When corporal Jones first heard the voice, Skelton was singing,—

“Bright, bright are the beams of the morning sky,

And sweet are the dews the red blossoms sip.”

This simple incident sufficiently shows the confidence and

coolness of the diver in so novel and hazardous a duty.

Private Skelton, as on former occasions, made himself conspicuous by

his skill and diligence as an artificer and his tact as a diver; and

in addition, this season, his gallantry led him to plunge into the

sea to save a boy who had fallen overboard, and his father who

jumped after him, neither of whom could swim. As the tide was

running very strong, Skelton, with great judgment, tied a line round

his body, which he made fast to the stern of the ‘Success’ frigate,

and then jumped into the sea; but before he reached the drowning boy

and his parent, a boat quickly came to hand and saved them.

Alarming accidents, none of which fortunately proved fatal, occurred

to lance-corporal Jones, and privates Skelton and Cameron. Corporal

Jones had his mouth crushed and some of his front teeth broken by an

iron dog, which he had attached to a bull rope bearing a heavy

strain, slipping from its hold and striking him violently under the

helmet. He was at the time endeavouring to move a piece of timber

from the load, when a pig of iron ballast, weighing about three

hundred weight, got dislodged and fell upon his helmet. Had not his

head been thus protected, he would have been killed on the spot, for

it made an indentation in the metal as large as the palm of one’s

hand, and nearly an inch deep. At another time, a large floor

timber, which resisted many efforts to sling it, was at last in a

fair way of reaching the deck, but on heaving on the bull rope, the

chain flew off with violence, and struck Jones a blow on the hand,

laying bare one of his fingers to the bone. Such was his spirit,

however, he remained at the work, though the mutilated limb might

readily have excused him from further duty. Anderson, busy at work

over the wreck, lost all idea of time, and remained below

imprudently long. Meanwhile the tide began to run swiftly, and,

losing his ladder which was fixed on the larboard side of the lump,

he was carried under it, and came up at the starboard side. The man

attending the life-line found, on hauling it, that it pulled against

the keel of the lump, and the diver, thus precariously situated,

could not be drawn up. At first this had a very alarming appearance,

but the evolution which brought him to the surface, took away the

danger of the accident, and he alighted on deck without injury.

Skelton was coming up from the bottom to permit the firing of a

charge, but by some mismanagement in the signals, the explosion took

place when he was a few feet from the surface of the water, and the

shock injured his chest and rendered him insensible for a short

time. Four days afterwards he resumed his place as a diver with his

usual zeal and activity. Cameron received an injury by the bursting

of the air-pipe connected with his helmet, and when hauled on deck,

he was almost dead from suffocation. He recovered, however, after a

month’s treatment in Haslar Hospital, and in some respect to

compensate him for his suffering, the Admiralty ordered him to

receive his subsistence free of expense.

These accidents never for a moment damped the courage of the other

men of the detachment, for they were always ready to take the places

of the injured divers the instant they were warned for the duty. Not

every man, however, who offered, was found capable of diving under

such a pressure of water as existed at Spithead. The effect of the

weight may be conceived from the fact, that the strongest cask sent

down empty cracked like an egg-shell. Twelve sappers, in addition to

those named above, essayed to be of service in the art, but several

among the most resolute and promising divers after two or three

days' trial, were compelled to desist from the duty. Headaches,

giddiness, and spitting of blood, were the effects of their

exertions. Even of the seasoned divers, not a man escaped repeated

attacks of acute rheumatism and cold; and it was not a little

surprising to find them returning to the work even before they had

ceased to complain of their ailments. Harris, Rae and Williams were

really martyrs in suffering; but, nevertheless, they continued to

labour at the bottom, even when the sea was high, the weather

bitterly cold, and their hands so benumbed, that they could scarcely

feel anything that they slung.[393]

-----

Footnote 393:

Much of the information about the labours of this summer has been

collected from the ‘Hampshire Telegraph,’ ‘Army and Navy Register

‘Manuscript Journal of the Operations.’

-----

Second-corporal McQueen returned to the woods in May to resume the

reconnaissance and survey of the disputed territory in North America

under Captain Broughton, R.E., and Mr. J. D. Featherstonhaugh, Her

Majesty’s commissioners. On the 3rd May the Metis lake was gained,

where corporal McQueen was stationed in charge of the observatory

until the middle of July. Every day for that period he registered,

hourly, the barometrical observations of nine instruments with

thermometers both attached and detached. On the 18th July he entered

the bush again with thirteen Indians and Canadians, and penetrated

the forest for forty miles, which brought him to the Metjarmette

mountain. Throughout this journey he recorded with great care, at

the appointed hours, the indications of the different instruments in

his charge, and assisted in the various duties of the survey. The

mission returned to Lake Metis by a different route, ascertaining,

as it travelled, the sources of the streams in its track, and

recording such topographical minutiæ of a particular character as

were desirable to elucidate the duties and objects of the

enterprise. On the 24th October, corporal McQueen sailed from Quebec

_viâ_ Halifax, Nova Scotia, to England, and arrived at Woolwich on

the 20th November, 1841. For three seasons he had served with the

Commissioners; twice he was the only British soldier with the

expedition, and in appreciation of his diligence and conduct, was

awarded by Lord Palmerston, in addition to his working pay, a

gratuity of 10_l._[394]

-----

Footnote 394:

Afterwards became a sergeant, and served at Gibraltar. In October,

1852, he was pensioned at 1_s._ 9_d._ a-day. Being a skilful

mechanic, he obtained on the day of his discharge, employment as a

blacksmith in the royal carriage department in the arsenal.

-----

By warrant dated 21st June, 1841, a company of eighty-nine strong,

numbered the 11th, and one quartermaster-sergeant, were added to the

corps, which increased its establishment from 1,208 to 1,298 of all

ranks. The company was raised for Bermuda at the suggestion of the

Governor of the colony, in consequence of the impracticability of

obtaining artificers among the civil population of the required

competency to carry on the works. It did not, however, reach the

station—where one company was already employed—until the 2nd April,

1842. The quartermaster-sergeant was appointed for duty at Chatham,

and sergeant Thomas Fraser was promoted to the rank.[395]

-----

Footnote 395:

Fraser was a successful modeller, and although a carpenter by

trade, made himself useful as a wood engraver. Many of the

wood-cuts in Colonel Pasley’s ‘Practical Operations of a Siege,’

were executed by him, and although they exhibit but little

artistic merit, they yet afford scope to show how he adapted

himself to circumstances. He also assisted in the task of

engraving the most difficult of the plates to the ‘Architectural

Course.’ None of his works in this line betray any ambition, but

his models were put out of hand in a skilful and workmanlike

manner. As a whole, he was a man of singular simplicity. In July,

1849, he was pensioned at 2_s._ 3_d._ a-day, and retiring to

Kilochunagan, settled down as a farmer.

-----

Private Henry Entwistle distinguished himself on the 30th August,

1841, at pontoon practice, by plunging into the rapid stream of the

Medway near Rochester Bridge, and at imminent personal risk,

rescuing from drowning private Samuel Turner of the corps, who had

fallen overboard and was unable to swim. His courage on this

occasion gained the admiration of the Royal Humane Society, which

awarded him a silver medallion accompanied by a vellum certificate,

recording the particulars of his intrepidity, signed by the Duke of

Northumberland.[396]

-----

Footnote 396:

Became a sergeant, and after serving at Corfu and China, was

employed in the expedition under Lord Raglan to Turkey, Bulgaria,

and the Crimea, where, from disease contracted in the trenches in

front of Sebastopol, he died in camp before the conclusion of the

siege.

-----

The detachments at Sandhurst during the year greatly exerted

themselves in the field-work instruction, and returned to the corps

receiving much praise for their zeal and good conduct. Corporal John

Carlin was in charge of both parties, and was extremely useful. In

the spring term he skilfully prepared the apparatus for a series of

subaqueous explosions by the voltaic battery;[397] and, at the

autumn examination, the rafts and bridges exhibited on the lakes and

canals were constructed by him and his party. These consisted of

rafts of rough timber and bridges upon various principles, such as

floating, suspension, and trestle; also spars heavily loaded at one

end to act as levers, and others interlaced upon a system of mutual

pressure. In carrying out these services corporal Carlin was

honourably noticed, “as a non-commissioned officer of much merit and

ingenuity.”[398] Corporal John Cameron was also mentioned in the

Governor’s reports for his activity and ability, and for having

executed with great neatness a quantity of sod revetments for the

scarps of the field-works.

-----

Footnote 397:

‘United Service Journal,’ ii., 1841, p. 267.

Footnote 398:

‘United Service Journal,’ iii., 1841, p. 563. Carlin became a

colour-sergeant, and prior to his discharge had served at

Gibraltar and Malta, Turkey and the Crimea. When at Portsmouth, he

received from Lord Frederick Fitzclarence a gold pen and

engineering pencil-case, in return “for his most useful services

in carrying out instruction in musketry, in which he proved

himself to be exceedingly clever in calculations of a rather

puzzling nature, and to be a most zealous, active, and painstaking

non-commissioned officer.”

-----

Colonel Pasley was removed from the appointment of director of the

royal engineer establishment at Chatham in November, 1841, on

promotion to the rank of Major-General.[399] Nearly thirty years he

had held the office, and fulfilled its various functions with a

genius, composure, and success, that no successor can ever hope to

surpass. To him the corps is largely indebted for that military

efficiency which has characterized its progress since 1812.

Diligently superintending its practical exercise in all the

operations of a siege, as well as in mining, pontooning, and

bridge-making, and in the numerous other essential details of the

field establishment, he made the corps fully equal to the

prosecution of any service in which its assistance might be

required. Some well-meaning officers of high rank did not see the

necessity of training the corps in the principles of elementary

fortification,[400] but Colonel Pasley finally overcame their honest

scruples by earnest argument. He not only gained this concession,

but was permitted to teach the corps the elementary principles of

geometry and plan-drawing; and ultimately, so extensive and complete

had his system become, that some hundreds of non-commissioned

officers and men passed from his schools, as surveyors and

draughtsmen, to the survey of Ireland. As a disciplinarian he was

rigid; and in exacting from all under his command that obedience,

attention, and punctuality which were the characteristics of his own

laborious career, he was blind to that partiality or favouritism

which could cover the indiscretion of one offender and punish that

of another.

-----

Footnote 399:

The names of the succeeding directors of the royal engineer

establishment are given in the Appendix III.

Footnote 400:

‘Military Policy.’

-----

Here it may be right to show what was the public opinion of the

corps at this period, as contrasted with its state at the

commencement of the Peninsular war, and to whom its improved

organization and perfect efficiency were chiefly attributed. “With

respect to our engineer establishment, it would perhaps be difficult

to name any occasion on which a modern European army took the field

so utterly destitute of efficient means for conducting siege

operations as were the British troops at the opening of the last

war. At this moment, on the contrary, no army in the world possesses

engineer officers and soldiers better instructed in all that relates

to the science and practice of this branch of the service. We have

heard one of the most able and most experienced of those officers

declare, that when he was first called upon to take part in some

siege operations at the very outset of the war, he had never seen a

gabion, nor was there a soldier in the force who knew how to make

one. To carry on a sap, or drive the gallery of a mine, was alike an

impossible attempt. The army had neither a single sapper, miner, or

pontoneer, and a few drunken and worthless military artificers

formed the only engineer troops.... The lessons of experience thus

dearly bought have not been acquired in vain. The practical engineer

school at Chatham, organised and long directed by Colonel Pasley,

has produced a corps of sappers and miners equal to any in Europe.

Their exercises on the Medway have likewise given them the qualities

of excellent pontoneers.”[401]

-----

Footnote 401:

‘United Service Journal,’ i., 1842, pp. 26, 27.

