Was the principal military foreman, and had under his charge from 100 to 200 masons, with their labourers. In the arrangement and management of this working force he displayed much tact and judgment, and his work was always laid out and executed with exactness and success. For his services he received a gratuity and medal and a pension of 1_s._ 10½_d._ a-day in April, 1834. He was soon afterwards appointed foreman of masons in Canada, where he died. Footnote 261: See page 260. Footnote 262: Joseph Hare had formerly been a sergeant in the corps, and on his discharge in October, 1822, was appointed foreman of masons at Quebec. ----- A select committee on public income and expenditure sat early this year to scrutinize the Ordnance estimates. By this committee the duties and services of the corps were considered. In the report upon the evidence adduced, the committee strongly recommended that all work which admitted of being measured should be done by contract, and that the sappers and miners employed on buildings at day-work should be diminished.[263] The effect of this measure was simply to confine the labours of the corps to the repairs and fortifications, and occasionally to building, without reducing its numerical establishment. ----- Footnote 263: ‘Second Report Ordnance Est.,’ 1828, printed 12th June, 1828, p. 25. ----- Another trial of pontoons took place at Chatham in July, and the exertions of the detachment employed on the occasion under Captain J. S. Macauley, R.E., were warmly acknowledged by Sir James Colleton, one of the competitors. Captain White of the royal staff corps, who was engaged on the part of Sir James, thus wrote of the sappers:—“During my long acquaintance with military men, I never witnessed in any troops a greater determination to perform to the utmost of their power the duty on which they were placed. Where all have done their duty with such energy, I cannot make any distinction in conveying to you my good wishes towards them, except in the conduct of corporal James Forbes, who appears to me to be a first-rate non-commissioned officer, and who has on this occasion done his duty in a manner highly creditable to himself.”[264] ----- Footnote 264: See page 296. ----- An epidemic fever of nearly equal severity to the one of 1804 raged at Gibraltar in September and October. The greater part of the sappers at the Rock were seized with the complaint and nineteen died. Being quartered in the barracks near the unhealthy district and in the vicinity of the line of drains, the companies furnished the first victims to the disease;[265] and to lessen the mortality which this circumstance was likely to induce, they were, for a time, encamped on a rocky flat below Windmill Hill. The deaths at the fortress during the prevalence of the fever were 507 military and 1,700 civilians.[266] ----- Footnote 265: ‘United Service Journal,’ i. 1831, p. 235. Footnote 266: