History of the Royal Regiment of Artillery, Vol. 1

For this small battery, a somewhat eccentric detail of attendants was ordered, characterized by the marked absence of Artillery officers. They were as follows: – One commander, styled commander-in-chief, with a daily pay of 1l.; six engineers, with 10s. each; a commissary of stores, five bombardiers, twenty gunners, and ten miners. The absence of matrosses in this detail is also remarkable. The deficiencies in this train soon became apparent, for in 1705 we find it was reinforced by a captain, a lieutenant, a fireworker, a surgeon, and forty-two matrosses, with a proportion of non-commissioned officers. And with the reinforcement came six mountain 3-pounders – guns, which from this time and for many years were familiarly known as grasshoppers.

Among the other musty warrants of this time, calling upon "our entirely-beloved Master-General of the Ordnance, John Duke of Marlborough," to furnish various trains and necessaries, one short one on the 3rd October, 1704, has a peculiar interest. Intelligence had just been received of the capture of Gibraltar by Sir George Rooke, and it became necessary to send, for the better protection of the Rock, a few guns, and some men familiar with their use. In this year, 1872, seven Batteries of Artillery, each numbering 160 men when complete, are considered necessary, the lesson not having yet been forgotten, which was taught by the great siege, when five weak companies were all the Artillery in the garrison, and gunners had to be improvised out of the ranks of the Infantry. But the force during the great siege was lavish compared with that deemed sufficient at first "for the better defence of ye said place." One chief engineer, Talbot Edwards by name, a storekeeper and his clerk, two fireworkers, six bombardiers, and fifty-five gunners, were at first deemed sufficient Artillery force for the defence of a place whose chief means of protection lay in its guns. Half-a-dozen brass 13-inch mortars, and four-and-twenty guns on ship carriages, varying from 6-pounders to 24-pounders, constituted the armament sent from England.

In April of the following year the Master-General was called upon to furnish a train for that romantic expedition to Spain under the brilliant Earl of Peterborough, the services of which afterwards at the capture of Barcelona called forth such commendation. It was a very small one. In a corps of 5000 men the following was the proportion of Artillery: – One colonel, one adjutant, two engineers, a commissary, a paymaster, four conductors, one master-gunner, four sergeants, four corporals, ten gunners, one firemaster, one fireworker, two bombardiers, two carpenters, three wheelwrights, two smiths, and a collar-maker. Mortars on travelling carriages were used by this train, and a considerable number of sets of men-harness which accompanied it suggests the idea that the services of the other troops, or the peasantry, were enlisted, when necessary, to move the train from place to place.

In May, 1706, 11,000 men under the command of Earl Rivers were ordered to sail from Plymouth on a wild and futile scheme for the invasion of France. The following was the proportion of Artillery considered necessary for this force by the Board over which Marlborough presided. The guns were forty-six in number, including twenty 24-pounders, six culverins, four 12-pounders, four demi-culverins, and six sakers. There were also sixty small coehorn mortars.

To man the train, the following was the detail: a colonel, four engineers, two sub-engineers, a paymaster, a surgeon, with an assistant, a captain, a lieutenant, two gentlemen of the Ordnance, three sergeants, three corporals, thirty-two gunners, and sixty-four matrosses, a lieutenant of miners, and seventeen men, a firemaster, three fireworkers, and twelve bombardiers, a commissary, clerk of the stores, twelve conductors, three smiths, three wheelwrights, five carpenters, two coopers, a collar-maker, two farriers, and fifteen carters. In this train the lieutenant of miners and the chief carpenter, received each 4s. a day, while the assistant-surgeon with his 3s. remains ranked with the farriers, cooper's mate, and collar-maker.

The list of stores is too long for reproduction here. But it included 200 sets of single harness for men, and four sets of harness for fifty men to each set. Tumbrils and waggons innumerable were ordered; 400 wheelbarrows, 2000 palisadoes, 1600 horseshoes, tents, single and double beds, and an assortment of artificers' tools such as would enrich a colony. Altogether it was an appalling catalogue. The ammunition for the train included 22,000 round shot, 2400 mortar-bombs, 800 case-shot, and 3000 barrels of powder. For the Infantry 46 tons of musket-shot were carried, and 100,000 flints.

