and they were employed in constructing indispensable fieldworks, or improving the fortifications at Ostend, Ghent, Nieuport, Tournay, Oudenarde, Boom, Escaneffe, Antwerp, Lille, Liefkenshoek, and Hal. Not less than 20,000 civil labourers with very strong military parties, were employed on the line of works extending from Ostend to Mons, and it was due to the intelligent manner in which the sappers carried out the duties of overseers, that this important field operation was so efficiently executed. Hal was the depôt from which the engineer brigades were equipped. The three companies in the Low Countries, before the campaign opened, were the fourth and fifth of the second battalion, and the fourth of the third battalion. The total strength of the whole ten companies reached the following numbers:— Sub- Second Lieuts. Sergeants. Corporals. Corporals. Drummers. Privates. Total. —— —— —— —— —— —— ——— 10 35 32 42 19 644 782[222] The Sub-Lieutenants were A. Ross, J. Sparks, W. Stratton, P. Johnston, W. Knapp,[223] J. Armstrong, A. Turner, C. Gratton, J. Adam, and E. Sanders. ----- Footnote 221: ‘Wellington Dispatches,’ viii., p. 18, edit. 1847. — Footnote 222: Corroborated, by the official State on the 18th June, 1815. See ‘Gurwood,’ vol. viii., App. xiii., p. 392, edit. 1847. Footnote 223: Died at Tournay, 16th June, 1815. ----- In order that the organizations of every description with the army should be as complete as forethought could make them, the Duke of Wellington recommended the employment of two companies of seamen as pontoneers. No exertions were omitted to give effect to his Grace’s wishes, and 200 hardy man-o'-war’s men, with Captain Charles Napier, R.N., at their head, were speedily embarked in the ‘Euryalus’ to join the army as bridgemen for the campaign. Meanwhile the Duke, who was unaware of the extensive character of the instruction imparted to the sappers at Chatham, was informed, that the companies of the corps in the Netherlands had, for the most part, been trained in the art of constructing military bridges, and had acquired an expertness in all the details and management of floating equipments under the careful tuition of Lieutenant-Colonel Pasley, that promised to equal the most gigantic requirements of the service. His Grace, only too glad to learn this agreeable intelligence, revoked his original intention, countermanded the landing of the seamen, and thus the duty of forming the bridges for the passage of rivers, was wholly confined to the royal sappers and miners.[224] ----- Footnote 224: ‘Wellington Dispatches,’ edit. 1847, (2 & 12 May,) pp. 55, 81. -----