Augmentation—Reinforcement to Bermuda—Companies for Rideau Canal—Reinforcement to the Cape—Monument to the memory of General Wolfe—Increase to the survey companies—Supernumerary promotions—Measurement of Lough Foyle base—Suggestion of sergeant Sim for measuring across the river Roe—Survey companies inspected by Major-General Sir James C. Smyth; opinion of their services by Sir Henry Hardinge—Sergeant-major Townsend—Demolition of the Glacière Bastion at Quebec—Banquet to fifth company by Lord Dalhousie—Service of the sappers at the citadel of Quebec—Notice of sergeants Dunnett and John Smith—Works to be executed by contract—Trial of pontoons, and exertions of corporal James Forbes—Epidemic at Gibraltar—Island of Ascension; corporal Beal—Forage-caps—Company withdrawn from Nova Scotia—Party to Sandhurst College, and usefulness of corporal Forbes. Great inconvenience was felt in carrying on the public works abroad, from the inadequacy of the strength of the corps to supply the number of workmen for services in which their employment would have been useful and economical; and as very heavy expenses had been incurred, in having recourse to a greater proportion of civil workmen, at high wages, than would otherwise have been necessary, General Gother Mann, in July, 1826, submitted some suggestions on the subject to the Master-General and Board, and obtained their authority to carry out his plans. In December, consequently, orders were given for the formation of a company of 81 strong, for employment on the works at Bermuda, and for augmenting the company already there from 51 to 70 privates. The company was accordingly formed in January, 1827, and with the reinforcement to complete the other company, sailed from Devonport in the ‘Hebe’ freightship, and landed at Bermuda on the 25th of May. The sappers at the station were then divided between St. George’s and Ireland Island. A royal warrant, dated 26th March, 1827, confirmed the raising of the company for Bermuda, and ordered a further augmentation of two companies of eighty-one strong each for the works of the Rideau Canal in Canada. The fifteenth and seventeenth companies were appointed for this service under Captains Victor and Savage, R.E. The former landed there from the ‘Southworth’ transport on the 1st of June, and the latter from the ‘Haydon,’ on the 17th of September.[253] The establishment of the corps now reached nineteen companies, and counted, of all ranks, 1,262. ----- Footnote 253: On the removal of the fifteenth company to Canada in March, the Portsmouth station was without a company until November, 1827, when the eleventh company was sent there from Chatham.