In 1707, it was resolved to reduce the trains formerly under the directions of Lords Galway, Peterborough, and Rivers, into one field train for service in Spain, and as the Board of Ordnance reported that they had no money for the subsistence of the train, the commissioners of the Treasury were ordered to pay the cost out of the 500,000l. voted by Parliament with a view to "strengthening the Army of the Duke of Savoy for making good our alliances with the King of Portugal, and for the more effectual carrying on the war of the recovery of the Spanish monarchy to the house of Austria." Tempora mutantur: what ministerial eloquence would be able to charm money out of a House of Commons now for such a purpose? The following was the detail of the combined train: – one colonel, and one lieutenant-colonel, receiving the same pay, 1l. 5s. per diem; one major, at 15s.; one comptroller, at 1l.; one paymaster, at 8s. and an assistant at 3s. 6d.; an adjutant, quartermaster, commissary of horse, and waggon-master, each at 6s.; a surgeon, at 5s., and two assistants, at 3s.; two captains, two lieutenants, two gentlemen of the Ordnance, six sergeants, six corporals, forty gunners, eighty matrosses, four drummers, ten engineers, a fireworker, two bombardiers, twelve conductors, and twenty-one artificers. There was also a provost-marshal with two assistants.

Only one more train requires to be mentioned. After the legislative union between Scotland and England, it was decided by the Board of Ordnance to establish a small permanent train, called the train for North Britain, at Edinburgh, Stirling, and Fort William. As mentioned in the first chapter of this book, the last-named place did not derive the benefit that was contemplated at the formation of this train. From the nature of the Ordnance sent to Scotland, the absence of conductors and matrosses, and the presence of storekeepers and gunsmiths, it is evident that a field train, in the sense of one for service in the field, was not contemplated. The defence of the fortresses at the three places named was all that was intended, combined with the supervision of the Ordnance Stores which might be deposited in them.

The capture of Minorca during the war involved a small train for Port Mahon in that Island; and another was required for Annapolis in 1710.

After the Peace of Utrecht, the Ordnance Board found that in addition to its small peace establishment in England there were four trains to keep up permanently, whether in peace or war, which were not required before. These were the trains of North Britain, Gibraltar, Port Mahon, and a joint train for service in Placentia and Annapolis.

The raison d'être of the trains at the first three of these places has already been given. To explain the circumstances under which the other places became a charge on the Ordnance will require another chapter.

CHAPTER VI.

Annapolis

On the Nova Scotian side of the Bay of Fundy, immediately opposite the City of St. John, New Brunswick, there is a narrow inlet of the sea, walled by perpendicular and densely wooded hills. A few scattered cottages, belonging to fishermen, speck the deep green of the forest, as the traveller passes up this narrow channel, known by the uneuphonious name of Digby Gut. Digby is a small picturesque village, immediately inside the channel, which here opens out into a wide basin, large enough to float mighty navies, and beyond description beautiful. In the spring of 1604, a French Protestant, M. de Monts, first discovered this harbour of safety, and one of his comrades, Potrincourt by name, was so enchanted by its beauties, that he applied to the French monarch for a grant of the surrounding district. At the end of the basin, furthest from the entrance and at the mouth of a river, now called the Cornwallis river, he built a Fort and a village, to which he gave the name of Port Royal. The history of this little village has been one of marvellous interest; and until the beginning of the eighteenth century, it was written in letters of blood. Since it finally became the property of England, its existence has been a peaceful one; and now, alas, the mouldering ramparts, the tumbling, grass-grown walls of the old fort, and the windowless, stairless barrack, proclaim in unmistakable language the advent of a new colonial epoch, and the retreat of British troops before that new enemy – expense. The train required for its defence, after its final capture, was one of the arguments used in favour of creating a permanent force of Artillery in England; and for more than a century this village of Port Royal, or Annapolis, has been entwined in the history of the Royal Artillery.