-----

Another extract from the same journal, relative to the conduct of

the corps and the impolicy of the reductions which have taken place

in its numbers since the return of the army of occupation from

France in 1818, should not be suppressed:—“The reductions in the

sappers and miners since the war are much to be regretted; and it

would be more wise to organize them equivalently to two battalions

of eight companies. They are a description of troops invaluable in

every respect,—being as soldierlike, and well trained in the duties

of infantry, as the best regiments of that arm, and therefore

equally available for all military services in garrisons and

quarters; while their qualities as artificers are by no means

confined to admirable proficiency in their proper business as

engineer-soldiers, in the management of the pontoon-train and the

conduct of siege operations. Their exemplary conduct offers an

illustration of a principle too much neglected in the discipline of

modern armies—that to find constant and wholesome occupation for

troops, as indeed for mankind in every situation, is the best

security both for happiness and good order.... But in the case of

this engineer corps, apart from the important object of keeping up

an efficient body for those peculiar duties of their arm in the

field, which require a regular course of practical education, we are

convinced it would be found true economy to increase its force for

the repair and maintenance of the numerous fortifications in every

quarter of our colonial empire.”[402]

-----

Footnote 402:

‘United Service Journal,’ i., 1841, p. 443.

-----

This perhaps is the fittest place to introduce a glowing testimony

to the corps, penned by one well acquainted with its merits and

defects, and too impartial to append his name to any but a faithful

record. “Indeed,” writes Sir John Jones, “justice requires it to be

said, that these men, whether employed on brilliant martial

services, or engaged in the more humble duties of their calling,

either under the vertical sun of the tropics, or in the frozen

regions of the north, invariably conduct themselves as good

soldiers; and by their bravery, their industry, or their

acquirements, amply repay the trouble and expense of their formation

and instruction.”[403]

-----

Footnote 403:

Jones’s ‘Sieges,’ ii. p. 391, 2nd edit.

-----

Nor should the testimony of the chaplain-general, the Rev. G. R.

Gleig, be omitted. Unconnected as he is with the royal sappers and

miners, his opinion has been formed without the prejudice of

interested feelings. In taking a bird’s-eye retrospect of the

formation and growth of some of our military institutions, he thus

speaks of the corps: “Besides the infantry, cavalry and artillery,

of which the regular army was composed, and the corps of engineers,

coeval with the latter, there sprang up during the war of the French

Revolution other descriptions of force, which proved eminently

useful each in its own department, and of the composition of which a

few words will suffice to give an account. First, the artificers as

they were called, that is to say, the body of men trained to the

exercise of mechanical arts, such as carpentry, bricklaying,

bridgemaking, and so forth, which in all ages seem to have attended

on a British army in the field, became the royal sappers and miners,

whose services, on many trying occasions, proved eminently useful,

and who still do their duty cheerfully and satisfactorily in every

quarter of the globe. During the late war, they were commanded under

the officers of engineers, by a body of officers who took no higher

rank than that of lieutenant, and consisted entirely of good men, to

whom their merits had earned commissions. Their education, carried

on at Woolwich and Chatham, trained them to act in the field as

guides and directors to all working parties, whether the business in

hand might be the construction of a bridge, the throwing up of field

works, or the conduct of a siege. Whatever the engineer officers

required the troops to do was explained to a party of sappers, who,

taking each his separate charge, showed the soldiers of the line

both the sort of work that was required of them, and the best and

readiest method of performing it. The regiment of sappers was the

growth of the latter years of the contest, after the British army

had fairly thrown itself into the great arena of continental

warfare, and proved so useful, that while men wondered how an army

ever could have been accounted complete without this appendage, the

idea of dispensing with it in any time to come, seems never to have

arisen in the minds of the most economical.”[404]

-----

Footnote 404:

Gleig’s ‘Mil. Hist.,’ ch. xxvii., pp. 286, 287.

-----

1842.

Party to Natal—The march—Action at Congella—Boers attack

the camp—Then besiege it—Sortie on the Boers'

trenches—Incidents—Privations—Conduct of the detachment;

courageous bearing of sergeant Young—Services of the party

after hostilities had ceased—Detachment to the Falkland

Islands—Landing—Character of the country—Services of the party—Its

movements; and amusements—Professor Airy’s opinion of the

corps—Fire at Woolwich; its consequences—Wreck of the ‘Royal

George’—Classification of the divers—Corporal Harris’s exertions

in removing the wreck of the ‘Perdita’ mooring lighter—Assists an

unsuccessful comrade—Difficulties in recovering the pig-iron

ballast—Adventure with Mr. Cussell’s lighter—Isolation of Jones at

the bottom—Annoyed by the presence of a human body; Harris,

less sensitive, captures it—The keel—Accidents—Conflict

between two rival divers—Conduct of the sappers employed

in the operations—Demolition of beacons at Blythe Sand,

Sheerness—Testimonial to sergeant-major Jones for his services in

connection with it.

In January, 1842, a small force under the command of Captain Smith,

27th regiment, was sent to the Umgazi, about ten miles south of the

Umzimvooboo, to watch the movements of the Boers, who had attacked a

native chief in alliance with the colonial government. With this

force was detached a party of eight royal sappers and miners under

Lieutenant C. R. Gibb of the engineers. There the expedition was

encamped for a season, when a portion of it, on the 31st March,

quitted the Umgazi for Natal, taking with them seventy wheeled

carriages and numerous oxen. The sappers took the lead of the column

to remove obstructions on the route. The force comprised about 250

men, chiefly of the 27th regiment, and a few artillerymen.

In the journey to Natal, a distance of more than 600 miles, the

greatest difficulties were encountered. Much of the ground traversed

was very marshy. Rivulets and larger streams were so much increased

by the rains that the broken drifts across them had frequently to be

renewed or repaired after one or two waggons had crossed. Several

very steep hills had to be surmounted, one of which was the Umterda,

over which the hunter and trader had never attempted to take his

waggon without first dismantling it, and then carrying it up or

down. Up this rugged hill, formed of huge boulders of granite

imbedded in a swamp, a rough road was constructed; and by putting

three spans of oxen—thirty-six bullocks—to each waggon, all, after

three days' heavy labour and fatigue, were got to the summit.

Constantly in their progress, they had to improve the roads, to cut

through wood and bush, to toil along the sand on the shore, and

occasionally, harnessing themselves with ropes, drag the unwieldy

train along wild passes and almost impenetrable tracts of fastness.

At length, after a most harassing march of six weeks, of straining

energy and arduous exertion, having crossed one hundred and

seventy-two rivers and streams, much of the journey under violent

rain, and often sleeping at night on the swampy ground, the troops

reached Natal on the 3rd May, and encamped at the head of the bay;

from whence they afterwards removed to the Itafa Amalinde, where

they intrenched themselves, and placed beyond the parapet, for

additional protection, the waggons which accompanied the force.

The Boers were opposed to the presence of the troops, and desired

them to quit the country. This was unheeded by the English

commandant, and hostilities at once commenced. On the night of the

23rd May, Captain Smith, in command of a portion of his force, left

the camp and attacked the Boers at Congella, taking with him seven

sappers and miners, armed and carrying tools. When the enemy opened

fire, the troops were in file up to their knees in water. Private

Burridge fired the first shot in the engagement. More than an hour

the contest continued without any one being able to take a direct

aim; and, when the troops commenced the retreat, they were up to

their armpits in water. Here a sergeant of the 27th was shot, who

would have been carried away in the receding tide, had not sergeant

Young with two of the sappers, brought him across the bay to the

camp, where his remains were interred. Private William Burridge was

wounded in the knee.

On regaining the camp all were served out with fresh ammunition,

and, when about to lie down, the Boers attacked the position and

only retired at daylight in the morning. During the action half of

the pole of the sappers' tent was carried away by a shot, and the

waggon in their front was pierced by eleven balls. Private Richard

Tibbs on this occasion received three balls in his clothes and was

wounded.

Soon afterwards (31st May) the Boers, comprising a force of about

1200 men and nine guns, commenced to besiege the camp. This they

continued with vigour till the 26th June, when a reinforcement

having reached the cantonment from the frontier, hostilities ceased.

Throughout the operations the eight sappers were employed

superintending the execution of such works as the circumstances of

the siege rendered indispensable. These included a redoubt, to

preserve the communication with the port and village, and a

magazine. They also assisted in constructing a large kraal of stakes

and abattis, for the safety of the cattle. The waggons were likewise

drawn closer in, to make the defence more compact; and from a

trench, dug on the inside, the earth was thrown under the body of

the waggons, which were thus imbedded in the parapet. By this means

the troops were enabled to fire over the parapet and underneath the

bed of the waggons; and by leaving traverses in the line of trench,

the camp was protected from enfilade. Daily the sappers were

occupied in repairing the earth-works, and almost unassisted, built

a battery for an 18-pounder gun in the south angle of the

intrenchment. Sergeant Young, under Lieutenant Gibb, was the

executive non-commissioned officer in conducting the field-works,

and twice every day he went round the trenches, reported what was

necessary to strengthen the defences, and carried out the directions

of his officer.

On the night of the 8th June, sergeant Young and three sappers

carrying their arms and intrenching tools, accompanied the sortie to

the Boers' trenches under Lieutenant Irwin, 27th regiment. The enemy

retreated and the trenches were destroyed. On the 18th following

three sappers were present in a second sortie under Lieutenant

Molesworth of the 27th, and led the column to the points of attack.

The conflict was short but fierce, and the troops returned to the

camp with the loss of one officer and three men killed, and four

wounded. Among the latter was private Richard Tibbs of the sappers.

During the siege, private John Howatson had made some wooden cradles

for surgical purposes, and on finishing one, begged the doctor to

look at it. Both stooped to do so, when a 6-pound shot passed within

a few inches of their heads and whizzed by the rest of the party in

the trench. When Lieutenant Gibb’s servant was killed, corporal

Deary and private Burridge buried him outside the waggons, and the

melancholy service was not accomplished without much daring and

danger.

As the siege progressed provisions became scarce and the troops were

put on the smallest possible allowance. Horses were killed and their

flesh made into biltong. This, with a little beef, formed the daily

repast of the camp; and in lieu of meal and biscuit, ground oats

were issued. Upon this fare it was impossible to hold out more than

fourteen days, but a strong reinforcement arrived on the 26th June,

and effecting a landing, the Boers retreated with loss and haste

from the beach and the trenches, and the siege terminated. With the

relief were three men of the sappers, who increased the strength of

the Natal party to eleven of all ranks.[405]

-----

Footnote 405:

Much of the above information is taken from Captain Gibb’s

‘Memoranda in Corps Papers,’ i., pp. 230-238.

-----

Lieutenant Gibb in his report to head-quarters praised sergeant

Young, corporal Deary, and the detachment for their usefulness,

alacrity, and cheerfulness; and Captain Smith in command, eulogized

them for their uniform activity and readiness of resource in the

presence of the enemy. When quitting Natal, the latter officer

favoured sergeant Young with a testimonial in the following terms:

“As I am about to relinquish the command, I am desirous to bear

testimony to the high and irreproachable character of sergeant Young

of the royal sappers and miners. Having accompanied the expedition

from the Umgazi to Natal early in 1842, and shared in all its

subsequent dangers and privations, I cannot speak too highly of his

courage and self-possession, and his unwearied zeal in the

performance of his various and arduous duties. He was always at his

post and never found wanting; and I therefore beg to recommend him

to notice as one of the best and most trustworthy non-commissioned

officers I have met with during my long course of service.”

After the siege the detachment built a sod wall round the camp and

loopholed it, within which they constructed a temporary barracks of

wood, working from daylight to dark even on Sundays. A wattle

barracks for 300 men was next erected by them, and afterwards a

block-house at Port Natal. They also extended their services to the

requirements of Fort Napier, Van Vooren, Bushman’s River, and the

neighbouring posts in the district, during which time their

head-quarters was established at Pietermauritzburg, where a party of

ten or twelve men have ever since been employed.[406]

-----

Footnote 406:

Young, as a sergeant, was overseer of the works at Natal, at 2_s._

6_d._ a-day, in addition to his regimental allowances; and, for

his gallant conduct in action and useful services, was awarded a

silver medal and an annuity of 10_l._ a-year. In July, 1850, he

retired to Charleston, of Aberlour, in Banffshire, on a pension of

2_s._ a-day. He was a stern and an abrupt soldier, but an example

of faithfulness, accuracy, and exertion.

