Several individual proofs could be adduced but two must suffice. Private Evan Roberts, a talented mason, was detached to Malta during the blockade of Valetta, and rendered good service as a foreman under Captain Gordon, R.E. On the formation of the Maltese artificers, he was appointed sergeant in one of the companies to prevent his removal to another station: and Sergeant-major James Shirres, formerly of the Gibraltar companies, from his correct conduct and merit as an artificer, was appointed overseer of works in the royal engineer department at Plymouth, in December, 1804. ----- On the composition of detachments for foreign duty, Sir Charles Pasley has made some observations which may not inappropriately be introduced here. “When any expedition,” he writes, “was to be undertaken, the number of royal military artificers required were in all cases, selected by small detachments out of the stationary companies; and as the commanding engineers at the several fixed stations were naturally averse to parting with their best men, the detachments thus formed for field service, were generally composed of the stupidest and least trustworthy non-commissioned officers, and of the most ignorant, profligate, and abandoned of the privates.”[114] This was, it would appear, the general rule, but exceptions may fairly be taken in favour of the detachments forwarded to Toulon, St. Domingo, Halifax, and Ostend, as well as to some of the reinforcements sent to the Caribbee islands. These detachments were not formed of bad men weeded from the different companies, but of non-commissioned officers and privates whose qualifications and utility as mechanics were unquestionable, and whose conduct was approved. ----- Footnote 114: Pasley’s ‘Elementary Fortification.’ Notes to Preface, p. iv. vol. i. ----- In April and May a corporal and party of carpenters of the Woolwich company were detached to Sevenoaks, and there built temporary wooden barracks for a company of artillery; a second party was employed in repairing Falmouth Castle from May to November; and in the latter month two carpenters and two masons, all privates, were sent to superintend workmen in the erection of fortifications and temporary defences at different places from Chelmsford to Harwich, in which duty they continued until April 1800.