If all historical researches were pursued in such beautiful localities, the historian would be the veriest sybarite of literature. By the tumbling fortifications now stands one of the loveliest villages on the face of this world. The river, at whose mouth it is built, wanders through a valley, which, in summer, is like a dream of beauty. Rich intervalle land on either bank, covered with heavy crops of every kind; fields and gardens studded with apple-trees, planted by the old French inhabitants; grapes in heavy clusters growing and ripening in the open air, and clean, white churches and cottages studding the landscape for miles; all unite in forming a picture, like the Utopia which haunts the dreamer's mind. The garden of Canada – an Artilleryman may well rejoice that so lovely a spot had a share in the birth of the corps to which he belongs.

The early history of the place may be summed up in a few words. In 1606, an addition to the little colony was made of more French emigrants; cultivation of the soil, and the breeding of cattle occupied the peaceful inhabitants; and they lived in perfect amity with the surrounding Indians. Difficulties having arisen about the original charter, Potrincourt went to France, and secured from the King the grant of the territory: subject, however, to a distasteful condition, that he should take two Jesuit priests with him on his return. He did so; but made them as uncomfortable as he could, and in 1613, they left him to join a settlement, also near the Bay of Fundy, vowing vengeance against him in their hearts. Although England and France were at peace, a sea rover from Virginia, named Argoll, came with his ship, and pillaged the Jesuits' new home, killing one, and making the other prisoner. Fired by his success, and urged and guided by the revengeful priest, he next fitted out an expedition against Port Royal, and succeeded in destroying the fort, and scattering the settlers, some of whom joined the neighbouring Indian tribes. During the next few years, more French immigrants settled in a scattered, unmethodical way, over the province of Nova Scotia, or Acadia, as it was called; and some coming to Port Royal, the little colony commenced to revive.

But in 1627, Kirke's fleet sailed from England to destroy the French settlements in Nova Scotia; and among others, he ravaged unhappy Port Royal. And from this time dates the struggle in America between France and England, which lasted a hundred years. In 1629, it may be said, that we had added Nova Scotia to our possessions; but in 1632, we gave it back to France; Charles I. having been in treaty with the French King, even while our expedition in America was at work, and having consented to let the French have Quebec and all our recent American conquests back again. In 1655, Cromwell recovered Port Royal, by means of an expedition he sent for that purpose, under one Major Sedgwick. The fort had by this time been strengthened and armed; but it had to surrender to the impetuosity of our troops. Much labour and money was now spent on the fortifications by the English, but all to no purpose, for by the treaty of Breda, Charles II. ceded Nova Scotia to the French again. Certainly, the Stuarts were cruel to our colonies; and it required all the enterprise of our merchants, and all the courage and skill of our seamen and fishermen to resist utter extinction under the treatment they received. The day was to come – and to last for many a year, when a worse evil than the Stuarts was to blight our colonies – the nightmare of the Colonial Office. As the former was the positive, so it was the comparative degree of colonial endurance. Is it true that a superlative degree is coming on them now? Is it true, that in our Statesmen's minds there exists a coldness, an indifference to our colonies, which in time of trial or danger will certainly pass into impatience, and anxiety to be free from colonial appendages?

If it be so, then, indeed, the superlative degree of blundering and misery is approaching; but the misery, like the blundering, will be found this time, not in the colonies, but in England.

For sixteen years after the treaty of Breda, Port Royal was left comparatively undisturbed; the French population reaching, in the year 1671, 361 souls; 364 acres having been brought under cultivation, and nearly 1000 sheep and cattle being owned by the settlers.

In 1680, however, the English again, for the fifth time, obtained possession of it; and again lost it. After its recapture, and before 1686, considerable additions had been made to the fortifications by the French; and in the treaty of that year between France and England, it was resolved – a resolution which was never kept – that although the mother countries might quarrel, their respective American subjects might continue to maintain mutual peaceable relations. After the Revolution of 1688, war broke out in Europe once more between France and England, and their American children followed suit. Port Royal being the head-quarters for the French ships attracted the attention of Sir William Phipps, who after capturing and pillaging it abandoned it again to the French.