-----

Sergeant Robert Hearnden and eleven rank and file, detached in the

brig ‘Hebe’ in October, 1841, to the Falkland Islands, under

Lieutenant R. C. Moody, R.E., the Lieutenant-Governor of the colony,

arrived there on the 15th January, 1842. Three women and seven

children accompanied the party. The men were volunteers and of

trades suitable to the experiment of improving an old but neglected

settlement. They were armed with percussion carbines, carrying a

sword with a serrated back, which was affixed to the piece when

necessary as a bayonet.[407]

-----

Footnote 407:

This weapon was proposed for adoption in the corps both as a sword

for personal defence and an instrument for removing obstructions

on active service; but Sir George Murray, then Master-General,

refused to sanction its introduction, considering it to be an

improper weapon to be used in civilized warfare.

-----

After bearing up Berkeley Sound the party landed at Port Louis

on the 23rd January, and were present as a guard of honour to

his Excellency on taking over the government of the Falkland

Islands. The inhabitants were assembled to receive him and the

Lieutenant-Governor made them a gracious speech.

Soon the men became acquainted with the nature of the country they

had been sent to improve. Its land was unfruitful and its character

inhospitable. Vegetation was so scant and the soil so poor, that

nowhere could a tree be seen. Large barren tracts of country,

softened into mud by perpetual rains, everywhere met the eye; and

the luxuries of living embraced but few varieties beyond fish,

flesh, and fowl. Houses there were none, nor was there any society

or amusement. What with rain, snow, fogs, gales, and tempests, the

Falkland Islands have well been called the _region of storms_. The

population, not more than 200 in all, consisted of a dissipated set

of ruffians, the depraved renegades of different countries.

After landing the stores and provisions from the ‘Hebe,’ the

detachment was put to work. Two portable houses were in course of

time erected; one for his Excellency, and the other for the sappers.

For durability they were built on stone foundations, and the roofs,

to keep out the rain, were covered with tarred canvas and thatched

with tussack. A number of outhouses and sheds to suit every

convenience and want were rapidly run up, and the old dreary

settlement gave unmistakable signs of vigorous industry and

improvement. One of the houses, with six apartments, was erected as

an addition to the old government-house, which was a long, narrow,

crazy structure of one story, with thick stone walls, a canvas roof,

and five ill-contrived rooms. The other for the sappers, was

constructed a little distance in the rear of the Governor’s

dwelling. Two ruinous cottages at Pig Brook were also fitted up, and

two cottages at German’s Point rebuilt. To make the habitations of

the location more homely and English, enclosures were fenced in for

gardens and pasturage. A well likewise was built of dry stone with

an oval dome and approached by stone steps. For purposes of

correction, an oven built by the French settlers under Bougainville,

about 1760, the oldest building in the group, was used for the

confinement of refractory characters. The detachment, in addition to

its other duties, served as the police of the settlement, and

sergeant Hearnden was appointed chief constable.

Much of the time of the men was spent in boat service to Long Island

and other places to get tussack, oxen, horses, peat, &c. The last

was obtained in large quantities and stacked for winter fuel.

Occasionally a few were out on reconnoitring excursions examining

portions of the country, and surveying the islands and patches of

land of colonial interest. In this service corporal William

Richardson, who was a surveyor and mathematician, was the most

conspicuous. When opportunity permitted, some were employed

quarrying stone, repairing landing-places, making roads, and

improving the paths and approaches to the settlement. To add to the

diversity of their duties, a few were sometimes occupied in marking

out allotments and indicating the passes or routes across bogs and

lagoons by means of poles. The first pole was placed on the loftiest

hill between Port Louis and Saint Salvador, which his Excellency, in

honour of his sergeant, named _Hearnden Hill_. In short the men were

compelled to turn their hands to anything, for an abandoned and

desolate settlement rendered numerous services essential for the

convenience and comfort of the settlers. Sergeant Hearnden was clerk

of the works, and also filled with energy and ability a number of

other offices of colonial necessity.[408] Frequently he was detached

to considerable distances, and his reports upon the aspects and

capabilities of particular sites and places were invariably received

with approbation and his suggestions carried out.

-----

Footnote 408:

Such as auctioneer, excise-officer, &c. In carrying on the former

duty, among his many sales, he disposed of the ‘Melville’

schooner, a vessel belonging to four partners, obtaining for it,

from one of the partners, only 720 dollars! This may be taken as a

fair specimen of the wealth of the colonists.

-----

Sections of the detachment were often sent on duty to Long Island,

Green Island, Salvador Bay, Johnson’s Harbour, Port William, &c. Two

or three times the men sent to Long Island could not return to the

location, as the boats on each occasion were, by a driving gale,

dashed back on the beach, and the men exposed through the weary

night to the pelting storm. Once under such circumstances the party

was without food for twenty-three hours. Two men detached to

Jackson’s Harbour, when returning home, were caught in a snow-storm

and with great difficulty reached the untenable hut at Fishhouse

Creek. There, benumbed and fatigued, they sought shelter for the

night, being unable to proceed further or to assist themselves.

To relieve the monotony of their public duties, the men were

permitted to follow any sport which their inclination suggested.

Boating, hunting,[409] shooting, fishing, and angling, were among

the varieties of their diversions. Game was plentiful, and the men

usually returned from their excursions laden with rabbits, geese,

and birds of different form and plumage. In fishing, the party at

one time in a single haul, caught at Fishhouse Creek thirteen

hundred weight of mullet. The Governor, too, was ever ready to

devise means to promote their amusement and comfort, and on one

occasion so pleased was he with their general good conduct and

exertions, that he honoured them with an excellent dinner from his

own purse and shared himself in the festivities.

-----

Footnote 409:

All had horses, as travelling on horseback was frequently

necessary. The Governor presented one, with harness complete, to

sergeant Hearnden. The men made themselves very expert in the

management of horses, and throwing aside the rude thongs of raw

hide by which they were controlled, quickly adapted the

draught-horses to the use of artillery harness and collars.

-----

With the view of verifying the reported peculiarity of the tides at

Southampton, Professor Airy, in February, proceeded thither to

examine the rise and fall of the water. Some non-commissioned

officers and privates were placed by Colonel Colby at his disposal

for this purpose, who prepared and fixed the vertical scale of feet

and inches, and kept a watch upon the general accuracy of the

observed tides. “I was,” says the Professor, “extremely glad to

avail myself of this offer, for I believe that a more intelligent

and faithful body of men does not exist than the sappers employed on

the trigonometrical survey; and I know well the advantage of

employing upon a tedious business like this, a set of regular

service men stationed on the spot.”[410]

-----

Footnote 410:

‘Philosophical Transactions,’ i., 1843, p. 45.

-----

On the 19th March about 150 non-commissioned officers and men of the

corps at Woolwich under Lieutenant F. A. Yorke, R.E., were present

in the night at a fire, which burnt the ‘Bull’ tavern to the

ground.[411] The sappers were the first to render assistance and to

secure from destruction much of the property.[412] By the falling of

the principal wall of the building eighteen persons were severely

crushed and wounded, six of whom were privates of the corps. Private

Malcolm Campbell, one of the injured, rescued the landlord, Mr.

Boyd, from being burnt to death. The latter in a state of great

bewilderment rushed back into the burning tavern, and Campbell

dashing after him dragged him through the flames and falling

timbers, from a back room of the building, into the street

again.[413]

-----

Footnote 411:

Reference would not have been made to this service only for the

accident which attended it. Often it is the lot of the corps at

the various stations to distinguish themselves at fires, and by

their promptitude and cheerful exertions, to save both lives and

property.

Footnote 412:

An insurance company, in no respect under obligations to the

parties who assisted at the fire, felt interested in the exertions

of the sappers and awarded them 5_l._ As the sum was too small for

distribution, it was well expended in the purchase of a clock for

the barracks at Woolwich.

Footnote 413:

After serving a station in China, died at Woolwich, in July, 1847.

-----

During the summer a corporal and twenty-three rank and file of the

royal sappers and miners, and nine men of the East India Company’s

sappers were employed at Spithead under Major-General Pasley, in the

removal of the wreck of the ‘Royal George.’ The operations were

carried on from the 7th May to the end of October under the

executive orders of Lieutenant G. R. Hutchinson, R.E. In all

respects the duties, labours, and responsibilities of the sappers

were the same as on previous occasions, except that the diving was

carried out by the party, and a few of the East India Company’s

sappers and miners, without in any one instance needing the help of

professional civil divers. On the 2nd November the detachment

rejoined the corps at Chatham.

Four divers were at first employed. On the 13th May the number was

increased to five, and on the 3rd June to six, which force continued

at the duty throughout the season. Several other men during the

summer had been so employed when casualty or other cause prevented

the regular divers descending, and the whole who had distinguished

themselves in this work by their activity and success, were

classified as follows:—

_First-class divers_:—corporal David Harris: lance-corporals

Richard P. Jones, and John Rae: privates Roderick Cameron,

James Jago, John Williams, and William Crowdy.

_Second-class divers_:—privates Alexander Cleghorn and John

Girvan.

_Third-class divers_:—lance-corporal W. Thompson: privates

William Browning, William Penman, and Edward Barnicoat.[414]

-----

Footnote 414:

The nine men of the East India Company’s sappers, whose names are

appended, dived more or less as occasion offered. Lance-corporal

Thomas Sherstone, privates James Hewitt, James Beale, George

Taylor, William Brabazon, John Hunt, William England, John McIvor,

and John A. Goodfellow. Hewitt was the best, Sherstone the next,

and Beale and Taylor were very promising.

-----

Corporal Harris almost entirely by his own diligence removed, in

little more than two months, the wreck of the ‘Perdita’ mooring

lighter, which was sunk in 1783 in the course of Mr. Tracy’s

unsuccessful efforts to weigh the ‘Royal George.’ It was about sixty

feet in length, and embedded in mud fifty fathoms south of that

vessel. The exposed timbers stood only two feet six inches above the

level of the bottom, so that the exertions of Harris in removing the

wreck were herculean. Completely overpowered by fatigue, he claimed

a respite for a day or two to recruit his energies, and then resumed

work with his accustomed assiduity and cheerfulness.

There was a sort of abnegation—an absence of jealousy—in the

character of Harris which, as the rivalry among the divers made them

somewhat selfish, gave prominency to his kindness. He met Cameron at

the bottom, who led him to the spot where he was working. For a

considerable time Cameron had fruitlessly laboured in slinging an

awkward timber of some magnitude, when Harris readily stood in his

place; and in a few minutes, using Cameron’s breast-line to make the

necessary signals, sent the mass on deck. It was thus recorded to

Cameron’s credit, but the circumstance, on becoming known, was

regarded with so much satisfaction, that honourable mention was made

of it in the official journal.

Lance-corporal Jones, a sagacious and indefatigable diver, was the

most conspicuous for his success at the ‘Royal George.’ In one day

besides slinging innumerable fragments, he sent up nearly three tons

of pig-iron ballast. The duty of recovering it, which was

excessively trying, was confined to him. So painful and enlarged had

his hands become in discharging it, he was at last fairly beaten,

and for a few days, took an easier area at the bottom. Meanwhile

private Hewitt of the East India Company’s sappers, one of the most

spirited divers of his party, succeeded him, and led by mark-lines

to the spot, commenced his arduous task. Hard indeed did he labour

to follow his predecessor even at a remote distance; but on coming

up, he declared it was impossible for any one to work there. It

appeared for some time, that Jones in his dogged perseverance, had

run his adventurous chances in gaps and gullies over his head in

mud, and could only feel the ballast by forcing his hands down among

the shingle as far as his strength permitted him to reach.

