History of the Royal Regiment of Artillery, Vol. 1. Duncan Francis
were also to be supplied in the same way. Of course, it was not pretended that all this could be done at once. But as vacancies occurred in the existing establishment, the money would go to furnish men for the cadres of the new companies, which it was proposed at once to create. And by removing the Artillery officers and the 120 gunners now on the old establishment to the rolls of the new companies, the skeletons would have a little flesh and blood from the commencement.
The details of the other economies suggested by the Board, and the list of officials whose places it was not proposed to fill when vacant, naturally excite the curiosity of the student. Surely, this time at least, a little self-denial will be practised by the Honourable Board; some superfluous clerks and secretaries will be lopped off; and after their protest against those members of the military branch who never go on duty without having heavy travelling charges and extra pay, surely we shall find some economy practised by the Honourable Board, whose members revel in these very items. Alas! no. Tradition is too strong; and self-preservation is their first instinct. There are storekeepers in Edinburgh and Fort William, whom distance will prevent from personal remonstrance; a percentage of their wretched income can safely be taken. And as for those whose offices are ultimately to be extinguished, they themselves can have no personal grievance, and posterity can look after itself. So, engineers, and firemasters, and petardiers, are marked for destruction; and the Board's sacrilegious hand is raised against the Master-Gunner of England himself!
It was on the 26th day of May, 1716, that the Regimental Baby was born. It was smaller than had been expected; but it has proved a healthy and long-lived child, and, as its nurse might have said, it has grown out of all knowledge. Only two companies – without any staff – were given at first, at an annual cost of 4891l. But, in Colonel Miller's clear language, "considering that these two companies were never reduced, and that the remaining two, as well as the field-officers, were added within a few years, there can be no hesitation about taking this as the starting-point for any Regimental Records of the Royal Artillery."
In December, 1716, the Board was able to inform the Master-General of the success of the scheme: the two companies were nearly complete; but the dream of feeding the foreign establishments could not be realized, from the fact that only half its proposal had, as yet, been carried into effect. So it was obliged to request, that arrangements for these should be made for the present, elsewhere than from the two companies at home. Ere many years had passed, the whole of the scheme recommended by the Duke of Marlborough was at work; in 1722, a Colonel was given to the Regiment; and in 1727, we find a Lieutenant-Colonel and a Major, as well as four complete companies; but in the years of comparative quiet which followed, no further augmentation took place. It was not until the year 1740, that we find two more companies were added to the Regiment.
The name of the Lieutenant-Colonel in 1727, one we have already met with, and who had seen much service, was Jonas Watson. That of the Major was James Petit. He also had seen considerable service; but neither of them in that respect could approach the brave and experienced officer to whom the command of the Regiment was given by George I., in 1722, and emphatically renewed by George II., in 1727, the celebrated Albert Borgard.
CHAPTER VIII.
Albert Borgard
Not a statesman, not over-refined, and no scholar, a mere soldier of fortune – yet brave, and honest, and true – Albert Borgard deserves more than a passing notice in a history of the Regiment which he was the first to command.
He was by birth a Dane. Born in 1659, he commenced his life as a soldier when sixteen years of age, and until the day of his death, on the 7th February, 1751, at the age of ninety-two years, he never had a thought beyond his profession and his duty. The diary appended to this chapter gives in his own words the best summary of his career which can be written. For naïveté and modesty, it can hardly be surpassed. The compression into two or three lines, of events on which most men would enlarge with effusion; and the simple narrative of wounds and hardships, as if such were the ordinary circumstances of war, and unworthy of special comment, cannot fail to strike the most superficial reader. The only sentence that gives us pain is the plaintive allusion to one who supplanted him with the Board of Ordnance, as Consulting Artilleryman and Engineer. He was so devoted to his profession, that anything which looked like putting him on one side hurt him beyond expression. There is a time in the lives of many active men, when they realize painfully that others are growing up who can outstrip them in work, or who have modern ideas and appliances which it is now too late for them to learn. The pain of such a discovery is, perhaps, the most acute that a man can feel.
From that date, Borgard devoted himself to his men. Living in the Warren at Woolwich, constantly among them, he was incessant in urging them to master the details of their profession. Being devoted himself to all laboratory work, his order-books are full of instructions to the cadets and young officers, to devote their leisure to practical lessons in that department. And he encouraged any who might succeed in making any good "Firework" to bring it to him for inspection and approval. He was a strict disciplinarian; and some of the punishments he awarded would astonish modern soldiers. But he was essentially honest, incapable of falsehood or meanness, and if every man in this worthy world were, like him, brave and honest and true, what a Paradise it would be!
He commenced his military career in the service of the King of Denmark. He went from that, in 1689, to the King of Prussia's service; served in Hungary in 1691; and was induced by William III. to join the English service in the following year. At the termination of hostilities he and one other foreigner, named Schlunt, whose name appears in the list of officers of the short-lived regiment of 1698, were the only Artillerymen other than English, who were selected to proceed to England for permanent employment.
In 1702, he went as Major in the expedition to Cadiz, and carried on a successful bombardment with the five bomb-vessels under his command. In the following year he volunteered for service under Marlborough, but, after a few months in Flanders, he was recalled to proceed to Spain with the expedition under Sir George Rooke and the Duke de Schomberg, which escorted the Archduke Charles, who had just been proclaimed by his father, King of Spain. Until the year 1710, he was engaged in all the hostilities which were now carried on in Spain, and of which his diary gives a summary. In 1705, at the siege of Valencia, which was taken by the English under Lord Galway, (who had been appointed to the command in place of Schomberg), he lost his left arm; and in 1710, he was wounded in the leg by a round shot, and taken prisoner.
But his first service with the Royal Artillery, after its existence as a regiment, was in 1719, when he went in command of the Artillery of Lord Cobham's force against Spain, and successfully bombarded Vigo. The troops, 4000 in number, embarked in a squadron of five men-of-war under Admiral Mighells, and coasting from Corunna to Vigo, were landed two or three miles from the town. The garrison of Vigo withdrew to the citadel, spiking the guns in the town; but so heavy and well-directed was the fire of the English, that they soon capitulated.
The whole of the Artillery arrangements, both in preparing and handling the train, had been under Colonel Borgard's sole control. Judging from the entry in his diary, he was far more pleased by the success of his inventions and improvements in the matériel of his train, than by the surrender of the enemy.
As this was the first train of Artillery to which the Royal Artillery Companies were attached on active service, it has been considered desirable to give some details as to its constitution.
First, as to personnel: – It was commanded by Colonel Borgard, assisted by a major, a captain, three lieutenants, and four fireworkers. The medical staff, a surgeon and his assistant, received a little more remuneration than in former trains; their daily pay – which to a modern ear has a very legal sound – being respectively 6s. 8d. and 3s. 4d. There were seven non-commissioned officers, twenty gunners, forty matrosses, two drummers, and ten artificers. Engineers, conductors, drivers, and clerks were also present; and on account of the particular nature of the service on which the expeditionary force was to be engaged, ten watermen and a coxswain were included among the attendants of the train.
Next, as to matériel: – Borgard selected for his purpose four 24-pounders, four 9-pounders, and six 1½-pounders, brass guns, all mounted on travelling carriages, with a proportion of spare carriages for the first and last, spare limbers