-----
Thirty-five non-commissioned officers and men accompanied the
expedition from Hong Kong to Canton, under Captain Durnford and
Lieutenant Da Costa, R.E., and were present at the capture of the
Bogue and other forts in the Canton river on the 2nd and 3rd April.
The forts taken were fourteen in number, and 865 heavy guns were
rendered useless by spiking, while a number of barbaric weapons were
captured.[505]
-----
Footnote 505:
About twenty of these curious arms, all of the spear form, but
grotesquely varied, are in the model-room of the royal engineer
establishment at Chatham.
-----
The sappers were in advance, and opened the gates of the forts for
the assaults, and afterwards destroyed the magazines and assisted to
spike the guns. Privates James Cummins and James Smith placed the
powder-bags on the gates.[506] Corporal Hugh Smith[507] laid the
trains to two forts, and was favourably mentioned by Major Aldrich,
R.E., to Sir John Davis, the Governor, and Major-General D’Aguilar.
Sergeants Joseph Blaik[508] and Benjamin Darley[509] conspicuously
distinguished themselves: the former blew in the gate of Zigzag
Fort, and the latter blew up the magazine at Napier’s Fort.
-----
Footnote 506:
Both died in China; the former on the 15th August, and the latter
15th September, 1847.
Footnote 507:
Discharged 8th October, 1850. He was then a sergeant. See _ante_,
Syria, 1841.
Footnote 508:
Died at Hong-Kong, 15th August, 1848.
Footnote 509:
Now colour-sergeant in the corps stationed at New Zealand.
-----
At Canton the sappers were employed in barricading streets, making
scaling-ladders, &c., and pulling down houses, walls, and other
obstructions required to be removed. “My own observations,” wrote
Colonel Phillpotts, the commanding royal engineer in China, “of the
cheerful and ready manner in which they at all times performed their
various and arduous duties by day, and often by night, demands my
most marked approbation.” The gallant conduct of sergeant Blaik
attracted the notice of Major-General D’Aguilar, for which he was
promoted to the rank of colour-sergeant. The whole detachment
remained at Canton until the 8th April; but on the troops quitting
for Hong Kong four of the sappers were left behind, and assisted
Lieutenant Da Costa, R.E., in making a survey of the European
factories at that commercial emporium, until the 14th May, 1847,
when they rejoined the detachment at Victoria.
On the 10th April one sergeant and twelve rank and file embarked at
Deptford on board the ‘Ramilies,’ and landed at Auckland, New
Zealand, on the 9th August. This was the first party of the corps
detached to that remote settlement.
From April to June one sergeant and twelve rank and file from
Chatham, under Captain McKerlie, R.E., assisted in the survey and
contouring of Dover, within a range of a thousand yards from the
fortifications. Early in the previous year five non-commissioned
officers and men were employed in a military survey of portions of
Winchelsea.
Pembroke was also surveyed by a party of one sergeant and eight men
from the survey companies, between April and December, under Captain
Chaytor, R.E. This survey included the docks, dockyard, and property
in its immediate vicinity, to enable measures to be taken for
raising essential defensive works to protect the place. The survey
was well executed; and private John Wall,[510] who remained at the
duty until March 1848, executed with neatness and accuracy, the
required plans.
-----
Footnote 510:
Discharged October, 1848, and is now employed with advantage as a
draughtsman on the Ordnance Survey.
-----
About this period the survey operations of the corps, both in the
triangulation and the detail duty, were very conspicuous, and drew
from the greatest of the daily London journals, in a leader, a high
commendation for its services and trials. The language of the
article is too forcible and brilliant to justify abridgment, and the
complimentary passage is therefore given entire.—“An Englishman has
a constitutional repugnance to the intrusion of soldiers into civil
duties; he would rather pay them to walk about than to work, and he
chooses to make a separate and private hiring of his own police.
Ordinarily, soldiers are unwelcome visitors to him, seldom appearing
but at the beck of some scared sheriff or meddling mayor, to correct
his refractory disposition. But there is a corps which is often
about him, unseen and unsuspected, and which is labouring as hard
for him in peace as others do in war. If he lives near a cathedral
city, he may perhaps have occasionally observed a small wooden
cradle perched on the very summit of the spire or tower, and he may
have pitied, perhaps, the adventurous mason who had undertaken the
job. That cradle contained three sappers and miners, stationed there
for five or six weeks to make surveys, and who only quitted their
abode for another equally isolated and airy. Within these last five
years, a handful of these men, with an engineer officer, have been
frozen upon the peak of a Welsh mountain, on an allowance of
provisions fit for the sixth month of a siege, and with no more
possibility of communicating with the scanty natives of the place,
than if they had been shipwrecked on the Sandwich Islands.”[511]
-----
Footnote 511:
The ‘Times,’ 8th March, 1847.