On another day Jones lodged on deck from his slings a crate

containing eighty 12-pounder shot. With singular success he laid the

remainder of the kelson open for recovery, and then, sinking deeper,

drew from the mud in two hauls nearly 35 feet of the keel. He also

weighed a small vessel of six tons burden belonging to a Mr.

Cussell, which drove, under a strong current, upon one of the

lighters. Becoming entangled, the craft soon filled and foundered,

grappling in her descent with the ladder of one of the divers.

Grounding at a short distance from the interval between the

lighters, Jones was selected to try his skill in rescuing her. At

once descending he fixed the chains under her stern, and while

attempting to hold them in position by passing them round the mast,

the tide turned, the vessel swung about, and the mast fell over the

side, burying Jones under her sails and rigging. Perilous as was his

situation, his fearlessness and presence of mind never for a moment

forsook him. Working from under the canvas and carefully extricating

himself from the crowd of ropes that ensnared him, he at last found

himself free. A thunderstorm now set in, and obedient to a call from

above, he repaired to the deck; but as soon as the squall had

subsided he again disappeared and cleverly jamming the slings, the

boat was hove up; but she had become a complete wreck and was taken

on shore.

Nothing was too venturesome for him to undertake, and the trial of

enterprising expedients only whetted his wish to be the chief in

their execution. It was desired to ascertain how long a diver could

exist in his dress without communication with the external air.

Jones offering himself for the experiment, remained ten minutes on

the deck of the lighter, cased up as if hermetically sealed, without

experiencing any inconvenience. A more dangerous trial followed. A

clever man had expressed his conviction, that if the air-pipe were

to burst on deck and the diver not instantly drawn up, he would be

suffocated. Notwithstanding this scientific speculation, Jones

descended, and the pump, by signal, ceased. Five minutes he

continued unsupplied from above, but a feeling of pressure having

then commenced on his chest, he signalled for air. The knowledge

thus acquired, proved that a diver had ample time to be hauled up

before the air in his dress should become too vitiated to sustain

life.

On going down to examine the progress made in the removal of the

‘Perdita,’ Jones encountered a human body which had been drowned

about six weeks. It felt round and hard; was nude to the waist but

clothed in trowsers to the ankles. Jones was a long time before he

could discover what it was that annoyed him. On tracing with his

fingers the course of the spinal column, it felt as if the vertebræ

were as distinct as the bars of an iron grating. The thought

suddenly possessed him that he was handling the remains of a fellow

creature. Horror-stricken at the idea, he rushed up the ladder, and

it was a few hours before he could sufficiently master his feelings

to redescend. When he did so he went to the spot where the body

visited him, and removed the timber he had previously secured. He

was, however, no more troubled with this submarine apparition nor

with a return of his melancholy emotions. Two days after, Corporal

Harris had an interview with a strange substance at the foot of his

ladder; but not over-nice in his sensations, he struck his pricker

into it. When pulled up to the surface, it turned out to be the

mutilated remains that molested the sensitive Jones.

These two non-commissioned officers were now equal to the best

divers in Europe, and their daring exploits at the bottom of the sea

under a great depth of water, with a strong tide, and traversing a

space covered with thick mud, embarrassed by iron and shingle

ballast, huge timbers, guns, and a thousand other obstacles, were

constantly recorded in the newspapers of the day, and filled the

public with wonder.

A sort of fixed intention possessed the minds of the divers this

season to bring up the leviathan keel at all hazards. Several

therefore shared in the honour of recovering a portion of it.

Cameron was the first to burrow under it, and he slung a short

piece, which was scarfed, connected with six pairs of copper bolts,

measuring one foot six inches long, and also the clamps for securing

the false keel. Private James Hewitt of the East India Company’s

sappers also recovered a short length. Jago, more successful, sent

up six feet; Harris sixteen feet; and Jones came in for the lion’s

portion, having slung no less than thirty-four feet six inches.

Crowdy also added to the registry of his achievements, the recovery

of a guinea; and Cleghorn had the good fortune to send up an

18-pounder iron gun, the only one disembowelled from the deep this

summer.

A few accidents occurred during the season, only one of which was

serious. Corporal Jones, as usual, fell in for his share of them.

Slinging, on one occasion, five pigs of ballast, he jumped upon the

chains to tighten the load and secure it from slipping. In so doing

the weight whirled round and imparted a rotating motion to the bull

rope to which the chains were attached. The rope coming in contact

with his air-pipe and life-line twined several times round them, and

interrupted, in a measure, the channels of communication. To avert

the danger which threatened, Jones threw himself on his back,

declining the slow process of climbing his ladder; and permitting

the air in proper quantity to take vent through the escape valve,

passed motionless through the water, except the simple action of his

hand occasionally to rectify his balance. His upward flight was

something like the downward pitch of a bird, which, laying its wings

on the air, descends with scarcely a flutter to the ground. Quickly

hauled on board, it was not without much difficulty he was

extricated from the entanglement in which his zeal had unwittingly

involved him. At another time, being very wet, he was compelled to

re-ascend to ascertain the cause of the inconvenience. On examining

his helmet, the escape valve was found to be open owing to the

presence of a small stone in the aperture, which opposed the true

action of the valve and admitted water into his dress in a small but

unchecked stream.

Private John Williams early in the season tore his hands very

severely in attempting to sling a mass of the wreck with jagged

surfaces and broken bolts. After a few days' rest, he re-appeared in

his submarine habit and dived as before; but, from excessive pain in

the ears, was again _hors-de-combat_ until the 11th July; when, on

re-descending, he was grievously injured by the bursting of his

air-pipe a few inches above the water. This casualty was indicated

by a loud hissing noise on deck. A few seconds elapsed before the

rupture could be traced and the opening temporarily stopped. With

great alertness he was drawn up; and on being relieved of his helmet

presented a frightful appearance. His face and neck were much

swollen and very livid, blood was flowing profusely from his mouth

and ears, his eyes were closed and protruding, and on being laid on

deck, he retched a quantity of clotted gore. Though partially

suffocated he possessed sufficient sensibility to speak of the

mishap. A sudden shock, it seems, struck him motionless, and then

followed a tremendous pressure as if he were being crushed to death.

A month in Haslar hospital restored him to health, and on returning

to the wreck, he at once re-commenced the laborious occupation of

diving. He was quite as venturesome and zealous as before, but was

again soon obliged to leave off, having resumed the duty at too

early a period of his convalescence.

A dangerous but curious incident occurred this summer between

corporal Jones and private Girvan—two rival divers, who in a moment

of irritation engaged in a conflict at the bottom of the sea, having

both got hold of the same floor timber of the wreck which neither

would yield to the other.[415] Jones at length fearful of a

collision with Girvan, he being a powerful man, made his bull-rope

fast and attempted to escape by it; but before he could do so,

Girvan seized him by the legs and tried to draw him down. A scuffle

ensued, and Jones succeeding in extricating his legs from the grasp

of his antagonist, took a firmer hold of the bull-rope and kicked at

Girvan several times with all the strength his suspended position

permitted. One of the kicks broke an eye or lens of Girvan’s helmet,

and as water instantly rushed into his dress, he was likely to have

been drowned, had he not at once been hauled on board. Two or three

days in Haslar hospital, however, completely cured him of the

injuries he thus sustained, and these two submarine combatants ever

afterwards carried on their duties with the greatest cordiality.

-----

Footnote 415:

‘United Service Journal,’ iii. 1843, p. 139.

-----

As artificers, lance-corporal Thompson and private Penman were

skilful and diligent. Lance-corporal Rae and private Thomas Smith

were in charge of the gunpowder and voltaic battery, and made all

the mining preparations for explosion. Nearly four tons and a

quarter of powder were fired in numerous small charges from 18 to

170 lbs., which will afford some idea of the importance of the

duty.[416]

-----

Footnote 416:

Much of the information given about the wreck of the ‘Royal

George,’ has been gleaned from the ‘Hampshire Telegraph,’ ‘Army

and Navy Register,’ and the ‘Manuscript Journal of the

Operations.’

-----

General Pasley in his official report, besides highly commending the

men above named, wrote in praise of the general good conduct of the

entire detachment and of its useful and active services. Corporal

Blaik, who assisted in the superintendence of the whole of the

workmen in one of the two mooring lighters, the General alluded to

as a non-commissioned officer of much merit and strict integrity.

His courteous behaviour, too, elicited the respect of every man

employed, and attracted the favourable notice of many officers and

gentlemen who visited the operations.[417]

-----

Footnote 417:

Afterwards a sergeant. Was generally employed in duties of

importance far exceeding his rank, at the Cape of Good Hope, Isle

of France, and Hong-Kong. In 1847 he was present in the expedition

to Canton, blew up the Zigzag Fort, and otherwise conspicuously

distinguished himself. He died at Hong-Kong, after five years'

service there, in 1848. Blaik had been brought up at the royal

military asylum, Chelsea.

-----

Early in September, at the request of the Trinity corporation,

Colonel Sir Frederick Smith, director of the royal engineer

establishment, undertook to demolish two barges formerly used as the

foundations of beacons at Blyth Sand, Sheerness. For this purpose he

sent Lieutenant Bourchier, R.E., sergeant-major Jenkin Jones and

seven men of the corps to the spot in the ‘Beaconry,’ one of the

Trinity steamers. A number of small charges deposited in tin cases

were fixed at low water, and fired to shake the wrecks. By the

explosion of a large charge on the 3rd September, one barge was

completely destroyed and dispersed; and on the 5th, by the firing of

a still greater charge, the other barge shared the fate of its

consort. Masses of the wreck on the first explosion were projected

to a height of about 200 feet, and about 400 feet from the scene of

operations, while at the same time a column of water, eighty feet

high, was forced into the air. On the second occasion, Sir Thomas

Willshire, the commandant of Chatham garrison, and Captain Welbank,

chairman of the Trinity corporation, were present, but the effect

was less striking, although a much greater quantity of powder was

used, in consequence of there being at the moment twenty feet of

superincumbent water pressing on the barge. Captain Welbank

personally complimented the “indefatigable” sergeant-major for his

success, and the corporation of Trinity House afterwards, with the

permission of the Master-General, presented him with a silver-gilt

snuff-box to commemorate the assistance he rendered in the

dispersion of the wrecks.[418]

-----

Footnote 418:

Four years previously, August, 1838, sergeant-major Jones was

presented with a silver tankard, “by the sergeants of Chatham

garrison, in testimony of their gratitude for the undeviating

attention he evinced in superintending the formation of a military

swimming-bath at that station.”

-----

1842.

Draft to Canada—Company recalled from thence—Its services and

movements—Its character—Labours of colour-sergeant Lanyon—Increase

to Gibraltar—Reduction in the corps—Irish survey completed; force

employed in its prosecution—Reasons for conducting it under

military rule—Economy of superintendence by sappers—Their

employments—Sergeants West, Doull, Spalding, Keville—Corporals

George Newman, Andrew Duncan—Staff appointments to the survey

companies—Dangers—Hardships—Average strength of sapper force

employed—Casualties—Kindness of the Irish—Gradual transfer of

sappers for the English survey—Distribution; Southampton.

The company in Canada which accompanied the troops to that province

on the occasion of the unsettled state of affairs on the American

frontier, was increased to a full company by the arrival of thirteen

men on the 8th July, 1842.

Scarcely had the party landed before the company itself was

recalled, and rejoined the corps at Woolwich on the 31st October,

1842. During its four years' service on the frontier, the total of

the company, with its reinforcement, counted ninety-nine of all

ranks, and its casualties only amounted to eight men invalided,

three discharged, and five deserted. Not a death was reported. From

time to time it was stationed at Quebec, Fort Mississaqua near the

Falls of Niagara, St. Helen’s Island, St. John’s, and Fort Lennox,

Isle aux Noix. These were its several head-quarters, and as the

company was removed from one to the other, parties were detached for

service to each of the other stations, and also to Amherstburgh. In

repairing and improving the defences at Mississaqua and Isle aux

Noix they were found of great advantage. At the other stations they

were no less usefully occupied in barrack repairs and other

contingent services.

