The return of peace gave rise to a gradual reduction in the corps. On the 16th August, 1816, twenty-five men per company were lopped off. This took away 800 men, reducing the corps from 2,861 to 2,061 of all ranks. By the royal warrant of the 4th February, 1817, an entire battalion was disbanded, and a further diminution of ten privates and one drummer took place in each of the remaining twenty-four companies. From the staff was taken one adjutant, one sergeant-major, and one quartermaster-sergeant, and also the whole of the sub-lieutenants, thirty-two in number.[238] The establishment of the corps was thus decreased to twenty-four companies of 1,258 of all ranks.[239] ----- Footnote 238: Generally the sub-lieutenants were commissioned into the corps from the ranks of other regiments, as a patronage to the military friends of the Master-General. Many of them had distinguished themselves in the field, were good drills, and fine-looking soldiers; but though considered at first to promise well, they disappointed the expectations formed of their probable usefulness. Wanting the necessary ability and weight, they were neither respected in the army nor by the corps; and unable, therefore, to give the satisfaction which was reasonably hoped for, the first reduction ordered after the peace, embraced the abolition of the rank.—Pasley’s Mil. Pol., pp. 18, 19, Introduction. Their removal from the corps was, nevertheless, alluded to in terms of “extreme regret” by Colonel Carmichael Smyth in his orders of the 22nd April. In concluding his address at parting, he thus wrote, “With the conduct of the whole of the sub-lieutenants Colonel Carmichael Smyth has had every reason to be satisfied, but more particularly with those who, having been longest under his command, he has had more occasion of knowing. If, in the course of future service, he should have any opportunity of being useful to them, he assures them he will embrace it with pleasure.” Footnote 239: In addition to this total 180 men of the companies in France were borne on the strength as supernumeraries, until December, 1818. ----- In consequence of these orders, the companies at Dover and Spike Island were withdrawn, as also the detachment at Guernsey. The force at Gibraltar was reduced from four to three companies, and the strength at Woolwich and Chatham was brought down to a fluctuating establishment of five companies.