of bombardiers in each company was intended to meet the demands of the bomb-service, which even in this peaceable time were very heavy: more especially for the bomb-vessels in the Mediterranean. It created, however, an evil which must always be found in a profession where the junior ranks so greatly outnumber the senior, and where the prizes are so few, while the candidates are many;— the evil of slow promotion and even stagnation, and in their wake, discontent, loss of zeal, and, at last, indifference. So soon did this manifest itself, that by reducing the number of junior officers, and increasing that of the seniors, it has been repeatedly attempted to remedy it; the last attempt being so recent as during the tenancy of the present Secretary of State for War—Mr. Cardwell. But this remedy has its limits. There are duties to be performed suitable only to inferior military rank, and the performance of which, by senior officers, would have the effect of degrading the rank to which they may have attained. A considerable proportion of an army's officers, therefore, must always hold inferior military rank; but whether the evil which accompanies stagnation in their ranks is to be remedied by increase of pay in proportion to service, or by enforced retirement in the upper ranks, is one of those questions which it is not for the historian to argue. The Captains of the four companies of the Regiment after the augmentation were Captain JAMES RICHARDS, Captain THOMAS HUGHES, Captain JAMES DEAL, and Captain THOMAS PATTISON. The first-mentioned two were at Woolwich with their companies, although compelled to furnish detachments for Scotland and the bombs; the third was at Gibraltar, and the fourth in Minorca. Special establishments still existed for Annapolis and Placentia. The pay per diem of an Artillery Captain was 10_s._ It was in Minorca that the question of the military precedence of Artillery officers was first authoritatively settled. The officers of the four Infantry Regiments stationed there having refused to sit on courts-martial on the same terms as the officers of the train, the matter was referred to England, and by order of the King the Secretary at War informed the commandant at Port Mahon that whenever any of the Artillery were being tried, the officers of the train were to sit and vote with other officers of the Army, according to the dates of their commissions.