From Amherstburgh the detachment rejoined the company in 1840.

Whilst the latter was at St. Helen’s and afterwards at St. John’s,

the men were exercised during the summer months in pontooning with

bridges of Colonel Blanshard’s construction, which had been stored

at Chambly until 1840. The pontoons were found to travel well on bad

roads, but the breadth of the rivers in Canada did not permit of

their being often used as bridges.

After the removal of the company, Colonel Oldfield, the commanding

royal engineer, thus wrote of it: “The discipline of the company was

not relaxed by its four summers in Canada. It had suffered the

inconvenience of several times changing its captain, but it was

nevertheless maintained in good order and regular conduct.

Lieutenant W. C. Roberts, R.E., however, was constantly with it, to

whom and colour-sergeant Lanyon[419] and the non-commissioned

officers, much credit is due. The desertions only amounted to six,

although the company was on the frontier in daily communication with

the United States. Of these six, one returned the following morning;

a second would have done so but he feared the jeers of his comrades;

and the other four found when too late the falsity of the

inducements which had attracted them to the States, and would gladly

have come back could they have done so.” And the Colonel then

concludes, “The advantages enjoyed by well-behaved men, and the

_esprit de corps_ which has always existed in the sappers have been

found to render desertion rare, even when exposed to greater

temptation than usually falls to the lot of other soldiers.”

-----

Footnote 419:

Ante, pp. 307-310. At the new barracks built for the dragoons at

Niagara, sergeant Lanyon successfully constructed a circular well,

about thirty feet deep, after two or three contractors had

attempted it and failed. He laboured himself in laying the stones

up to his hips in water, and afforded ample work for a strong

party above in preparing the stones for placement, and pumping up

the water. The service was effected under many difficulties and

hazards, and while the weather was intensely cold. As an instance

of his great strength it may be remarked, that six men complained

to him of the heavy task they were subjected to in removing

timbers about 15 feet long and 12 inches square for constructing a

stockade at Fort Mississaqua. Lanyon made no observation, but

shouldered one of the unwieldy logs, and, to the amazement of the

grumblers, carried it to the spot unassisted.

-----

In the meantime a second company had been removed to Gibraltar in

the ‘Alban’ steamer under Lieutenant Theodosius Webb, R.E., and

landed on the 6th July, 1842. This augmentation to the corps at that

fortress was occasioned by the difficulty felt in procuring a

sufficient number of mechanics for the works; and to meet the

emergency, the company in Canada was recalled, as in both provinces

works of considerable magnitude had been carried on by civil

workmen, who could at all times be more easily engaged in a country

receiving continual influxes by immigration, than in a confined

fortress like Gibraltar with a limited population.

On the return of the Niger expedition in November, to which eight

rank and file had been attached, the establishment of the corps was

reduced from 1,298 to 1,290 of all ranks.

The survey of Ireland upon the 6-inch scale was virtually completed

in December of this year, terminating with Bantry and the

neighbourhood of Skibbereen. The directing force in that great

national work was divided into three districts in charge of three

captains of royal engineers in the country; and there was also a

head-quarter office for the combination and examination of the work,

correspondence, engraving, printing, &c., in charge of a fourth

captain. To each of these districts the survey companies were

attached in relative proportion to the varied requirements and

contingencies of the service, and adapted to the many modifications

which particular local circumstances frequently rendered imperative.

A staff of non-commissioned officers and men was also stationed at

the head-quarter office, and discharged duties of trust and

importance.

In framing his instructions for the execution of the Irish survey,

Colonel Colby had to reject his old opinions formed from

circumscribed examples of small surveys, and to encounter all the

prejudices which had been fixed in the minds of practical men. The

experience of these parties did not extend beyond the surveys of

estates of limited space, performed without hurry and with few

assistants. Colonel Colby, on the other hand, was to survey rapidly

a large country, with much more accuracy. The two modes were

therefore so entirely different, that it took less time to train for

its performance those who had no prejudice, and who had been brought

up by military discipline to obey, than to endeavour to combine a

heterogeneous mass of local surveyors fettered by preconceived

notions and conceits, deficient in habits of accuracy and

subordination, and who could not be obtained in sufficient numbers

to form any material proportion of the force. Hence the survey of

Ireland became essentially military in its organization and control,

the officers of engineers being the directors of large parties, and

the non-commissioned officers the subordinate directors of small

parties.

In the later years of the Irish survey, however, the superintendence

by the sappers became of much consequence and its advantages very

appreciable in the reduction of expense. For the year 1827, the

outlay for the survey was above 37,000_l._, at which period the sum

paid to the officers was more than one-third of the whole amount;

but in 1841, when the expenditure was more than doubled, the amount

for superintendence had been reduced to a twelfth part of the total

expenditure.[420]

-----

Footnote 420:

‘Second Report Army and Ordnance Expenditure,’ 1849, p. 500. To

such an extent was the diminution in the number of the officers

subsequently carried, that in 1849 the amount of expense incurred

by the superintendence of officers was reduced to one

twenty-second part of the total expenditure; therefore by the more

general employment of sappers in the direction of the work, the

amount of superintendence was reduced from one-third and

one-fourth, to one twenty-second part.

-----

The general employment of the sappers and miners in this great

national work embraced the whole range of the scheme for its

accomplishment, and many non-commissioned officers and men trained

in this school became superior observers, surveyors, draughtsmen,

levellers, contourers, and examiners. Among so many who

distinguished themselves it would be almost invidious to name any;

but there were a few so conspicuous for energy of character,

efficiency of service, and attainments, that to omit them would be a

dereliction no scruples could justify. Their names are subjoined:—

Colour-sergeant John West celebrated as an engraver. In 1833, the

Master-General, Sir James Kempt, pointed out his name on the

engraving of the index map of Londonderry to His Majesty William IV.

in terms of commendation; and the Master-General, while West was yet

a second-corporal, promoted him to be supernumerary-sergeant, with

the pay of the rank. Most of the index maps of the counties of

Ireland were executed by him, and a writer in the United Service

Journal[421] complimented him by saying that the maps already

completed by him were as superior to the famous _Carte des Chasses_

as the latter was to the recondite productions of Kitchen, the

geographer. His also was the master hand that executed the city

sheet of Dublin, and his name is associated with many other maps of

great national importance. The geological map of Ireland, 1839,

engraved for the Railway Commissioners, was executed by him; and in

all his works, which are many, he has displayed consummate skill,

neatness, rigid accuracy, and beauty both of outline and topography.

In October, 1846, he was pensioned at 1_s._ 10_d._ a-day, and

received the gratuity and medal for his meritorious services. He is

now employed at the ordnance survey office, Dublin, and continues to

gain admiration for the excellency of his maps.

-----

Footnote 421:

ii., 1835, p. 154.

-----

Sergeant Alexander Doull was enlisted in 1813. After serving a

station in the West Indies, he was removed to Chatham. There on the

plan of ‘Cobbett’s Grammar,’ he commenced publishing letters to his

son on “Geometry,” but after the second number appeared, he

relinquished the undertaking. In 1825 he joined the survey

companies, and was the chief non-commissioned officer at the base of

Magilligan. He was a superior mathematical surveyor and draughtsman,

and his advice in difficult survey questions was frequently followed

and never without success. Between 1828 and 1833 he had charge of a

12-inch theodolite, observing for the secondary and minor

triangulation of one of the districts, and was the first

non-commissioned officer of sappers, it is believed, who used the

instrument bearing that designation. In July, 1834, while employed

in the revision of the work in the neighbourhood of Rathmelton, he

introduced a system of surveying similar to traverse-sailing in

navigation, which effected a considerable saving of time in the

progress of the work, and elicited the approbation of Colonel Colby.

While on the duty he invented a plotting-scale,[422] and

subsequently a reflecting instrument,[423] both simple and ingenious

in construction. After a service of twenty-three years, he was

discharged in January, 1838. When the tithe commutation survey was

thrown into the hands of contractors, Doull got portions of the work

to perform, and his maps were referred to in terms of high

commendation by Edwin Chadwick, Esq.[424] Among several towns that

he surveyed, one was Woolwich, the map of which, dedicated to Lord

Bloomfield, was published by him in 1843. In the proposed North Kent

Railway, Mr. Doull was assistant-engineer to Mr. Vignoles, and he

planned a bridge of three arches, having a roadway at one side and a

double line of rails at the other, with an ornamental screened

passage between, to span the Medway where the new bridge recently

constructed, connects Strood and Rochester; which plan, had the

proposed railway not been superseded by a rival line, would have

secured an enduring fame for the designer. This was the opinion of

Mr. Vignoles and Sir Charles Pasley. Afterwards when the competing

companies were preparing their respective projects, Mr. Doull

represented the engineering difficulties of the opposing scheme in a

pamphlet under the signature of “Calculus.” In this his military

knowledge and experience were well exhibited, inasmuch as he showed

how the fortifications at Chatham would be injured by the adoption

of that line; and the railway consequently, on account of this and

other influences, has never been prolonged so as to interfere with

the defences. A few years afterwards he published a small work

entitled, “Railway Hints and Railway Legislation,” which obtained

for him, from the South-Eastern Railway Company—the one he so

perseveringly opposed—the situation of assistant-engineer to the

line. More recently he issued a pamphlet on the subject of a railway

in America,[425] which for its boldness and lucidity gained for him

the praise of a rising literary genius in the royal engineers.[426]

His last pamphlet on the subject of opening a north-west passage

between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, a distance of 2,500 miles,

is more daring, and evinces more pretension and merit than any of

his previous literary efforts. Mr. Doull is also known as the

inventor of several improvements of the permanent way of

railways,[427] and is a member both of the Society of Civil

Engineers and the Society of Arts.

-----

Footnote 422:

Frome’s ‘Surveying,’ 1840, p. 40. Simms' ‘Math. Inst.,’ 1st edit.

Footnote 423:

Frome’s ‘Surveying,’ 1840, p. 44.

Footnote 424:

‘British Companion and Almanack,’ 1843, p. 38.

Footnote 425:

First published in a series of letters to the ‘Morning Chronicle,’

and then collected, with additional matter, in a pamphlet.

Footnote 426:

Synges’s ‘Great Britain—one Empire.’

Footnote 427:

These he patented in November, 1851. A description of the

improvements, with sixteen illustrations, is given in the ‘Civil

Engineer and Architects’ Journal,' xv., pp. 164, 165.

-----

Serjeant Robert Spalding was for many years employed on the survey

of Ireland, from which, on account of his acquirements, he was

removed to Chatham to be instructor of surveying to the young

sappers. To assist him in the duty he published a small manual for

the use of the students. It was not an elaborate effort, but one

which detailed with freedom and simplicity the principles of the

science. In 1834 he was appointed clerk of works at the Gambia,

where his vigorous intellect and robust health singled him out for

varied colonial employment, and his merits and exertions frequently

made him the subject of official encomium. Five years he spent in

that baneful and exhausting climate, and in 1840, just as he was

about to sail for England, the fever seized him, and in a few days

he died. In his early career as a bugler he was present in much

active service, and was engaged at Vittoria, San Sebastian,

Bidassoa, Nivelle, Nive, Orthes, and Toulouse.

Sergeant Edward Keville was a very fair and diligent artist. He

engraved the index map of the county of Louth, and assisted in the

general engraving work at the ordnance survey office in Dublin. In

January, 1846, he was pensioned at 1_s._ 10½_d._ a day, and obtained

re-employment in the same office in which he had spent the greatest

part of his military career.

