There were also sixteen cadet-gunners, and sixteen cadet-matrosses, the number in each of the four home companies having been reduced to four. It was from the cadets that the lieutenant-fireworkers were generally, although not always, chosen. The employment of officers of that rank on board the bomb-vessels without superior officers above them rendered it necessary often to promote non-commissioned officers, whose experience would enable them to carry on such an independent service, better than the young and inexperienced fireworkers, just promoted from among the cadets. The discipline among these young gentlemen may be gathered from the marginal remarks of the commanding officer on the muster-rolls of the two companies at Woolwich in 1739. After alluding to one officer as having been lame for six months, and to another as having lost his memory, and done no duty for seven years, he comes to the cadets of the companies. Out of the whole number of sixteen, there is a remark against the names of no less than nine, "I know not where they are," and against another, "A very idle fellow!" The remaining six were detached, two at Portsmouth, one in the Tower, one on board the bombs, and only two at Woolwich. There is in the same list a remark made against the name of one, Captain-Lieutenant George Minnies, which might justly have been made against others of the same rank in later days, if indeed it may not also have to be made again, "old and worn-out in the service." The end of this period brings us near to that time when the Regiment, having quitted the nursery, so to speak, entered the school of war, which was provided for it in Flanders. Before, however, tracing its story then, it will be well to describe some little matters connected with the foundation and early history of an institution which was founded in 1741, the last of our twenty years, to meet a want, which the above comments of the commanding officer must prove most distinctly to have existed. ----- Footnote 10: Thackeray. CHAPTER X. FOUNDATION OF THE ROYAL MILITARY ACADEMY. FROM what was mentioned in the last chapter, it will be seen that there were cadets long before there was an Academy. Although, however, this institution is of a date so long posterior to the formation of the Regiment, and although by many of the practical officers serving when it was founded, who had acquired their knowledge in the school of experience, it was looked upon very coldly, as a useless and undesirable innovation,—yet no History of the Royal Artillery would be complete without some reference to its early days. For, although often mismanaged, and even now almost paralysed as an Artillery school by the marvellous arrangement under which the best Artillery scholars are invited to join the Royal Engineers, it has yet acquired such a hold upon the affections of those who have been there, as to ensure it a prominent place among our Regimental Records.