The conducting a work of this description through the press,--although the last occupation in point of time,--is not the least in point of importance. Careful comparison with the MSS.,--much patient and merely mechanical labour,--and watchfulness, lest errors of style should be overlooked in the anxiety to secure rigid accuracy, or lest the latter should be sacrificed to attempts at literary embellishment,--all these are involved in the process. And all these have been displayed by one who has assisted in this operation,--the Rev. G. Martyn Ritchie, Chaplain to the Forces, whose services the Author acknowledges with gratitude. Not unfrequently the official letter-books differ from Kane’s List of Officers in the spelling of proper names. Where the correct reading is doubtful, that found in the letter-books is given in the body of the work, and both are given in the Index. History moves so rapidly, that even while this work has been in the press, a slight alteration in the pay of the non-commissioned officers and men of the Regiment has been made, making the rates given in the following pages as those of the year 1873, accurate only up to the 1st of October in that year. The reader can with ease make the requisite corrections. HISTORY OF THE ROYAL REGIMENT OF ARTILLERY. CHAPTER I. REACTION. Reaction and retrenchment followed the Peace signed at Versailles in 1783; and with them came dullness and despondency in the Regiment. Until 1787, when the state of France caused universal alarm in Europe, and preparations for possible hostilities already commenced in England, the prospects of promotion had been most disheartening. During the American War, a large number of subaltern officers had been appointed by the Generals serving with the English armies, and it was found, in 1783, that in this respect the establishment of the Regiment had been considerably exceeded. With somewhat distorted ideas of justice, it was ruled that the pay of the supernumeraries should be provided by means of stoppages from the officers of all ranks on the proper establishment, and that no new appointments should be made until all the supernumeraries had been absorbed,--an event which did not take place until the 14th February, 1786. Dullness, therefore, reigned during these years in the Warren at Woolwich,--dullness in the Academy,--dullness in foreign stations, where the detachments were at times forgotten altogether,--and dullness the most stupendous in the offices of His Majesty’s Ordnance.