Second-corporal George Newman was eminent as a draughtsman, and the

unerring fineness and truthfulness of his lines and points were the

more remarkable, as he was an unusually large man of great bodily

weight. He died at Killarney in 1841.

Lance-corporal Andrew Duncan was a skilful and ingenious artificer.

His simple contrivance for making the chains, known by the name of

“Gunter’s chains,” is one proof of his success as an inventor. Those

delicate measures, in which the greatest accuracy is required, have

by Duncan’s process been made for the last twelve years by a

labourer unused to any mechanical occupation, with an exactitude

that admits of no question. The apparatus is in daily use in the

survey department at Southampton, and the chains required for the

service can be made by its application with great facility and

rapidity. He was discharged at Dublin in September, 1843, and is now

working as a superior artizan in the proof department of the royal

arsenal.

Equally distinguished were sergeants William Young, William

Campbell, and Andrew Bay, and privates Charles Holland and Patrick

Hogan, but as their names and qualifications will be found connected

with particular duties in the following pages, further allusion to

them in this place is unnecessary.

Colonel Colby in his closing official report, spoke of the valuable

aid which he had received from the royal sappers and miners in

carrying on the survey, and as a mark of consideration for their

merits, and with the view of retaining in confidential situations

the non-commissioned officers who by their integrity and talents had

rendered themselves so useful and essential, he recommended the

permanent appointment of quartermaster-sergeant to be awarded to the

survey companies; but this honour so ably urged was, from economical

reasons, not conceded.

Seventeen years had the sappers and miners been employed on the

general survey and had travelled all over Ireland. They were alike

in cities and in wastes, on mountain heights and in wild ravines,

had traversed arid land and marshy soil, wading through streams and

tracts of quagmire in the prosecution of their duties. To every

vicissitude of weather they were exposed, and in storms at high

altitudes subjected to personal disaster and peril. Frequently they

were placed in positions of imminent danger in surveying bogs and

moors, precipitous mountain faces, and craggy rocks and coasts.

Boating excursions too were not without their difficulties and

hazards in gaining islands almost unapproachable, and bluff isolated

rocks and islets, often through quicksand and the low channels of

broad sandy bays and inlets of the sea, where the tide from its

strength and rapidity precluded escape unless by the exercise of

extreme caution and vigilance, or by the aid of boats.

Two melancholy instances of drowning occurred in these services:

both were privates,—William Bennie and Joseph Maxwell; the former by

the upsetting of a boat while he was employed in surveying the

islands of Loch Strangford, and the latter at Valentia Island. This

island consisted of projecting rocks very difficult of access, and

when private Maxwell was engaged in the very last act of finishing

the survey a surf swept him off the rock. A lad named Conway, his

labourer, was borne away by the same wave. The devoted private had

been immersed in a previous wave by which his note-book was lost,

and while stooping with anxiety, to see if he could recover it,

another furious wave dashed up the point and carried him into the

sea.[428]

-----

Footnote 428:

In consideration of this event, the Board of Ordnance granted his

widow a donation of 20_l._; and she was, moreover, assisted by a

very handsome subscription from the officers and men of the

district in which her husband had served.

-----

Hardship and toil were the common incidents of their everyday

routine, for on mountain duty theirs was a career of trial and

vicissitude. Comforts they had none, and what with the want of

accommodation and amusement in a wild country, on a dizzy height,

theirs was not an enviable situation. Covered only by a canvas tent

or marquee they were barely closed in from the biting cold and the

raging storm; and repeatedly tents, stores, and all, have been swept

away by the wind or consumed by fire, while the hardy tenants, left

on the bleak hill top, or the open heath, have remained for days

together half naked and unsheltered. Such was their discipline and

such their spirit, they continued to labour protected only by their

great coats—if haply they escaped destruction—till, renewed with

tents or huts, they pitched again their solitary dwellings far away

on the height or the moor.

Even on the less exposed employments of the survey, the men were

subjected to many discomforts and fatigues. The marching was

harassing; miles to and from work were daily tramped, frequently in

a drenching rain; and in this kind of weather soaked to the skin,

they barely permitted their work to be interrupted. Night after

night for two or three weeks together, have these men returned to

their quarters dripping wet; and when, in frosty weather, their

clothes have frozen on their backs, the removal of boots and

trousers have only been accomplished by immersing the legs in warm

water.

The average strength of the three companies set apart for the

survey, for each year from 1825 to 1842, is subjoined:—

Least Greatest Average for each

Strength. Strength. 12 Months.

1825 61 109 86

1826 106 134 115

1827 129 220 177

1828 232 259 248

1829 234 257 242

1830 233 258 247

1831 248 268 255

1832 230 256 242

1833 211 231 220

1834 204 215 209

1835 199 204 201

1836 195 198 196

1837 191 213 199

1838 208 217 213

1839 199 220 208

1840 183 213 197

1841 87 179 142

1842 31 74 50

During the above period the casualties by death in Ireland only

amounted to twenty-nine of all ranks, proving the general

healthiness of their occupation. Of these, three were untimely:

two by drowning as shown in a preceding paragraph, and one

killed—private John Crockett—by falling from a car while

proceeding on duty from Leixlip to Chapelizod.

Here it should be noted that the sappers, in the prosecution of

their duty, necessarily mixed with all descriptions of society, and

were invariably treated with respect, civility, and hospitality. The

spirit of agrarianism, the bigotry of religion, or the natural

irritable temperament of the people, were seldom evinced against the

companies in abuse or conflict.

As the work was drawing to a close the sappers by rapid removals

augmented the force employed in the survey of Great Britain, so that

at the termination of 1841 there were no less than 143 men chiefly

in the northern counties of England, and thirty-four carrying on the

triangulation of Scotland, leaving for the residual work of the

Irish survey only eighty-seven men of all ranks.

In June, 1842, the payment of the companies in England commenced on

a system of consolidating the detachments into a series of vouchers

prepared for their respective companies. At that time the force in

Ireland, left for the revisionary survey of Dublin and the northern

counties and for the engraving office at Mountjoy, reached a total

of six sergeants and forty-one rank and file; while the absorbing

work of the survey of Great Britain had on its rolls a strength of

217 of all ranks. Southampton, in consequence of the destruction of

the map office at the Tower of London by fire, was established as

the head-quarters of the survey companies; and in the institution

formerly known as the royal military asylum for the orphan daughters

of soldiers, are now carried on those scientific and extensive

duties which regulate with such beautiful accuracy and order, the

whole system of the national survey.

1843.

Falkland Islands; services of the detachment there—Exploration

trips—Seat of government changed—Turner’s stream—Bull

fight—Round Down Cliff, near Dover—Boundary line in North

America—Sergeant-major Forbes—Operations for removing the wreck of

the ‘Royal George’—Exertions of the party—Private Girvan—Sagacity

of corporal Jones—Success of the divers—Exertions to recover the

missing guns—Harris’s nest—His district pardonably invaded—Wreck

of the ‘Edgar,’ and corporal Jones—Power of water to convey

sound—Girvan at the ‘Edgar’—An accident—Cessation of the

work—Conduct of the detachment employed in it—Sir George

Murray’s commendation—Longitude of Valentia—Rebellion in

Ireland—Colour-sergeant Lanyon explores the passages under Dublin

Castle—Fever at Bermuda—Burning of the ‘Missouri’ steamer at

Gibraltar—Hong-Kong—Inspection at Woolwich by the Grand Duke

Michael of Russia—Percussion carbine and accoutrements.

The settlement at Port Louis, in the Falkland Islands, was daily

growing into importance, and works applicable to every conceivable

emergency were executed. This year the old government-house was

thoroughly repaired, and a new substantial barrack for the

detachment erected. Unlike the other buildings of the colony, the

foundation-stone was laid by the Governor with the usual ceremony,

and in a chamber was placed a bottle of English coins of the reign

of Queen Victoria. There were also built houses for baking, cooking,

and to hold boats. A butcher’s shop was likewise run up, and

cottages erected for the guachos and their major-domo, as well as a

small calf house on Long Island and a large wooden peat-house at

Town Moss. To add to the variety of their employment the sappers

repaired the pass-house, put the pinnace in fine sailing condition,

and constructed a jetty of rough stones for boats. Other services of

less note but equally necessary were performed, such as quarrying

stone, building a sod-wall to enclose a space for garden purposes,

stacking peat for the winter, and removing stores and provisions

from the newly-arrived ships, &c.

Parties were detached on exploring services to North Camp and Mare

Harbour. In both places wild cattle abounded and troops of horses

made no attempt to scamper away. On one excursion sergeant Hearnden

and corporal Watts accompanied Mr. Robinson to Port St. Salvador in

the face of a snow-storm, opposed by a cutting wind. Several wild

horses and a herd of savage bulls were met in the trip; and geese,

too, crossed their track in vast numbers, merely waddling out of the

way to prevent the horsemen crushing them. Night at length spread

over them. To return in such weather was impossible; and looking

about they discovered a heap of stones, which turned out to be a

sealer’s hut. The ribs of a whale were its rafters and turf and

stones served the purpose of tiles. Leashing their horses and

fastening them in a grassy district some four miles from the hut,

Hearnden at once repaired the roof of the desolate hermitage, and

Mr. Robinson with his companions crept into it through a small

aperture on their hands and knees. Here they passed a bitter night;

and so intense was the cold that four of the five dogs taken with

them perished. Next day they returned to the settlement with less

appearance of suffering than cheerfulness, and with a heavy supply

of brent and upland geese and some wild rabbits.

Notwithstanding the inclement weather, the health of the detachment

continued to be robust. Fourteen months they had been at the

Falkland Islands without a doctor; but in March one was added to the

settlement from the ‘Philomel.’

After having erected comfortable residences for nearly the whole of

the official establishment, the seat of government, by orders from

the Colonial Office, was removed to Port William. The proclamation

for this purpose was read to the inhabitants of Port Louis by

sergeant Hearnden on the 18th August, 1843. Jackson’s Harbour was

selected by the Lieutenant-Governor for the future settlement. Soon

after, the detachment marched overland to the spot, and continued

there during the remainder of the year—except when temporary service

required their presence at Port Louis—preparing the location for the

Governor and the official officers. A sod-hut was soon run up for

one of the married families, and the rest were tented on boggy

ground about twenty yards from the river. In stormy weather the

ground, as if moving on a quicksand, would heave with the fury of

the wind; and what with the whistling of the gale through the

cordage, the flapping of the tents, and the roaring of the waves,

the men at night were scarcely free from the hallucination of

fancying themselves at sea.

Their early operations at Jackson’s Harbour were very harassing,

much of the material required for building having to be brought from

a distance; but before the close of the year a two-roomed wooden

cottage was erected with some convenient outhouses for domestic

purposes. A portable house for the surveyor was also constructed,

and one built in Mare Harbour. A rough jetty of planks, piles, and

casks was likewise made, and the high grass for miles about the

settlement was burnt down. This service was not accomplished without

difficulty, for the continual rains having saturated both grass and

ground, prevented the spreading of the flames, and required

unceasing efforts for more than a month to insure eventual success.

While out on this duty sergeant Hearnden discovered a good ford for

horses about 150 yards from Turner’s Stream, and marked the spot by

a pile of stones, the summit of which was on a level with high-water

mark. Turner’s Stream was named in compliment to a private of that

name, who carried the Governor in his journeys over the shallow

waters and lagoons that intersected his track.