-----
A party of fifteen men, selected from a number of volunteers by
Sir John Richardson, joined the expedition under his orders to the
Arctic seas in June. The object of the mission was to search for
Sir John Franklin and his crews, by tracing the coast between the
Mackenzie and Coppermine Rivers, and the shores also of Victoria
and Wollaston lands, lying opposite to Cape Krusenstern. All the
men were intelligent artizans, accustomed to boat service and
laborious employment. They were, moreover, strongly built, of good
physical powers, and, with one exception, bore excellent
characters. The defaulter was addicted to drinking, but in other
respects he was a good and active workman. Knowing that there
would be no means of obtaining intoxicating drinks in Rupert’s
Land, Sir John Richardson accepted his services, and he turned out
an invaluable man. Seven of the party were carpenters, joiners,
and sawyers, one was a miner, one a painter, and six were
blacksmiths, armourers, and engineers, who were found useful in
repairing the boats, working up iron, constructing the domicile
for the winter residence of the expedition, and making the
furniture required for its few and simple wants.[512] To suit the
hard climate of the Arctic zone, each man was provided with a
flannel jacket and trousers, a stout blue Guernsey frock, a
waterproof overcoat and cap, and a pair of leggings. They also
wore mocassins and leather coats, when the nature of the season
and their employment rendered it necessary.[513]
-----
Footnote 512:
Sir John Richardson’s ‘Journal of a Boat Voyage through Rupert’s
Land and the Arctic,’ edit. 1851, p. 43.
Footnote 513:
Ibid., p. 44.
-----
On the 4th June the men were discharged from the corps, and sailed
on the 15th from the Thames in the ‘Prince of Wales,’ and the
‘Westminster.’ Delayed much by ice in Hudson’s Straits, they had a
long passage, and it was not until about the middle of September
that the stores for the journey were wholly landed.[514] As soon as
this service was effected, the expedition, with a number of hired
men, quitted Norway House in five boats, which, from being “often
stranded and broken in the shallow waters, caused frequent detention
for repairs.” Overtaken by winter in Cedar Lake, Mr. Bell, who had
charge of the expedition until Sir John Richardson arrived, made
this a depôt, where he stored the boats and goods in a suitable
house constructed by the sappers. Several of the party were left
here to take care of the _matériel_, and also the women and
children, who were unequal to a long journey over the snow.
-----
Footnote 514:
Ibid., pp. 46, 47.
-----
In October the bulk of the expedition started for Cumberland House,
and reached it on the eighth day after leaving Cedar Lake. On the
first day’s journey private Hugh Geddes and a half-caste Indian were
attacked by a bear on Muddy Lake. The latter fired three times at
the beast without bringing him down. Neither of them now had any
ammunition; but Geddes, who was incapable of much exertion from an
axe wound in the foot, anticipating the peril, forgot his pains and
felled two young birch trees, one of which he handed to his
companion: with these formidable defensors both made a desperate
onslaught on the raging bear, but it was not until after much labour
and hazard that they succeeded in slaying it. In due time they
sleighed his huge carcase to the rendezvous at Cedar Lake.
At Cumberland House one of the divisions passed the winter, and was
kept in constant employment by attending to several seasonable
occupations, such as cutting firewood, driving sledges with meat or
fish, and fulfilling a round of services no less laborious than
necessary. They also established a fishery on the Beaver Lake, two
days' march north of the depôt.[515]
-----
Footnote 515:
Sir John Richardson’s ‘Journal of a Boat Voyage through Rupert’s
Land and the Arctic,’ edit. 1851, p. 47.
-----
From July to December three rank and file were employed under
Captain T. Webb, R.E., in surveying and laying out roads in Zetland,
in connection with the Central Board for the Relief of Destitution
in the Islands of Scotland. This service was ordered by the Home
Government, and the party returned to Woolwich when the winter had
fairly set in. Second-corporal Harnett was well reported of for his
intelligence and capabilities, and the two privates for their
industry and exertions.
At the Cape of Good Hope the two companies were distributed to
fifteen posts and forts on the frontier. On the 2nd May the sapper
force there was increased to 198 of all ranks by the arrival of
thirty-five men, under Lieutenant Jesse, R.E. Between the 14th
September and 23rd December one sergeant and sixteen rank and file
were in the field, under Captain Walpole, R.E. They had with them an
assortment of carpenters' and smiths' tools, engineer stores, and a
quantity of intrenching tools, besides a large five-oared cutter,
and the materials and gear to form a raft of casks. From the 1st to
6th December, eleven of these men were actively employed in
transporting men and provisions to a large portion of the division
on the left bank of the Kei, under Lieutenant Jervois, R.E., at a
time when the rise of the river prevented any intercourse by
waggons. During the six days, the party exerted themselves in a most
praiseworthy manner, and sergeant Alexander McLeod was particularly
active and zealous. Between the 21st November and 1st December,
three sappers, with a party of the line, under Lieutenant Stokes,
R.E., opened a road for waggons in the Amatola mountains, and
constructed a temporary bridge across the Keiskama. Before the
execution of this service provisions were conveyed to the camp in
the mountains on mules, and hence the transit was slow and
uncertain.
On the representation of Colonel Lewis, R.E., a company of full
strength was removed from Chatham to Portsmouth, on the 22nd
December. Its employment was confined to the erection and repair of
such works as could not be undertaken by contract, such as
strengthening the fortifications, repairing gates, laying platforms,
curbs, &c. It was also considered indispensable to retain a company
in that command, to execute, in the event of a war suddenly breaking
out, the numerous wants likely to occur in such an emergency.