An attempt to remedy this was made in 1801 by the partial introduction of “Hardwicke’s pattern” ammunition-carriage, consisting of two tumbrils connected by a bent iron perch. It proved, however, a perfect failure, and never came into general use, so that the caisson continued as the standard until superseded by the royal pattern; the last, probably, which existed in use was in Captain Wood’s troop, 1st company 3rd battalion, at Meerut, us late as 1828. In 1801, on its formation, the experimental horse artillery was armed with two 3–pounders and four 6–pounders; the 3–pounders in 1806 gave place to two 5½-inch howitzers, and two of the 6–pounders were at a later period (when the number of troops had been increased) withdrawn, and their place supplied by 12–pounders of a pattern proposed by General Horsford of 8¾ cwt. The lines of this gun were drawn at Woolwich, but, at the same time, it was said that a gun of such light metal must prove insufficient. The armament of troops and field-batteries continued of these three calibres until the new arrangements, introducing the 9 and 6–pounder guns and 24 and 12–pounder howitzers, in 1828 and the following years. The breaking out of hostilities with Nepal in 1814 called for a new species of carriages adapted to carry 3–pounders and 4⅖-inch howitzers in a hilly country. Lightness, strength, and a facility of being taken to pieces and put together were the points sought to be combined in the “mountain-train” carriages planned by Sir J. Horsford. They were not, however, much used during the war, for in general it was found that elephants could convey 6–pounders in the hills easier than men could the smaller pieces; and the former, being so much more effective, were, nearly in all cases, used. The mountain-train carriages were found too slight, and quite unequal to bear the rough usage artillery meets with even from the hands of its friends; they required a degree of petting which appears not always to have been shewn them. During a retreat in the Nepal country, several which had, for convenience and from the loss of their bearers, been limbered up to other carriages drawn by cattle, went to pieces in crossing the terrain at the foot of the hills. The fault was laid on the officers in charge, and not on the weakness of the carriages, by Sir John Horsford; but there will always be great difficulty in preventing these carriages experiencing the same treatment, if put together before entering the hills.