Much discomfort and some privation were experienced by the men in

the first months of their encampment at Jackson’s Harbour. To get

meat they usually travelled to Port Harriet, or some eight or nine

miles from the location. The bulls they shot were always cut up on

the spot and their several parts deposited under stones till

required for use at the camp. In these expeditions the bulls were

frequently seen in herds and wild horses in troops, sometimes as

many as fifteen in a group. Once the camp was attacked by a number

of wild horses and four savage bulls. The party, about four in

number, were at breakfast at the time they approached, and, at once

seizing their loaded rifles, ran out of the tent to meet them. Two

of the bulls only, stood their ground; and though struck by two

bullets, rushed on furiously, and forced the party to beat a hasty

retreat. A position was rapidly taken up among some barrels and

timber, under cover of which the men were reloading; but the

onslaught of the bulls was so impetuous that the operation was

interrupted and the party driven into the tents. One of the animals

now trotted off; but the other, still pursuing, bolted after the men

into the marquee. A ball from private Biggs’s rifle fortunately

stopped his career, and, turning round, the infuriated animal tore

up the tent, committed great havoc through the camp, and made a

plunge at private Yates, who dexterously stepped aside, and, firing,

shot the bull in the head, and the combat ceased.

Lance-corporal John Rae and private Thomas Smith were employed in

January under Lieutenant G. R. Hutchinson, R.E., in the demolition

and removal by blasting of a portion of the Round Down Cliff, near

Dover, for the purpose of continuing the South Eastern Railway in an

open line, supported by a sea-wall, up to the mouth of Shakspeare

Tunnel. The summit of the cliff was about 380 feet above high-water

mark, and 70 feet above that of Shakspeare Cliff. The two sappers

had the executive superintendence of the mines, the placement of the

charges, and various duties connected with the management of the

voltaic apparatus and wires. No less than 180 barrels of gunpowder

were expended in the operation; and the explosion by electric

galvanism brought down, in one stupendous fall, a mass of

chalk—about 400,000 cubic yards—which covered a space of 15½ acres,

varying in depth from 15 to 25 feet, and saved the South Eastern

Railway Company the sum of 7,000_l._

Six corporals under Captain Robinson, R.E., with Lieutenant Pipon,

were attached, under orders from Lord Aberdeen, to the commission of

which Lieutenant-Colonel Estcourt was the chief, for tracing the

boundary line between the British dominions in North America and the

United States, as settled by the Ashburton treaty. Dressed in plain

clothes, they embarked at Liverpool on the 19th April, and arriving

at Halifax on the 2nd May, proceeded by Boston and New York to the

Kennebec road and entered the woods late in the month. In May, 1844,

the party was increased to twenty men by the arrival of fourteen

non-commissioned officers and privates from the English survey

companies. The co-operation of this party was urged as of paramount

importance. It enabled the work, so says the official communication,

to be carried on over a large portion of country at once with energy

and rapidity, and in such a manner as to insure a more vigorous and

correct execution of it than if the Commissioners were left to

depend on the assistance to be met with on the spot; and which,

although greatly inferior in quality, would have entailed more

expense on the public than the employment of the military surveyors.

Each sapper was selected as being competent to work by himself, and

to survey and run lines of levels, besides keeping in constant

employment a staff of labourers.

Sergeant-major James Forbes retired from the corps on the 11th

of April on a pension of 2_s._ 2_d._ a-day. He was succeeded

by colour-sergeant George Allan,[429] an excellent drill

non-commissioned officer, who was appointed to the staff at

Chatham, vicê sergeant-major Jenkin Jones, removed to the

staff at Woolwich.

-----

Footnote 429:

Became in time the quartermaster of the royal engineer

establishment at Chatham, and when the siege of Sebastopol was at

its highest, was removed from the corps by promotion into the

Turkish contingent engineers with the rank of Captain.

-----

The merits of sergeant-major Forbes have been frequently alluded to

in these pages, but there still remain some other points in his

history to be noticed. To the royal military college at Sandhurst,

he presented several models made by himself on military subjects.

About two years before his retirement he invented the equilateral

pontoon, a vessel of a very ingenious character. Its sides consist

of “portions of cylinders, supposed to be applied to three sides of

an equilateral triangular prism, each side of the triangle being two

feet eight inches long; so that the cylindrical portions meet in

three edges parallel to the axis of the pontoon. The sagitta, or

versed sine of the curvature being about one-fifth of the side of

the triangle, it follows that each side of the pontoon forms, in a

transverse section, an arc of nearly 90°. Each end of the pontoon

consists of three curved surfaces, corresponding to the sides of the

vessel, and meeting in a point, as if formed on the sides of a

triangular pyramid.”[430] “The form,” says Sir Howard Douglas,

“appears to be well adapted for the purposes of a good pontoon; as

whichever side is uppermost it presents a boatlike section to the

water, and a broad deck for the superstructure. It possesses, also,

the advantage of a horizontal section gradually enlarging to the

highest point of displacement, by which means stability and

steadiness in the water are obtained in a high degree. The area of a

transverse section of this pontoon is greater than that of the

present cylindrical pontoon; and the greater capacity produces more

than a compensation, in buoyancy, to the small excess of weight

above that of a cylindrical pontoon.”[431] A raft of this form of

pontoon was prepared under the eye of the sergeant-major and sent to

Chatham for trial, but although it gained much favour for its

decided excellences, it was finally set aside on account of “some

inconvenience in the management causing a preference to be given to

those of a simple cylindrical form”[432]—the construction, in fact,

established for the service. He was however awarded by the Board of

Ordnance, in consideration of his trouble and as a tribute to his

skill, the sum of one hundred guineas.

-----

Footnote 430:

Sir Howard Douglas, ‘On Military Bridges,’ 3rd edit., p. 32.

Footnote 431:

Ibid., 33.

Footnote 432:

Ibid., 33.

-----

On leaving the royal sappers and miners, he was appointed surveyor

to a district of the Trent and Mersey canal, at a salary of 215_l._

a year, with a fine residence and five acres of land attached. He

was also allowed forage for two horses, and all his taxes and

travelling expenses were paid. Some two years afterwards his salary

was increased to 280_l._ a year, and in 1846, so highly appreciated

were his services, that the Directors of the company proposed him to

fill the office of engineer to the canal. His integrity however was

such, that he would not be tempted by the great increase of salary

the promotion promised, and declined it, from a modest feeling that

he might not be able to do justice to so important and onerous a

charge. Quickly upon this, he received the thanks of the Directors,

accompanied by a special donation of 100_l._ Determining upon other

arrangements for the execution of their works, the company disbanded

its establishment of workmen and superintendents, retaining only the

engineer and Mr. Forbes; and such was his character for alacrity,

resolution, and discrimination, that the Directors appointed him to

superintend all the works undertaken for the company, both on the

canal and the North Staffordshire Railway, which was now

incorporated with the Trent and Mersey Canal proprietary. This

alteration in the company’s affairs, caused his removal from

Middlewich to a commodious residence in Etruria, in Staffordshire,

where his energy and influence in the parish soon gained him the

post of churchwarden, and the honour of being invited to a public

breakfast, at which, while the Bishop of Lichfield held the chair,

he had the distinction of filling the vice-chair. Latterly he has

appeared before the public as a writer. His pamphlet on the National

Defences, proposing a locomotive artillery, addressed to Lord John

Russell, was perused by that nobleman and received the attention of

Sir John Burgoyne. Frequently he has written in the public journals

on pontoons. He has also published a pamphlet on the subject, and

another relative to a pontoon-boat, which he has invented.[433] The

latter is of great interest and may yet receive the attention its

ingenious suggestions deserve. On the 6th of May, 1853, he was

elected an Associate of the Institution of Civil Engineers, for

which honour he was proposed by the great Robert Stephenson and Mr.

S. P. Bidder, the two leading civil engineers of this country.

Within the last year, he has been advanced to the post of engineer

to the company, and he enjoys the perfect satisfaction and

confidence of his employers. His salary and emoluments exceed

400_l._ a year.

-----

Footnote 433:

It is simply a half-cylinder, 20 feet long by 1 foot 9 inches

wide, and 3 feet deep, strengthened internally by hollow tubes,

and deriving its buoyancy from an ingenious distribution of

water-tight compartments, which not only preserve the flotation

but provide seats for the troops. To render the contrivance more

efficient for rafts or bridging purposes, a similar half-cylinder

is attached to its consort by strong hinges and bolts. When shut

its form is cylindrical; when open, two boats in rigid connection,

taking the same swing in the water—the same motion on the wave. In

this Siamese connection it is intended always to be used; and

fitted as it is with all the necessary details, and the means of

applying a rudder or an oar for steerage at any end, it appears to

be adequate for all the uses and contingencies, not only of a

pontoon, but of an ordinary passage-boat. It moreover aspires to

the merciful functions of a lifeboat, being capable, without risk

of capsizing or sinking, of venturing out in heavy seas to save

human life imperilled by squalls or shipwreck.

-----

The operations against the wreck of the ‘Royal George’ were resumed,

for the fifth time, early in May, with a detachment of fifteen royal

sappers and miners, eight East India Company’s sappers, and about

eighty seamen, riggers, &c., under the direction of Major-General

Pasley, with Lieutenant G. R. Hutchinson as the executive officer.

At the end of 1842, almost all the floor timbers had been got up and

101 feet of the keel, leaving only about 50 feet more at the bottom;

and out of 126 tons of pig-iron ballast, 103 tons had been safely

wharfed. There was therefore confident reason to expect the entire

removal of the wreck before the close of the season; and such indeed

was the success of the enterprise, that Major-General Pasley, on

quitting the work in November, declared that the anchorage ground,

where the wreck had lain, was as safe and fit for the use of ships

as any other part of Spithead. At first four divers went down

regularly, and afterwards five or six were at work at every slack

tide, generally three times a day.

After a few weeks of unsuccessful effort, the firing of three

charges each of 675 lbs. of powder in puncheons, removed a bank of

shingle which chiefly interfered with the divers' success. These

charges were fixed by corporals Harris and Jones, and private

Girvan. In one week afterwards, the divers effected as much as in

the five weeks previously, for not only were the keel and bottom

planking somewhat bared, but a great deal of the remaining iron

ballast was rendered accessible. Six other charges, of 720 lbs. of

powder each, and numerous smaller charges, were subsequently fired,

with results that gave ample employment for all the divers and the

detachment on board.

One or two failures occurred which arose from want of experience in

firing conjunct charges at Spithead; but in other respects, the

operation, which was exceedingly difficult, was conducted with skill

and success, owing to the able arrangements of Lieutenant

Hutchinson, assisted by the leading riggers, and by lance-corporal

Rae and private Alexander Cleghorn, who had the preparation of the

charges and the voltaic batteries. The divers, too, did everything

necessary at the bottom, and were well seconded in every department

by the sappers and others employed. “In short,” adds the

narrative,[434] “this operation, including the separation of the two

mooring lighters before the explosion and bringing them together

afterwards,” could not, in consequence of the severe weather, have

possibly succeeded, “if all the men had not, from long experience,

known their respective duties well and entered into them with

laudable zeal.”

“On the 9th of July private John Girvan slung the largest and most

remarkable piece of the wreck that had been met with this season,

consisting of the fore foot and part of the stem, connected by two

very large horse-shoe copper clamps bolted together; the boxing by

which it had been connected with the fore part of the keel was

perfect, from which joint six feet of the gripe had extended

horizontally, and terminated in the curve of the stem, which was

sheathed with lead.—The length of this fragment was sixteen feet,

measured obliquely, and its extreme width five feet.”[435] At

another time he recovered an enormous fish-hook, no less than eight

feet nine inches in length from the eye to the bow!

By corporal Jones, on the 17th following, was slung a large iron

bolt, ten feet long; which, on being brought on deck, was observed

by him to exhibit marks of having been in contact with brass. He

therefore rightly conjectured there must be a brass gun at the spot,

and descending again recovered a brass 24-pounder, nine and a half

feet long, of the year 1748.[436]

-----

Footnote 434:

‘United Service Journal,’ iii., 1843, p. 139.

Footnote 435:

Ibid., p. 139.

Footnote 436:

Ibid., p. 138.

-----

“On the 31st of July, private Girvan discovered a gun buried under

the mud, but it was not till the 3rd of August that he succeeded in

slinging it, assisted by corporal Jones, with whom he generally

worked in concert this season;”[437] and shortly after, the latter

diver recovered the last remnant of the keel, measuring nearly

twenty-two feet in length, corporal Harris having previously sent up

portions of it in the early part of the summer amounting in length

to thirty-six feet,[438] and private Girvan, six feet.