And the treaty of Ryswick again officially announced that the whole of Nova Scotia was French territory.

In 1699, and again in 1701, considerable labour was devoted by the French to strengthening the works of Port Royal; an increase to the garrison was made from France, and the militia in the surrounding settlements were carefully trained and armed.

Every difficulty was interposed by the French governors between the settlers and the New England merchants, who were mutually eager for trade. Exasperated by prohibitory duties on their wares, the latter first tried smuggling, and then hostile expeditions. One such was made from Boston in 1704; and although Port Royal made a successful resistance, much damage was done to the surrounding country.

In 1707, two expeditions were made from New England, and a large force of militia accompanied them. They were convoyed by a man-of-war, and would undoubtedly have captured the place, had it not been for the personal energy of Subercase, the French governor, who rallied the neighbouring inhabitants, and drove back the English, thoroughly dispirited. On the second occasion, the English attempted to float their artillery up the river with the tide by night, and attack the fort from the land side. The rise and fall of the tide in the Bay of Fundy and its inlets are very great, often reaching sixty feet. The French governor, seeing the enemy's design, lit large fires along the banks of the river, and exposed the drifting boats with the English guns on board to the view of the artillerymen in the fort, who opened a fire which utterly prevented the English from advancing further, or effecting a landing. By the 1st of September, the New Englanders were utterly foiled and dispirited, the object of the expedition was frustrated, and the fleet weighed anchor and returned to Boston. After these two attempts, rendered unsuccessful by the marvellous tact and energy of one man, Port Royal enjoyed comparative rest, and the leisure of the inhabitants was devoted to strengthening the works during the next two years.

Before describing the circumstances of its final capture, let some explanation be given of the incessant war which went on for so many years between the French and English colonists in North America. It was not a burning interest in the European questions agitating the parent countries that animated their Western children; the parent quarrels were an excuse, but not a reason, for their mutual aggression; and the absence of such excuse did not ensure peace in America. The cause lay in the two feelings which prompt most wars: thirst for revenge and love of trade. The way in which the last acted has already been hinted at. There was undoubtedly a market among the French colonists, which was all the New England merchants could desire; and so ready were the French peasants to trade, that no prohibitory action of their rulers could conceal their desire, although in a great measure it might prevent its gratification. The knowledge of this made the New Englanders frantic. They were men of immense energy, as they are now; they were of magnificent physique, made for war and hardship; and they rebelled against any obstacle to what they deemed their legitimate wishes. Their anger became intolerance; their intolerance became aggressive; and the result was first smuggling, then privateering, and finally war.

But another motive was thirst for revenge. And why? Was there not room on this vast continent for both nations to plant any wandering or surplus children, without the vile passions seeking place, which thrive in the hot-bed of crowded, neighbouring, and rival states? Here the old poet's words come in most truly: "Cœlum, non animum, mutant, qui trans mare currunt."

National jealousies were reproduced: the French allied themselves in Canada with the Indians, and incessant incursions were made thence by them on the English colonies. Hardly a child grew up in New England who did not know of some hideous tragedy in the domestic life of his immediate neighbours, if not in his own family; from infancy one of the articles of his creed was detestation of the French; and this feeling found ready and revengeful expression whenever opportunity offered. But revenge is not always true in its aim, is indeed often wofully blind; and too often when maddened with thoughts of cruelty and outrage on his wife or sisters – and what thoughts stir the Anglo-Saxon more fiercely? – he would avenge himself wildly and recklessly on victims who mayhap were innocent. And so the ghastly vendetta crossed from hand to hand, from one side to the other, and hardly a year passed without its existence being attested by tales of horror and of blood!

But the end for Port Royal was approaching, an end which was to mean defeat, but was to ensure a lasting peace. In 1709, news reached the Governor of an intended attack on a large scale in the ensuing spring by the English; and as his garrison had recently been much reduced by disease, he wrote, strongly urging its reinforcement either from France, or from the French post at Placentia, in Newfoundland. Apparently, his request was not complied with; and after a gallant, and almost heroic resistance, Port Royal capitulated in the following year to the expeditionary forces under the command of Colonel Nicholson, comprising regular troops from England, militia from New York, and a strong train of Artillery, – the whole being supported by a powerful fleet. On the 2nd October, 1710, the capitulation was signed; and, out of compliment to the Queen, the name of the village was changed to Annapolis.

