Late in December, 1813, sergeant Richard Mackenzie with six invalids and their wives and children, embarked at Lisbon on board the ‘Queen’ transport. Separated during a tempest from the convoy, the vessel, after a dangerous passage, arrived off Falmouth, and entering the harbour, anchored at about half a mile from the shore to await a fair wind to sail for Portsmouth. On the 14th of January, at night, a violent storm arose; and early next morning, the ship, snapping her cable and parting her anchor, drifted on the rocks off Trefusis Point near Falmouth. The unabated severity of the wind kept the vessel constantly bumping upon the rocks, and in a short time the ‘Queen’ broke amidships. As long as practicable the crew and passengers clung to the gunwale and rigging, but the long-boat being at last disengaged, numbers crowded into it. Sergeant Mackenzie was about the last who entered it; and even then, though the chance of life was hanging upon the prompt effort of the moment, he caught up a poor orphan boy shivering from cold and fright, and pushing him into the vessel _first_, followed after, and wedged himself in the bow of the boat. Without rudder or oars, the boat, scarcely able to hold the weight she bore, drifted to sea. Masses of the wreck floated about her and beat against her sides. Shock succeeding shock soon loosened her timbers, and the bottom giving way, the human freightage was cast into the sea. In less than two hours, out of 336 souls, 195 were lost. Two of the number with three women and their children, belonged to the party of sappers. One was private James M’Carthy, who had gained the shore on a fragment of the wreck, and plunging into the sea again, perished in an heroic attempt to save the wife of a comrade. The commissions of Adjutant and Quartermaster, hitherto held by one officer, were separated in February; and quarter-master-sergeant James Galloway was promoted to be Quartermaster from the 1st of that month, with the pay of 8_s._ a-day, and 18_l._ 5_s._ a year for a servant. His dress and appointments were assimilated to those of the subaltern officers of royal engineers, with the exception of the head-dress, which was a cocked-hat, plumed with flowing cock-tail feathers. On the 20th of December following, the Adjutant, Captain Rice Jones, was advanced to the staff appointment of Brigade-Major; which rank has ever since been borne by the chief executive officer of the corps.