-----

Footnote 437:

‘United Service Journal,’ iii., 1843, p. 139.

Footnote 438:

Ibid., pp. 137, 140.

-----

The only money got up this season was a guinea of 1775, found on a

plank sent up by Jones.

Increased exertions were now made to recover the guns, which were

embedded some depth in the mud, and the divers cleared the way by

sending up everything they could meet with, until nothing but

insignificant fragments could be found. To assist them, two frigate

anchors and the half anchor creepers with some auxiliary

instruments, drawn backwards and forwards as well as transversely

over the site of the wreck, were made to do effectual work. The East

India Company’s sappers had been removed before these labours

began;[439] the whole of the subsequent diving, therefore, was

exclusively carried on by the royal sappers and miners,[440] and to

their vigilance of observation and unceasing zeal, was attributed

the recovery of thirteen guns late in the season. Of these, corporal

Harris got up three iron and six brass guns, corporal Jones three

brass, and private Girvan one iron.

-----

Footnote 439:

Quitted 28th August, 1843.

Footnote 440:

‘United Service Journal,’ i., 1844, p. 143.

-----

Here it should be explained “how much more successful than his

comrades corporal Harris was towards the close of the season, in

recovering guns, though the other divers, corporal Jones and

privates Girvan and Trevail, had been equally successful in all the

previous operations. Corporal Harris fell in with a nest of guns,

and it was a rule agreed upon, that each first-class diver should

have his own district at the bottom, with which the others were not

to interfere.”[441]

-----

Footnote 441:

Ibid., p. 146.

-----

Jones, though satisfied with the arrangement as a general rule, was

a little disposed to feel aggrieved when, by contrast, the odds were

against him. He was curious to know by what means Harris turned up

the guns with such teasing rapidity, and going down with the secret

intention of making the discovery, tumbled over a gun with its

muzzle sticking out of the mud. This piece of ordnance legitimately

belonged to Harris, for it was in his beat; but, as Jones

enthusiastically expressed it, seeming to invite the favour of

instant removal, he could not resist the temptation to have its

recovery registered to his credit. He therefore securely slung it,

and rubbing his hands with delight at the richness of the trick,

gave the signal to haul up. Harris, suspecting that his territory

had been invaded, dashed down the ladder and just reached the spot

in time to feel the breech of the gun slipping through his fingers.

Jones, meanwhile, pushed on deck, and was pleased to see that the

plundered relic was a 12-pounder brass gun of the year 1739. Jones a

second time applied to the district over which Harris walked with so

much success, and filched from the nest a brass 12-pounder gun—the

last one recovered this season.

After the removal of the ‘Royal George’ had been effected, but while

the search for the guns was going on, Major-General Pasley detached

to the wreck of the ‘Edgar,’[442] the ‘Drake’ lighter, with thirteen

petty officers and seamen of Her Majesty’s ship ‘Excellent,’ to

learn the art of diving. Corporal Jones was attached to the party to

instruct them. Violent gales prevailed at this period, “which

repeatedly drove the ‘Drake’ from her moorings, not without damage,

and at other times caused her to drift in such a manner that guns,

discovered by a diver late in a slack, could not be found when the

weather permitted his subsequent descent.” Hence only five iron guns

of this wreck were got up during the season, with a piece of the

keel and a floor timber. These were all recovered by corporal Jones,

who had also been engaged one tide in finding an anchor that had

been lost.[443] So anxious was he to add to the magnitude of his

acquisition, that on one occasion he remained below as long as four

hours, but his exertions were unattended with the hoped-for return.

-----

Footnote 442:

This ill-fated ship, built by Bailey of Bristol in 1668, was

wrecked by an explosion in 1711, and every soul on board

perished.—‘United Service Journal,’ i., 1844, p. 146.

Footnote 443:

‘United Service Journal,’ i., 1844, pp. 145, 146.

-----

An interesting fact with respect to the power of water to convey

sound was ascertained on the 6th October. A small waterproof

bursting charge containing 18 lbs. of gunpowder was fired at the

bottom. Corporal Jones who happened at the time to be working at the

‘Edgar’—nearly half-a-mile distant—hearing a loud report like the

explosion of a cannon, imagined that a large charge had been fired

over the ‘Royal George.’ To those on deck immediately over the

place, the report was scarcely perceptible.

Private Girvan relieved corporal Jones at the ‘Edgar’ on the 16th

October, and got up the breech part of an iron 32-pounder, which had

been cut in two a little in front of the trunnions.[444]

-----

Footnote 444:

Ibid., p. 146.

-----

The only mishap this summer occurred to private Girvan. Just as he

appeared above the water the explosion of a charge took place, from

which he sustained a slight shock and a wrench in the back producing

a sensation of pain. Though eager to go down again his wish was

overruled, and he remained on board for the day. Sergeant Lindsay

fired the charge, and the accident was attributed to a nervous slip

of his hand when ready to apply the wires to the battery.

On the 4th November the divers descended for the last time, as the

water had become so cold that their hands—the only part exposed—were

completely benumbed, so that they could no longer work to advantage;

and then, the operations ceasing from necessity, the detachment of

the corps rejoined their companies at Woolwich.

Major-General Pasley in according his praises to the various

individuals and parties employed at Spithead, spoke highly of

sergeant George Lindsay in subordinate charge, and the whole

detachment; but more particularly of the intelligent and

enterprising men to whom the important task of preparing all the

charges fired by the voltaic battery was confided. The charges were

numerous and of various quantities, amounting in all to 19,193 lbs.

of powder, or nearly 214 barrels. The soldiers alluded to were

lance-corporal John Rae and private Alexander Cleghorn who were

promoted for their services. The still more arduous duty of diving

gave the General every satisfaction. Frequently the duty was

embarrassing and dangerous, and carried on under circumstances

calculated to test most severely their courage and resources; and so

indefatigable were their exertions, and so successful their

services, that the military divers gained the character of being

“second to none in the world.”[445] Most of the party this season

attempted to dive, but, from the oppression felt under water by

some, only two or three beyond the regular divers could persevere in

the duty.

-----

Footnote 445:

‘United Service Journal,’ iii., 1843, p. 141.

-----

Upon the report made by Major-General Pasley of the conduct of the

detachment engaged in the operations, Sir George Murray, the

Master-General, was pleased thus to remark: “It has given me no less

pleasure to be made acquainted with the very commendable conduct of

the non-commissioned officers and privates of the sappers and miners

who have been employed under Major-General Pasley, and have rendered

so much useful service in the important undertaking conducted under

his management.”

From June to September about eight men under Lieutenant Gosset,

R.E., assisted in the undertaking for determining the longitude of

Valentia by the transmission of chronometers. Thirty chronometers

were conveyed in every transmission; and to privates Robert Penton

and John M‘Fadden was entrusted the service of bearing the

chronometers, and winding them up at stated times and places. On

receiving the chronometers from Liverpool the reciprocations took

place repeatedly between Kingston and Valentia Island; one private

being responsible for their safe transit a portion of the route, and

the other for the remaining distance to and from the station at

Feagh Main. Professor Sheepshanks and Lieutenant Gosset carried out

the scientific purposes of the service, while the sappers not

engaged with the chronometers attended to the duties of the camp and

observatory at Feagh Main, under the subordinate superintendence of

corporal B. Keen Spencer. The professor instructed this

non-commissioned officer in the mode of taking observations with the

transit instrument; and further, in testimony of his satisfaction,

gave generous gratuities to privates Penton and M‘Fadden. Professor

Airy, in speaking of the former, alludes to the perfect reliance he

placed on his care, “and in winding the chronometers,” adds, “he has

no doubt the service was most correctly performed.”[446] The duty

was one in which extreme caution and care were required, to prevent

accident or derangement to the instruments.

-----

Footnote 446:

Airy’s ‘Longitude of Valentia,’ p. xi.

-----

Agitation for a repeal of the union, headed by O’Connell, was now

the great excitement of Ireland, and a rising of the masses to

enforce it was daily expected. With the reinforcement of troops sent

there to preserve order was the first company of sappers, which was

despatched by rapid conveyances, _viâ_ Liverpool to Dublin, where it

arrived on the 26th July. The company consisted of ninety men of all

ranks, and their duties embraced repairs to the barracks and the

planting of stockades in the rear of the castle, to prevent the

ingress, in case of revolt, of the rebels.[447] They also prepared

several thousands of sand-bags for breastworks. Detachments of one

sergeant and twenty rank and file were sent to Limerick and Athlone

in November, where they strengthened the barracks and loopholed the

outside walls for musketry. The store-rooms of the artillery

barracks were also loopholed. Effectually, however, was the

anticipated outbreak suppressed, and, under the authority of Sir

James Graham, the Home Secretary, the company was recalled to

England and arrived at Woolwich on the 22nd August, 1844.

-----

Footnote 447:

Owing to a rumour that the castle at Dublin could be entered by a

subterranean passage or sewer from the Liffey, colour-sergeant

Lanyon was directed to explore it. He did so, and found that a

strong iron grating existed in the passage, which would

effectually prevent the supposed entrance. In this duty, being

much exposed to the influence of noxious vapours, he soon

afterwards was seized with fever and jaundice, which shortened his

days.

-----

The yellow fever broke out at Bermuda in August, and continued with

unabated virulence and fatality until the middle of September. In

that brief period, out of a strength of 165 men, it carried off no

less than thirty-three men of the eighth company and four men of the

fourth, besides Captain Robert Fenwick, R.E., in command of the

latter, and Lieutenant James Jenkin, the Adjutant.[448] The two

companies were distributed to St. George’s and Ireland Island; at

the former, where the fever chiefly raged, was the eighth company,

about ninety strong, and at the latter the fourth. Eighty-eight men

had been seized with the malady, of whom twenty-four were admitted

with relapses, and four had suffered three seizures, none of whom

died. Dr. Hunter, a civil physician, attended the cases in the

absence of a military medical officer. With the civil population his

practice was remarkably successful; for out of 101 natives who took

the fever only one died. He therefore concluded that the artillery,

who lost nine men, and the sappers thirty-seven, fell easy victims

to the epidemic from their intemperate habits. No comparison,

however, was justifiable between coloured people, upon whom the

fever had but little effect, and Europeans; but an analysis of the

cases, as far as the sappers were concerned, confirmed the doctor’s

views to the extent of sixteen men. The remainder, twenty-one, were

men of sobriety and general good conduct.

-----

Footnote 448:

Mr. James Dawson, foreman of masons, formerly colour-sergeant in

the corps, also died during the fever. He was a clever tradesman

and overseer, and while in the sappers did good service at St.

Helena, Corfu, and Bermuda. He was succeeded as foreman by

sergeant John McKean, who was discharged in November, 1843, and

still fills the appointment with ability and faithfulness.

-----

Lance-corporal Frederick Hibling being the only non-commissioned

officer _not_ attacked, performed the whole duties of the eighth

company, and for his exertions and exemplary conduct was promoted to

the rank of second-corporal. Seven widows and twenty-two orphans

were left destitute by this calamity, among whom a subscription

(quickly made through the corps, assisted by many officers of royal

engineers, nearly amounting to 200_l._) was distributed, in

proportion to their necessities—one woman with six children

receiving as much as 33_l._ The lowest gift was 14_l._ to a widow

without children. A monument of chaste and beautiful design,

consisting of a fluted column surmounted by an exploded bomb,

resting on a neat and finely proportioned pedestal, was erected in

the military burial-ground at St. George’s, in mournful

commemoration of the victims. On three panels of the pedestal were

inscribed their names, and on the fourth was sculptured the royal

arms and supporters. The work was executed by the surviving

stonemasons of the company, and the royal arms were cut by private

Walter Aitchison.