A fortnight after the expedition left England for New York and Boston, en route to Port Royal, a Royal Warrant was issued establishing a Train of Artillery to garrison Annapolis. It will thus be seen that so confident was the English Government of the success of the expedition, that the new name for Port Royal had already been fixed, and arrangements made for a permanent garrison. The acquisition of Newfoundland followed; the French garrison of Placentia were allowed with many of the inhabitants to go to the Island of Cape Breton, where they fortified a place which will occupy a prominent part in this volume, Louisbourg; and the year 1713 saw, by the Treaty of Utrecht, Acadia or Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland formally surrendered to the English.

The train of Artillery formed to garrison Annapolis, and its adjunct ordered three years later for Placentia, were two of the permanent trains used as arguments in 1716 for establishing a fixed Artillery Regiment which could feed these foreign garrisons – arguments which in that year brought into existence the Royal Regiment of Artillery.

The Artillery garrison ordered for Annapolis in 1710, comprised a captain, a lieutenant, a surgeon, 4 non-commissioned officers, 11 gunners, 40 matrosses, an engineer, a storekeeper, 3 bombardiers, and 2 armourers.

That for Placentia was smaller and differently constituted. It consisted of an engineer, a master-gunner, 20 gunners, a mason, a smith, a carpenter, and an armourer.

The cost of the Annapolis train was 1964l. 18s. 4d. per annum: that of the Placentia train was 1259l. 5s. After the Regiment was created, these two trains or garrisons were generally furnished by the same company, and mutually met each other's deficiencies or demands. For many years, these places appeared in the Ordnance estimates, not merely as items in the expense of maintaining the Artillery and Engineers, but also as requiring considerable sums for fortifications. Occasionally the number of men was reduced, as in 1725, when at Placentia there were only 1 lieutenant and 8 gunners; and at Annapolis, 1 lieutenant, 2 bombardiers, 4 gunners, and 7 matrosses. But the amount spent on the fortifications remained for years very considerable. Up to the year 1759, the average spent on this item annually at the two places was 3000l. and 1000l.; but in 1747 and 1748, evidently exceptional years, the expenditure rose to 10,000l. and 6000l. respectively. In 1759, a large sum appears to have been spent in transporting to Nova Scotia the guns and stores taken from the French at Louisbourg. After 1759, Annapolis gradually dwindles down as a military station, being dwarfed by Halifax, whose Artillery expenses in that year alone amounted to nearly 40,000l.

For a century longer, Annapolis retained the special distinction of giving the title of Governor, with a considerable income, to the officer commanding the troops in the maritime provinces of British North America. But its martial glory has now altogether faded; gradually diminishing in numbers, its garrison at length consisted of the solitary barrack sergeant, who is the "last man" of every military epic; and now even he has departed. The old Fort is a ruin, the barracks crumbling and unsightly; but, in spite of the pain one feels at first witnessing this modern indifference to ancient story, – this forgetfulness of the memories which in stately procession troop through the student's mind, – this feeling is soon obliterated as one turns to gaze on happy homesteads and blooming gardens, and on contented faces which meet one at every turn as one wanders over the fertile country, away even to that "Bloody Creek," where, in one of their many engagements, some thirty Englishmen met a cruel death, by an unexpected attack made by some Indians.

Where are the Indians now? A few drunken, demoralized creatures hang about some of the towns; two or three only have retained their love and instinct for the chase; and before many years shall have passed away, Acadia shall know the Mic-mac no more!

CHAPTER VII.

The Birth of the Regiment

The hour had come, – and the man! The Duke of Marlborough was again at the head of the Ordnance, and was both capable himself of detecting the faults of the existing system, and of critically comprehending any suggestions for its improvement which the Board might lay before him.